On the borderline

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•THUS it amounts to the same thing" , wrote the philosopher Jean-Paul sartre, : "whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations.

"If one of these activities takes precedence over the other, this will not be because of its real goal but because of the degree of consciousness which it possesses of its ideal goal: and in this case it will be che quietism of the solitary crunkard which will take precedence over the vain agitation of the leader of nations"

At the same time as he *rote this, Sartre was zonetheless active in the *artime French Resistance. These films show John Cooper Clark and LiC: With no attempt to The slimpse Into the •hat each one means Bob Dylan on the same borderline between retreat and commitment.

Much of both films is taken up with them fending ofi interviewers. Asked by Melody Maker whether his serious social content will become more important than the humour, John Couper Clark replies "No, I wish I could be funny all the time". • Dylan, exasperated, tells a Time magazine reporter: "I've got no reason for the things I write. I've got no message"

But there is a difference. We see John Cooper Clarke fubbing off intelligent questions from Michele Roberts with flip comments; and Dylan, goaded by irritation. telling_the Time reporter that his magazine distorts reality, and explaining: "It doesn't show a picture of a tramp vomiting in the gutter, and next to it a picture of Mr Rockefeller . . • It never does anything like that..

In 1965 Dylan was at a turning point away from pulitical songs. it was the year of "Maggie's Farm" - 'Well, I try my best/ To be just like I am/But everybody want you/To be just like them/They say sing while you slave/And I just get bored"; and of Desolation Row' 'Don't Martin Thomas reviews 'Don't showing at the ICA Cinema send me no more letters, no/Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row"

Propagandism is not necessarily an advantage in art. But for Dylan the shift was, it seems to me, from propagandism to self-indulgence and obscurantism. What Pete Hamill wrote on the sleeve of "Blood on the Tracks" could serve as a motto: ''In this moment of the end of wars ... all of us, old, young, middle-aged, men and women, are searching for some simple things to believe in" • The egotism which is pretty plain in ''Don't Look Back" slowly went rancid.

If Dylan' s early songs like ''Masters of War' ''Blowin' in the Wind", or ''Hard Rain" now seem trite, it is because their vigour and sharpness helped produce a change in consciousness which made them almost cliches.

Both John Cooper Clark's deliberately awkward, mocking/selfmocking verses, and the earnest, intelligent questions he is asked by Michele Roberts, take off from that point.

i"Ten Years in an OpenNecked Shirt" also features Linton Kwesi Johnson, who feels no need to shield his art with throwaway comments. transsexuals, transvestites, paedophiles, lesbian and gay immigrants and others. It details the many and surprising ways in which the law discriminates in favour of heterosexuality:

The book not only describes the details of the law as it applies against gay men and Lesbians; but it also provides plenty of useful practical advice as to what we should do when, as gay people, we have problems with the law.

Paul Crane also emphasises the way in which since 1967 the law has in some 'Atomic Green'in Review by Will Adams

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Look Back' , a film of Bob Dylan's 1965 British tour, and