International Film Reviews

This article examines Martin Scorsese’s 2019 documentary Rolling Thunder Revue as a crucial and timely formal intervention in documentary film language. It argues that Scorsese has tried to interrogate the ‘truth claim’ associated with documentary films by introducing fake or unreal elements in the narrative. A long practitioner of musical documentary films, Scorsese, seems to have taken inspiration, not only from the tradition of ‘mockumentaries’ (fiction films masquerading as documentaries) but also from the shifting notions of truth in the postfactual mediascape of the 21st century.

Currently streaming on Netflix, the documentary Rolling Thunder Revue (2019) is Martin Scorsese’s postfactual take on Bob Dylan and his 1976 tour of US and Canada.