Inside Bob Dylan's Shadow Kingdom II: The Filming
Accordionist Alexander Burke describes the secret rehearsals and taping sessions
 |
Bob Dylan’s film Shadow Kingdom premiered four years ago today. What many expected to be a typical pandemic-era concert livestream turned out to be anything but. Viewers that day were treated to Dylan performing in a variety of smoky-club settings—it was billed as the Bon Bon Club in Marseilles, which is not a real place—playing to an audience of Prohibition-outlaws and mannequins, backed by a mysterious masked band.
As many noticed quickly, both the band and Dylan were miming to pre-recorded tracks. Those tracks, it eventually came out, were recorded by an entirely different group of musicians. I spoke to one of them, guitarist Ira Ingber, earlier this week. He helped create the sounds you hear, but had nothing to do with the film itself.
Today, I speak with someone from the other side of the project, one of the masked musicians we saw on screen. His name is Alexander Burke, and he’s an accomplished Los Angeles pianist and composer who played accordion in the film. He told me about the days of intensive rehearsals with the other musicians, learning to mimic the audio tracks precisely, that led into a week of taping with Dylan and the film’s director Alma Har’el. Below, he sheds some light on Shadow Kingdom, explaining what went into creating this surprising and enigmatic film.
If you haven’t seen Shadow Kingdom, or need a refresher, you can buy/rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, or YouTube. Here’s the trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment