20 Movies So DISGUSTING They Were BANNED From Theatres –  Hw

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be discussing films whose severe content caused them to be banned from screening within a certain country. I’m going to sacrifice a woman just for you. My daddy yeah. The only thing I’d like I really like is to meet you face-to-face. A Clockwork Orange.

And I did write at once what to do. It’s one thing for a movie to be banned by outside forces, but director Stanley Kubrick actually decided to voluntarily impose a ban on his adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange. This took place shortly after Kubrick’s film was released in the United Kingdom, an area where copycat criminals decided to take inspiration from Alex DeLarge AND HIS DROOGS.

I’M HAPPY AGAIN. This infamous reputation surrounding Kubrick’s now classic vision of unrepentant evil also applied to its source material since Burgess’s novel has faced pushback and bans as recently as 2020 from places like public libraries. You needn’t CHECK IT ANY FURTHER, SON. YOU’VE PROVED TO ME THAT ALL THIS ULTRA VIOLENCE AND KILLING IS WRONG.

CALIGULA. Although I have taken the form of Caius Caligula I am all men as I am no man, and so I am a god. It’s one of those films that, depending upon who you ask, is either a masterpiece of transgressive cinema or a slice of sleazy adult cinema clad in historical fringe.

We’re speaking of Caligula, an erotic epic that featured enough behind-the-scenes drama during its production to make IT A LEGEND. CRAWL! [screaming] CRAWL! CRAWL! I HATE THEM! WHILE ITS subsequent release in cinemas codified that infamous reputation, director Tinto Brass, screenwriter Gore Vidal, and Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione famously clashed over the tone and execution of Caligula.

While prints of the film were confiscated in countries like Italy almost immediately after its release. This was despite the presence of legends like Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, and Malcolm McDowell in the cast. Marquee names credited alongside adult performers for this WTF sex-focused bacchanalia. Password. Scrotum.

So be it. [screaming] The Last House on the Left. And if she doesn’t do exactly what I tell her to, Uh-huh. I want you to cut her uh I want you to cut her friend. WOW. THE VIDEO nasty era refers to a period of moral panic that morbidly captivated the imaginations of parents and legislators across the United Kingdom.

Institutions that famously decided not only to ban the sadist videos, but also to prosecute distributors and even regular shop owners who decided to carry movies like 1972’s The Last House on the Left. And I want you to put it in your mouth. And I want you to BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT. [screaming] BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT! THIS undeniably gritty and greasy exploitation film from director Wes Craven was refused a film certification in Britain and would later see its VHS release pulled from shelves.

Other countries also decided to ban Craven’s film in response to the realistically depicted violence perpetrated against its two female leads, Sandra Peabody and Lucy Grantham. You guys got to be crazy, man. If you’re not careful, you’re going to kill somebody. Make her with each each man. Make make That’s a good idea.

Black Sunday But before putting them to death, human justice anticipated divine judgment by burning into the flesh of those damned ones the brand of Satan. Isn’t it interesting how some movies that are lauded now for either their technical skill or formative creative choices faced censorship and pushback during their initial release? It’s Dr. Crovayan.

Director Mario Bava is considered today as an icon of Italian cinema. Yet, his Black Sunday from 1960 was actually refused a release certificate by, you guessed it, the United Kingdom back in the day. An edited down version of Bava’s atmospherically gothic vision would be released to British theaters a year later in 1961.

Fans would have to wait a while to catch this sumptuous horror classic uncut in cinemas and on home video. A storm prevented the flames from destroying her wicked soul, but today her innocent victims have broken the spell of Satan. Braindead, aka Dead Alive Sometimes we can sort of understand the justification behind how films like Peter Jackson’s Braindead, aka Dead Alive, faced severe censorship and theater bannings back in the day.

This is a film that wallows, often literally, in the red stuff despite being a black comedy at its core. Party’s over. None of the humor present within Dead Alive seemed to be enough to combat moral outrage, however, since Jackson’s platter and splatter saw itself unwelcome in countries like Finland and South Korea.

Heck, the full 104-minute cut of Braindead remains impossible to find in Germany, although outlets like Slash Film have reported on a reconstruction in the works for a potential release on 4K Blu-ray. Dad and that blonde woman you got them together AND YOU KILLED THEM, DIDN’T YOU? HOW DARE YOU speak to me like that? Didn’t you? Saw 3D Do something.

BOTH STRONG ENOUGH TO walk away from what is destroying you? Or will you fight one more time for the heart that binds? We may think we live in a world where basically everything is available for streaming or home video at any given moment, but that’s not exactly true. 2010 wasn’t that long ago after all, and it was back then where the seventh Saw film, Saw 3D, was briefly banned in Germany.

[screaming] Teutonic fans of this gruesome and grizzly franchise would have to wait until 2013 for a German court to reverse a ban that made Saw 3D unwatchable for that country’s audience. It’s important then to take note of how different countries view violent or disturbing content in many different ways and take action in similarly specific manners.

No! Game over. No! [screaming] Antichrist What does that mean? When the three beggars arrive, someone must die. Filmmaker Lars von Trier is no stranger to provoking his audience with some of the most harrowing, depressing, and outright envelope-pushing cinema in the world.

His Antichrist from 2009 didn’t only tease transgression via its title, however, but delivered upon that promise with some truly graphic on-screen violence. BASTARD! YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME! IT WAS THIS VIOLENCE, combined with themes of grief, sexism, and loss, that resulted in France banning the film in 2016.

It took 7 years for Antichrist to survive this ban hammer, achieving a French re-release that was saddled with that country’s most restrictive rating. Chaos reigns. The Toxic Avenger. My little Melvin. He must have finally reached puberty. Troma Entertainment remains the house that Toxy built, a fierce independent film company that has prided itself on giving the people what they want.

And at least in the case of the original Toxic Avenger, what the ’80s movie going public wanted was gratuitous sex and exploitative violence. The head-crushing scene that takes place at the Tromaville gym was just one of the infamous sequences that proved too toxic for some locations. Ontario, Canada, is one example.

We’re going to get him. WE’RE GOING TO GET HIM. [screaming] ELSEWHERE, COUNTRIES LIKE GERMANY AND Singapore also showcased edited-down versions of Toxy’s chemical-fueled rampages against all of Tromaville’s weirdest and most DEPRAVED VILLAINS. MURDER! [screaming] I’M GOING TO TEACH YOU A LESSON YOU’LL NEVER FORGET.

THE Evil Dead. HORROR FANS LOVE THE EVIL DEAD. They also love its star, Bruce Campbell, an actor whose knack for hammy comedy is as broad as his famous chin. Yet, it’s easy to forget just how rugged and extreme Sam Raimi’s original film was back in 1981, and how The Evil Dead found itself edited and banned right from the start.

The film’s gore and violence were one thing, but there was also an infamous scene of tree assault that assisted The Evil Dead in being pulled from theaters and banned on home video. Raimi’s harrowing horror vision became one of the most high-profile video nasties, a cult classic whose reputation remains firmly intact today.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Don’t do that, Otis. She’s your sister. Okay, I was only kidding around, Henry. Tell her you’re sorry. Okay, I’m sorry. It’s one thing for exaggerated or fanciful horror movies to face the ban hammer from pearl-clutching members of outmoded ratings boards.

It’s another entirely for a film like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer to strike a real nerve with even the most battle-hardened cinephiles. That’s because director John McNaughton and crew crafted a dingy and realistic depiction of death, a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of amoral evil that felt like anything but fantasy.

What do you mean? It’s either you or them, one way or the other. McNaughton’s 1980s lens film wasn’t even released to most cinemas until 1990, and even then, its unrated status reflected the MPAA’s original levy of X to the film. Henry also made the video nasty list in Britain, further adding to its infamous legacy.

You guys need me help? Otis, do you need some help, or can you do it yourself? The Devils. Written and directed by Ken Russell, The Devils is an enormously controversial fictionalized film about the historical French priest Urbain Grandier. BUT THE DEVIL HAS SPOKEN. AND TO DOUBT HIS word is sacrilege. Grandier was executed in the 17th century due to accusations of witchcraft.

The Devils is filled with explicit violence including scenes of self-harm and Christ being nailed to the cross. This combined with the movie’s overt and offensive sexual imagery riled censors around the world. Why don’t you offer up your pain to God? You live by your senses, obviously you can die by them. The Devils was heavily edited and rated X in the US and UK.

It was also outright banned in Finland. People in the latter country weren’t able to see the movie until 2001, three decades after its release. If they are not driven out, your devil’s might by their infernal arts prevent the torture from being as excruciating as it should be. And then you would never confess. And your soul would be damned for eternity.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. By today’s standards, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is arguably tame. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A good chunk of the violence is committed off-screen and the film isn’t all that gory, all things considered.

This was an intentional creative decision as director Tobe Hooper wanted a PG rating. That didn’t come close to happening. The MPAA initially bypassed the R rating and went straight to X, the 70s equivalent of NC-17. I’ll do anything you want. The movie faced an even worse reaction in other countries.

Canadian theaters in Ottawa were threatened by authorities for showing it and the BBFC banned it in Britain for a time. This was one of many locations to outlaw the film, joining the likes of Brazil, Ireland, France, and Sweden, to name a few. You just SHUT UP, REMEMBER YOU’RE JUST A COOK, AND ME and him will handle this. Get on with it.

I won’t have this. Maniac, a cult classic of the slasher genre, Maniac follows a serial killer named Frank Zito, who targets women. I told you not to go out tonight, didn’t I? Every time you go out, this kind of thing happens. The movie initially received poor reviews and was heavily criticized for its violence.

Indeed, the killings in Maniac are shown in explicit and graphic detail, which doesn’t always make for comfortable viewing. To me, you know, things change. People die. But in a painting or a picture, they yours forever. The film came out without a rating in the United States, and the BBFC refused to pass it in the UK.

This resulted in a de facto ban, and its release was prohibited for over 20 years. It was finally passed in 2002 with edits, but it didn’t see a full uncensored release in the country until 2022. I won’t ever let them take you away from me. Hostel Part 2. The first Hostel was gross enough, but like many sequels, Part 2 ramped up everything that made the movie so successful.

To the next level. To the next level. Now, wait. Isn’t it bad luck to toast with water? Yeah. Bad luck for whoever meets us today. In this case, that meant turning the violence from extreme and disgusting to borderline unbearable. It was even labeled sadistic by the MPAA when they slapped it with an R rating.

Some countries weren’t so lenient. You don’t get it. These people are tied into everyone. Somebody starts asking questions, they’re going to come after me, and they’re going to find me. The movie was banned in New Zealand as the necessary edits to eliminate the problematic content weren’t made. It was also heavily censored in Germany.

The so-called extended version has been outlawed in the country and the film’s distribution has been made illegal. Any idea what you’re going to do in there? You don’t even want to know. I Spit on Your Grave. Roger Ebert famously dubbed this movie a vile bag of garbage and many censorship boards would agree with him.

I Spit on Your Grave is an exploitative revenge film in which Jennifer Hills hunts and kills those who’ve hurt her. To this day, the movie is extremely hard to stomach with lengthy scenes of overt sexual violence. In fact, the producer tried making the movie as revolting as possible. I got a family, a nice-looking wife, two beautiful kids, and you don’t care? No guilty conscience? Once it was rated R by the MPAA, more disturbing content was added warranting an X.

Many European countries argued against the content of the movie and prohibited its release in theaters. In fact, it remains banned in Ireland as of 2022. Don’t miss your chance, can’t you? Do it, Matthew. Come on, it’s your chance. You’ll never regret it. Don’t blow it. Cannibal Holocaust. There are notorious movies and then there’s Cannibal Holocaust.

Four youngsters who never came back. But let’s have a look at them at the beginning of their incredible adventure. Much ink has been spilled regarding this movie’s reputation and its place in film history. An early found footage film, it follows a small group of filmmakers who go missing in the Amazon rainforest.

Look, I know this is not going to be a picnic. Believe me, this is not my first trip into the bush. The violence is so detailed and graphic that some people thought it was real and the movie’s director was charged with homicide. Evidence eventually exonerated him. It’s also filled with real animal mistreatment.

The controversy snowballed resulting in widespread bans around the world. The prohibitions reached all corners of the map including but certainly not limited to New Zealand. I wonder who the real cannibals are. The Human Centipede 2 Full Sequence. Society has arguably become more accepting of movie violence throughout the years.

I’m sorry. I’m going to have to go. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure it’s just a passing phase. What passes as mainstream horror today would struggle to be accepted just a few decades ago. The Human Centipede 2 Full Sequence is a rare exception because it’s just that graphic. This infamous film was met with backlash for its horrifying visuals and sick story.

I was really drawn to the film because of the medical aspect of it. If you were a surgeon, you could actually perform that surgery. It’s just so scary. It was initially banned by the BBFC who even that it was an obscene film that might defy a national act of parliament. It was eventually passed following some significant edits.

A similar series of events occurred in Australia and the movie was essentially outlawed in New Zealand. It was never released at theaters and even the DVD is banned there. This music is driving me crazy. I can’t stand this anymore. Pink Flamingos. John Waters is one of the most popular cult filmmakers of all time and Pink Flamingos may be his masterpiece.

Watch as Divine proves that not only is she the filthiest person in the world, she is also the filthiest actress in the world. But the midnight movie certainly isn’t for everyone. The entire film calls itself an exercise in poor taste with drag queen Divine playing the so-called filthiest person alive.

This beautiful marble hand you see before you. It’s the current hideout of the notorious Beauty Divine, the filthiest person alive. The MPAA gave the movie an NC-17 rating in 1997, citing a wide range of perversions, which is an apt description. The ending alone, which involves dog feces, is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the movie garnered quite the reputation and was banned in multiple countries, including Switzerland, parts of Norway, and Australia. It’s a little gross, but I liked it. Well, it was really the grossest film I’d seen. A Serbian Film. Perhaps the most notorious movie of our time, A Serbian Film’s reputation certainly precedes it.

The story follows a man named Milos as he is forced to participate in a sickening snuff film. It’s been studied in academic circles and its director claims that it’s a piece of political commentary, but most people struggle to look past its repulsive elements. Filled to the brim with inappropriate elements, A Serbian Film has been repeatedly challenged by film censorship boards.

Numerous places, including but not limited to Spain and New Zealand, have banned the film since its release in 2010. Before we continue, check out this single from SoundMojo’s album Current: EDM Transformed. Check out the full track and album below. Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom. For many, Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom exists as the ultimate intersection between arts and tasteless perversion.

Now, it’ll take an hour till I can overcome that disgusting image and get excited. The film explores many intense themes and takes cues from some classic works of art. Even its filmmaking is generally well-regarded and some consider it a classic piece of cinema. But others can’t ignore the depravity at the center of the movie with the story revolving around the mistreatment of teenagers at the hands of libertines.

Listen, you insignificant wretched nothings. You are here solely for our pleasure. Expect none of the kindness you knew in the outside world like liberty or the ridiculous idea of showing pity to others. A slew of countries took umbrage with the content and banned it from theaters, including the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Even today, Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom makes for a supremely challenging watch. The purpose of these stories is to inflame the imagination and any form of lust will be permitted. Have you ever walked out of a movie? Let us know in the comments.

QQ4 Bob Dylan and Keith Richards have been close friends for nearly 40 years. The friendship began on a live television program in November of 1986 in the 11 seconds after Bob Dylan called Keith Richards music derivative on camera. Keith Richard’s response to that assessment, one sentence said without anger, without performance, with the specific directness of a man who has nothing to prove and knows it made Bob Dylan laugh.

Then made Bob Dylan go quiet. then made Bob Dylan say two words that people who know Bob Dylan say he almost never said to anyone. This is the story of those 11 seconds and the 40 years that followed them. The program was a live music interview special broadcast on an American network on the evening of November 3rd, 1986. The format was simple.

Two musicians, a host, an hour of conversation about music and the state of it. The producers had assembled the pairing of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards with the specific calculation of television producers who understand that two people with equally strong and potentially incompatible views about what music is and what it should do will produce better television than two people who agree about everything.

The calculation was correct, though not in the way the producers had anticipated. Bob Dylan was 45 years old in November of 1986. Bob Dylan had released Empire Burlesque the previous year and had been on the road for most of the intervening period as part of the True Confessions tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Bob Dylan was in November of 1986 in one of the most prolific and restless phases of a career that had consisted almost entirely of prolific and restless phases. A career that had moved through folk, rock, country, gospel, and back again, that had been declared finished at least six times by the music press, and at each time continued with the serene indifference of a river to the opinions of people standing on its banks.

Bob Dylan had been redefining what music could be. Since 1962, Bob Dylan had invented and reinvented himself so many times that reinvention had become his defining characteristic, not in the superficial sense of a performer changing costumes, but in the deeper sense of a musician who had never allowed his work to settle into a form that could be anticipated or categorized from the outside.

Bob Dylan understood influence and originality and the relationship between them better than almost anyone alive in 1986. Bob Dylan had spent 24 years thinking carefully and specifically about where music came from and where music was going and what it meant that those two things were always in constant conversation with each other.

Keith Richards was 42 years old in November of 1986. Keith Richards had been playing guitar professionally since 1962. Keith Richards had built a career on a foundation of American blues and rhythm and blues. A foundation that Keith Richards had studied with the systematic devotion of someone who understood that the tradition he was building on was not incidental to the music he was making, but essential to it.

that you could not understand what Keith Richards did without understanding where Keith Richards had come from and what Keith Richards had been listening to since he was a teenager in Dartford with American Import Records and a secondhand guitar and no teacher except the recordings themselves. Keith Richards had never pretended otherwise. Keith Richards had in fact spent considerable energy across his career making the lineage explicit, naming the artists, citing the recordings, insisting on the acknowledgement of influence that the mainstream music

industry had a long history of suppressing or ignoring or crediting to the wrong people. If anything, Keith Richards was more transparent about his sources than most musicians of his generation. Keith Richards had always said openly that the Rolling Stones came directly from the blues, that Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and the specific tradition of the Mississippi Delta were not background influences, but foundational ones.

The music Keith Richards made was in direct and sustained conversation with that tradition, something Keith Richards considered not a limitation, but a responsibility and a form of respect. The interview had been running for 8 minutes when the host asked Bob Dylan about the current state of rock and roll.

Bob Dylan answered with the density and the indirection that characterized Bob Dylan’s responses to direct questions, turning the question over, approaching it from an unexpected angle, finding his way to what he actually thought through a series of observations that moved like a river rather than a road. Bob Dylan was not a straightforward interview subject.

Bob Dylan had been asked about rock and roll in hundreds of interviews across 24 years and had developed the habit of treating the question as an invitation to think out loud rather than a request for a prepared position. The producer Gerald Sherman said afterward that in the first 8 minutes of the interview, he had been slightly anxious, not because anything was going wrong, but because nothing was going anywhere in particular yet.

The interview had the feeling of two conversations happening simultaneously. Bob Dylan’s internal one and the external one visible to the cameras. And Gerald Sherman was not certain in those first eight minutes that the two conversations would converge into something. Bob Dylan talked about influence. Bob Dylan talked about originality.

Bob Dylan talked about the difference between music that absorbed a tradition and transformed it and music that absorbed a tradition and reproduced it. And then Bob Dylan made his assessment. And then Bob Dylan said with the precision of a man making a musical assessment rather than a personal judgment that the Rolling Stones work, and Bob Dylan was specific, naming Keith Richards as the guitarist whose approach he was discussing was derivative in a way that Bob Dylan found limiting.

Bob Dylan said it without hostility. Bob Dylan said it as a technical observation about the relationship between source material and the work that came from it. Bob Dylan said that Keith Richards played the blues the way the blues had already been played, rather than using the blues as a starting point for something that had not yet been played.

Keith Richards had been listening to this with the specific attention Keith Richards gave to things being said about music by people who knew music. Keith Richards did not interrupt. Keith Richards did not shift in his chair or display any of the visible signals of a person preparing a defensive response. Keith Richards listened to Bob Dylan’s complete observation all the way to its conclusion without interrupting and without displaying any visible signal of preparing a response.

Then Keith Richards said one sentence. The sentence was not a rebuttal. The sentence did not defend Keith Richards music or argue for its originality or challenge Bob Dylan’s characterization of what the blues meant in the context of rock and roll. The sentence was something else entirely, something that required a specific kind of confidence to say.

The confidence of a person who has spent long enough thinking about the same things as the person they are talking to that they can locate the exact point where their thinking diverges and say something useful about that point rather than simply defending their own position. The sentence acknowledged everything Bob Dylan had said, the assessment, the distinction Bob Dylan was drawing, the specific musical concern underlying the observation, and then turned it 90°.

Keith Richards took Bob Dylan’s own framework, the one Bob Dylan had used to analyze Keith Richards relationship to the blues tradition, and applied it back to Bob Dylan’s work with the same precision Bob Dylan had used to apply it to Keith Richards. Spare aimed. The sentence asked Bob Dylan something about Bob Dylan’s own music, about the relationship between Bob Dylan’s sources and Bob Dylan’s output that Bob Dylan had not been asked on television before.

The sentence did not attack. The sentence illuminated. Bob Dylan laughed. The laugh was not the polite laugh of someone responding to a joke. The laugh was the involuntary laugh of someone who has been genuinely surprised. The specific kind of surprise that a person of exceptional intelligence experiences when someone else’s intelligence exceeds their expectations.

Bob Dylan laughed for 4 seconds. Then Bob Dylan stopped laughing. Then Bob Dylan was quiet for 3 seconds in the way that Bob Dylan was quiet when Bob Dylan was thinking rather than performing thought. Then Bob Dylan said, “You’re right.” The producer in the booth, a man named Gerald Sherman, who had been working in television for 14 years, said afterward that in 14 years of live television production, he had never heard Bob Dylan say those two words in a public forum.

Gerald Sherman said he had worked with Bob Dylan on two previous occasions and had observed Bob Dylan in numerous other contexts and that you’re right was not a phrase that Bob Dylan deployed easily or often because Bob Dylan had spent 24 years being right about music in ways that other people eventually caught up with. And the experience of being right ahead of everyone else does not generally produce a man who says you’re right readily when someone else makes a point.

The host of the program, a journalist named Patricia Wells, who had been interviewing musicians for 12 years, said afterward that the 11 seconds between Bob Dylan’s assessment and Bob Dylan saying, “You’re right,” were the most extraordinary 11 seconds of television she had been present for. Patricia Wells said that what she witnessed in those 11 seconds was not a debate or a confrontation or a celebrity exchange of competing opinions.

Patricia Wells said what she witnessed was one musician recognizing another musician as an equal, which was in the specific context of Bob Dylan in 1986, not something that happened in public very often. The interview continued for another 42 minutes after those 11 seconds. The conversation between Bob Dylan and Keith Richards in the remaining 42 minutes was described by everyone who watched it as fundamentally different from the first 8 minutes.

The host, Patricia Wells, who had been conducting music interviews for 12 years and understood the difference between the performance of conversation and actual conversation, said that at approximately the 9-minute mark, something shifted in the studio. That the formal interview, architecture dissolved, and what replaced it was something less structured and more genuine.

Bob Dylan and Keith Richards talked about influence and originality and the blues and what it meant to build on a tradition without being consumed by it. They talked about specific recordings and specific musicians with the specificity of two people who had spent their entire adult lives thinking about these things and rarely found another person who had thought about them with equivalent care.

They talked about where music came from and where music was going and whether those two questions were actually one question or two. Patricia Wells said afterward that she had asked approximately four questions in the remaining 42 minutes because Bob Dylan and Keith Richards did not require questions. They required only a room and a camera and the shared understanding that what they were saying together was worth recording carefully.

She said it was the best interview she had ever conducted and that she had conducted the smallest part of it. After the program, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards were in the corridor outside the studio when the host Patricia Wells passed them. Patricia Wells said she did not stop because she did not want to interrupt.

She observed them for approximately 30 seconds from a distance. She said they were talking with the ease of people who had known each other for years rather than people who had met for the first time 2 hours earlier. She said that something had shifted between them during the broadcast that the broadcast had made permanent rather than temporary.

She continued down the corridor and did not look back. She said in her account of that evening that she had decided in that moment not to interrupt the conversation because some conversations are more valuable than any question a journalist might ask and that the conversation she had observed for 30 seconds in the corridor outside the studio was one of them.

She had been a music journalist for 12 years. She recognized the difference. Bob Dylan and Keith Richards have maintained their friendship across four decades. They have appeared together at various events, most significantly at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, where people who were present described them as inseparable for most of the evening, occupying the same corner of the backstage area and talking with the concentrated attention of people who only have a limited amount of time together and intend to use it

well. Bob Dylan has spoken about Keith Richards in interviews with the specific thoughtful care that Bob Dylan reserves for musicians whose work Bob Dylan considers genuinely important rather than merely culturally prominent. Keith Richards has spoken about Bob Dylan in similar terms with the specific respect of someone who recognizes in another person a commitment to music that goes deeper than career.

Neither Bob Dylan nor Keith Richards has made a public statement specifically about how the friendship began or about the November 1986 interview. Bob Dylan has not mentioned the 11 seconds. Keith Richards has not mentioned the sentence. The interview exists in the archive. The 11 seconds are there. The laugh is there. The two words are there.

What is also there for anyone who watches the interview from its beginning and pays attention to the shift that happens at the 9-minute mark is the specific moment when two people who thought they were appearing on a television program discovered they were actually talking to each other. What Keith Richards said in that one sentence has never been officially reported.

The people who were in the studio that evening, Gerald Sherman, Patricia Wells, the floor crew, the two camera operators, the makeup artist who was watching from the side of the set, have described the sentence in consistent terms. They have described its effect. They have described Bob Dylan’s laugh and Bob Dylan’s silence and Bob Dylan’s two words.

They have not repeated the sentence itself in the specific understanding that the sentence was said between two musicians on a television program and that its power resided in the specific context of that exchange and would not survive removal from it intact. What can be said is this. Keith Richards said something to Bob Dylan about Bob Dylan’s music that used Bob Dylan’s own observation about Keith Richards as its starting point and arrived somewhere that Bob Dylan had not anticipated.

Keith Richards turned Bob Dylan’s assessment 90° and showed Bob Dylan something about the music they had both spent their lives making that Bob Dylan recognized immediately as true. And Bob Dylan said, “You’re right.” Two words said by Bob Dylan in public on live television in 1986 to Keith Richards in response to a single sentence Keith Richards had said about music.

Two words that Gerald Sherman, who had worked with Bob Dylan on two previous occasions, said he had never heard Bob Dylan say in a public forum. Two words that Patricia Wells, who had been interviewing musicians for 12 years, said were the most significant two words she had heard in those 12 years. Not because of their content, but because of who said them and what it cost to say them and what it meant that Keith Richards had produced them in 11 seconds from a conversation that began with Bob Dylan calling Keith Richards’s music derivative. And Keith Richards and

Bob Dylan have been close friends for nearly 40 years. The sentence did its work in 11 seconds on the evening of November 3rd, 1986. The work has been ongoing ever since. If this story moved you, subscribe and leave a comment below. Have you ever said something to someone that turned a potential disagreement into an unexpected and lasting connection? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Share this with someone who needs to be reminded that the right sentence said at the right moment can completely change the entire direction of a relationship. Ring the notification bell for more untold stories about the extraordinary human beings behind music’s greatest legends.