It is a shame … that so few are going to forgive Bob Dylan for Renaldo & Clara. I am afraid it is only going to alienate further those whose irritation with Dylan's incarnations has kept them from turning out the lights and trying to understand his music. Perhaps the uninitiated do not concern Dylan particularly, and perhaps they shouldn't, but even for his most fanatic fans, Renaldo & Clara is a long and bumpy ride.

The sudden transformations of self that have sparked Dylan's songs over the years do not seem to work in film, or at least not in this film. Throughout Renaldo & Clara identities shift, overlap, and collide.

Since no one is positively identified within the movie itself, you need to commit the credits to memory before the houselights dim. Bob Dylan plays Renaldo, a character in whiteface who seems to represent Dylan's poetic self. Ronnie Hawkins plays...