Masked and Anonymous

Masked and Anonymous (2003)

Would you reach out your hand to save a drowning man if you thought he might pull you in?

A nation wracked with civil war and social unrest anticipates a giant charity concert, organized by deceptive promoter Uncle Sweetheart, who plans on raking in huge sums for himself from the event. Headlining is legendary musician Jack Fate, whose prison time is cut short with Sweetheart's help. Meanwhile, journalist Tom Friend investigates the corrupt concert and sets out to unmask the truth to the public.

Date of release
2003-07-25
TMDB
5.2 / 10 (63)
Runtime
1h 52m
Genres
Drama, Music
Director
Larry Charles

Casting

Interesting facts

Masked and Anonymous is a 2003 drama film directed by Larry Charles. The film was written by Larry Charles and Bob Dylan. It stars Dylan alongside a star-heavy cast, including John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Steven Bauer, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Paul Chan, Christian Slater, and Fred Ward.

Production

The film was shot in twenty days and was funded by the BBC, who also distributed the film in the United Kingdom. It was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics in the United States, a well-known distributor of independent productions. The soundtrack is composed almost entirely of covers of Bob Dylan songs ranging from his very early 1960s-era material to work as recent as songs from his 1997 Grammy-award-winning album Time Out of Mind.

Many of the film's actors worked for "scale" (union wages) for a chance to appear alongside Dylan, including Jeff Bridges, John Goodman (reunited after their work together in the 1998 Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski, which also featured the 1970 Dylan song "The Man in Me"), Bruce Dern, Jessica Lange, Penélope Cruz, Luke Wilson, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Christian Slater, Mickey Rourke, and Angela Bassett.

Jessica Lange was the long-term partner of playwright Sam Shepard, who at Dylan's invitation had written a diary of his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Rolling Thunder Logbook. Shepard also co-wrote Dylan's 1986 song "Brownsville Girl" from the album Knocked Out Loaded.

Music from Dylan's entire career is presented in the movie, though his then-recent album Time Out Of Mind receives considerable play, with "Dirt Road Blues" and "Not Dark Yet" both used as background in scenes; Dylan also plays a new arrangement of "Cold Irons Bound" in the film's climax. Furthermore, a live performance of "Standing in the Doorway" was cut from the final edit, but included as a bonus on the DVD.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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