In 1997, Bob Dylan, in his mid-50s and without a note of original music since 1990’s critically panned and objectively subpar Under The Red Sky, suffered a bout of near-fatal histoplasmosis pericarditis that forced the cancelation of a European tour and whole lot of severe chest pains. Shortly after recovering, he released Time Out Of Mind. Ambling, rasping, muddily grooving, the late-period masterpiece won three Grammys, including Album Of The Year, and reasserted the old crag into the collective consciousness. Though he would publicly dismiss correlations between the album’s themes and his sickness, it’s impossible not to hear “Standing In The Doorway,” or any of the contemplative, autumnal vibes, without being struck by wizened resignation and late-night wrestling with mortality. Regardless, the work out-voices the man. And for the staunchest of Dylanologists it is his death album and his comeback album in one.
Though the wisdom-garnering is right there in the name, The Old Man, which had its season-one finale July 21, is not Time Out Of Mind. Really, it’s not even Dylan’s 1993 effort World Gone Wrong, rife as it is with the trappings of spy procedurals and narrative bloat settling around the middle like a dad’s beer belly. But in it, Jeff Bridges, with immaculate silver waves, luminous gray whiskers, all linen and weekend business-casual shouldery swagger, and that marbly gruff baritone, announces a comeback. In the way that Dylan used the trademarked Daniel Lanois production to reassert himself, Bridges uses the pedestal of prestige TV to again reclaim his presence after a well-publicized battle with lymphoma and then COVID that left him “pretty close to dying” last year.
In a way, it fits a career-long pattern of sporadic reemergence. After a breakout in The Last Picture Show, Bridges seemed to fall into an easy rhythm of casual semi-stardom, with breezy Western nonchalance and a likability that gave the impression of little care, less to prove. Then came the ’90s. The Fisher King was a commercial but zany meditation on reckoning and redemption. For a story framed by a mass shooting, directed by Terry Gilliam and featuring Robin Williams at his most holy-grail-seeking absurd, there is a disarming level of tenderness. It’s hard to imagine another actor folding such macho swagger and frustrated pathos into Bridges’ humbled and bereft shock jock. Two years later came Fearless, an improbable Hollywood reflection on grief and mortality, that was in turns confounding, puzzling, and oddly real. The pair showed the actor reaching dad-ish middle age in a strange second gear, settling in while also sort of clearing his considerable throat as one of the most singular actors of his generation.
He pulled a similar one-two in 2009-2010, with Crazy Heart and True Grit. In both, Bridges seemed to be paying homage to the many Westerns of his early career, only viewed bemusedly from a grandpa’s easy chair. He suddenly somehow seemed more gruff, deeper, and, yes, grittier, with a timelessness like faded Levi’s and Kris Kristofferson. Both felt Oscar-baity in a quieter, thoughtful, somehow non-annoying way, while a reunion with the Coen Brothers, who gave him his most iconic role, seemed a gesture of Greatest Hits. While it could be easy to take him for granted, he could still be huge, all at once, in his own way, even while playing a bit to the back rows.
G/O Media may get a commission
And now, The Old Man shows another level of maturity, another shelf in the case. Consider the trick Bridges pulls from the closing moments of the fourth episode through the opening of the fifth: He goes from pleasant head-cocked dinner table charm to looming rage to acquiescence to raspy nodding acceptance, all within…
Read More: Jeff Bridges delivers a late-period masterwork in The Old Man