Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (1965 Tour Deluxe Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (1965 Tour Deluxe Edition)
Movie Review: EXCELLENT AND STYLISH ROCK DOC........
Summary: 5 Stars
If you dig Bob Dylans music, or are into good rock documentaries, than you will most surely like DONT LOOK BACK. Although not very in depth in the sense that NO DIRECTION HOME, the most recent offering is... this one instead just follows a young Bob Dylan through his 1964 European tour. You get to watch the man at fun and at work, galavanting around Europe with the likes of Joan Baez and Donovan. Its all in a very stylish black and white, and is very fun to watch.
The way Bob Dylan gives the subtle F*** YOU to every single reporter that crosses his path, is entertainment enough. But you get him arguing with unruly fans, acoustic battling with Donovan, and just amazing the crowd onstage.
D.A PENNEMAKER gets down and deep into the crazy touring life of Bob Dylan in the sixties. Also, we get a sense of the rock and roll business, through up close dealings with John Hammond, Dylans manger at the time. The movie is a good time, if you are into rock docs, you gotta see this one!
Movie Review: Haven't I met these people?
Summary: 4 Stars
One of many things that struck me about this movie was how much Dylan and his friends as a group look and talk a lot like the people I know. It felt like a life line between young people now and young people then. We're still all doing the same thing. Dylan was 23 when the movie was shot, and I'm 23 now, so it was interesting to see what he was like then; his youth and passion in full force, and so much in the moment, and this was 40 years ago.
It's kind of depressing, actually. Because afterwards you want so badly for there to be a young artist like that now.
I saw this movie for the first time earlier this week. I've listened to Bob Dylan casually for a couple of years, but have recently gotten really into his music. I don't think that he's rude in the film like some people have said. I thought he was hilarious and bratty with the science student, and really trying to get through to the Time magazine reporter.
Actually they explained his attitude a little in the commentary; the British reporters who came to interview him didn't even know who Joan Baez was; they really didn't know what they were talking about. Now, wouldn't YOU want to mess with people like that? Especially if these same reporters were calling you the voice of a generation?
Movie Review: The Changeling
Summary: 5 Stars
Don't Look Back presents a portrait of an artist going through his adolescence about 10 years too late. For those who have seen No Direction Home and want a more in-depth look at the tumultous Dylan personality of 1965-66 this is the place to look.
Pennebaker follows Dylan from stage to green room to hotel picking up on an increasingly isolated man seeking to continue his transformation from folk hero to pop star while being confronted with a public ready only for Donovan and a small fan base wanting only the issues-oriented troubadour they'd become comfortable with.
Dylan is depicted here being both tired and on edge at the same time. Comedy comes in the form of Dylan's continued lambasting of Donovan (a running joke throughout the movie) and his confrontation or brushing-off of virtually every journalist assigned to cover him.
Performances are generally not shown in their entirety in the documentary itself. But what performances are shown are remarkable for the fact that so many of the lyrics seem to be addressed to the fans who were not willing or were unable to follow Dylan into his blues/rock/pop phase: "Something's happening but you don't know what it is...", "I know that you know something's tearing up your mind...", Any lyric from Like a Rolling Stone.
Simply put, this documentary gives a great deal of insight on a man who wants to be accepted yet remain an outsider at the same time. A man who wanted to be the center of the scene and pushing the boundaries of the scene at the same time. It's truly an American story and the scenes of Dylan and the Hawks playing on a foreign stage in front of the American flag while playing blues and being booed is almost exhilirating.
Movie Review: Great DVD
Summary: 4 Stars
I recommend this dvd for all music lovers. Not only does it give a rare view into Dylan's private life, but it also provides a glimpse of a very different time period.Movie Review: Pay no attention to the bardic singer-songwriter behind the curtain
Summary: 5 Stars
When I heard that Bob Dylan had formally become a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, my immediate thought was that it was about time. Words set to music are still words. Besides, when they start rhyming, or at least are in that ballpark, then you can talk about them as being poetry, and poets have won the Noble prize for Literature, so why not Bob Dylan? Writing in support of the nomination Alan Ginsberg wrote: "Dylan is a major American Bard & minstrel of the XX Century, whose words have influenced many generations throughout the world. He deserves a Nobel Prize in recognition of his mighty and universal powers."
Fortunately the people who decide such things as Nobel prizes tend to restrict themselves to words on pages rather than cinema verité documentaries, because what would they think of the 23-year-old Dylan who appears at the eye of "Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back." Made during Dylan's 1965 tour of England by D.A. Pennebaker, there is not enough music in it to warrant watching it for that alone. There are bits from several songs, such as "The Times They Are A-Changing'" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," but you can get a bit of a Dylan fix from the complete audio tracks for songs from the tour available as a special feature (Dylan's interaction with his audience seems civil and pleasant enough). There are several shots of Dylan walking on stage and the audience erupting into applause, but Pennebaker is not interested in providing concert footage. In contrast, for the most part Dylan is not all that interested in talking. Sometimes you think that the only times he is happy is when he is playing his guitar or fooling around on the piano.
What you think about this documentary comes down to what you think about Dylan, and that is going to depend on two key exchanges. The first is a young man (if he had a name I missed it) who thinks that Dylan should get to know him. Dylan asks "Why?" I do not think the question is posed facetiously, but more as a challenge. The young man is upset over this challenge to his self-esteem, but for the life of him he cannot answer the question. Yes, he is being asked to justify his existence, but there is a level on which that is what the Sixties were all about. The young man studied science in school. Why? To what end? To accomplish what with his life? Dylan's questions get more and more specific, but the young man's answers keep him hiding in the tall grass of generalities. I did not think Dylan was being cruel because as I read the exchange he was giving this guy every opportunity to come up with an answer. Maybe he would have cut the guy off at the knees at that point, but it is only when this guy makes it clear he wants the validation to come from Dylan that the singer-songwriter just grins and unloads a few parting shots. At the end of this first exchange I was thinking everybody praises Dylan for what he says (or at least what he writes) but they just do not listen.
The second exchange is when a reporter from "TIME" shows up to interview Dylan, who insists that magazines would never dare print the truth. Of course the reporter asks the big question, which can be traced back at least to Pontius Pilate, and wants to know what is truth. Clearly no student of the Sophists, Dylan comes up with an operational definition of truth as a photograph of a tramp vomiting into a sewer next to one of Rockefeller. The juxtaposition of such images is certainly confrontational, but the truth that Dylan suggests apparently needs more explanation. The reporter presses for clarification, which is just what Dylan is doing in the previous scene. But rather than provide specifics, Dylan sticks with the images he has articulated. Of course, this is not surprising, because such images and words are the cornerstone of his most powerful lyrics. Asking him to explain what such things mean is tantamount to asking a magician to explain his tricks. However, it also begs the question as to whether such meaning is ultimately to be found in the poet rather than in his poetry (I go with the latter because for me meaning is created by my experience decoding the text and ultimately what the creator did or did not intend does not matter, as Charles Manson would be more than happy to explain to you while listening to "The White Album" by the Beatles).
Of course, all of this is taking place in the fishbowl that was Dylan's life at that time in front of that small circle of friends (for lack of a better word) who are in constant attendance. This includes Joan Baez, who for the most part sits around and smiles. She breaks into song once, and apparently tosses a glass out of a window, but she has the Warren Beatty part in this one (i.e., she is smart enough to keep her mouth shut). Donovan shows up to, both in Dylan's room and in the newspaper headlines. The Beatles do not show up, but they are mentioned and it is painfully clear that they are on a different mountaintop from Dylan. If only there had been a world where Dylan could have tattooed "listen to the music and figure it out for yourself" on his forehead. Did getting 2,000 versus 1,500 pounds for an interview really matter?
The DVD contains the requisite commentary track by Pennebaker and the tour manager Bob Neuwirth, and whatever you end up thinking of Dylan, you have to admit that Pennebaker comes out way ahead with "Don't Look Back" (but closed captioning would be helpful to anything in which Dylan speaks as well as sings). There are five original, uncut audio performances of "To Ramona," "It Ain't Me, Babe", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." Then we have an alternative "never before seen" version of the infamous "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (a.k.a. the "first music video") bit with the cue cards. I figure that anybody who reads this review has seen Dylan and Ginsberg hanging out in an alley. That is just the prologue to this documentary and you should check out the entire thing at least once in your life. Final Observation: The other day I traveled from the Zenith City, the birthplace of Robert Zimmerman, to Hibbing and sat in the auditorium of the high school. If those seats in that gorgeous room were as uncomfortable when he was going to school there as they were this week, then that could offer an alternative explanation for Dylan's temperament.