Description: A deep dive into one of the most overlooked sides of the Nobel Prize winner: Bob Dylan, the filmmaker. While his music and lyrics have been studied endlessly, his work behind (and in front of) the camera remains largely unexplored. No other book explores this angle, and with his legend growing, the audience is more than ready for a bold new take.
Brief description: Michael Glover Smith is a Chicago-based filmmaker, author and teacher. Michael's most recent movie, Hekla, starring Elizabeth Stam, will have it's festival premiere in early 2026. Michael is also the director of four award-winning feature films, the most recent of which, Relative, stars Wendy Robie (Twin Peaks) and is distributed by Music Box Films. It was the 23rd highest-grossing movie in the U.S. in its first week of release in 2022. His previous book, Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry (co-written with Adam Selzer), was published by Columbia University Press to acclaim in 2015. He has seen Bob Dylan 100 times in concert.
Review Quotes: 'Michael Glover Smith's Bob Dylan as Filmmaker is the most compelling reconsideration of Bob Dylan's work as a filmmaker written to date. Building on previous analyses of Dylan's films, Smith combines his own experiences as a filmmaker with his extensive research and deft analysis of Dylan's films to prove how Dylan's process is similar regardless of the genre he creates in - grounded in tradition, innovative, and true to his artistic vision. In this way, Smith successfully challenges the paradigm that Dylan failed as a filmmaker by methodically chronicling the films that influenced Dylan and how those films shaped the movies Dylan made. Smith's approach positions Dylan as an artist working in the medium of film rather than, as he has been previously understood, a musician making movies. Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think advances the conversation of Dylan as an holistic artist and is an essential addition to anyone's Dylan library.--Erin C. Callahan, author of "The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan's Live Performances"