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Weberman Studies Bob Dylan's Garbage, Creates 'Dylanology'

Orlando Weekly | March 26, 2007

Bob Dylan may not have liked the way he was initially portrayed in Factory Girl -- after all, who wants to be incorrectly implicated in a murder? -- but it's possible St. Bob will get a chuckle out the way his assholishness is portrayed in The Ballad of AJ Weberman. You'd be grumpy too if there was an obsessive freak going through your garbage, yes? Weberman is the infamous New York City "Dylanologist" who gained a moment of notoriety in the late 60s for using Dylan's refuse as the basis for interpreting his works and, through several overstated encounters with the singer, was convinced he had gained real insight into his creative process. The Ballad is populated with a cast of rudderless Yippie freaks who, like Weberman, have been at a loss since the end of the 60s. (How these people -- including the original freak-folk singer, David Peel -- manage to survive financially in modern-day New York is a complete mystery.) It's those lost idealists, with their visions of Dylan's "betrayal" and their tentative grip on reality that make this film captivating.

Tags: James Bluemel, The Ballad of AJ Weberman

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