In his mid 20’s and at the zenith of his popularity, Bob Dylan was (and one could argue still is) a man of mystery aptly hiding behind his genius. History affords us Dylan fans today the knowledge, the timeline, of Dylan’s life constructed from pieces of information gathered throughout decades, but in 1967, Dont Look Back—apostrophe deliberately excised by the director—is the first big show of candid, in no small part thanks to Dylan’s ambivalence towards journalists, portrayed here as outright antagonism. Dylan’s commitment to being evasive in the now infamous junkets and interviews caught on film resulted in memorable quips—some rival his lyrics in inviting scholarly scrutiny as to what they could possibly mean for many years to come.
“My message? Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.”
Dylan appears perfectly eloquent and mischievously clever in certain scenes, but in others, he turns into an entitled simpleton who gets backed into a corner by basic questions, desperately throwing out juvenile metaphors to avoid having to give a solid explanation of his enigmatic rants. Rants like how the press should print “the truth” rather than “just facts.” Asked what that would entail, he struggles to describe “truth” as a picture collage, such as a tramp vomiting into a gutter next to Rockerfeller.
This is part poetry, part hokum. A winning combination in songs but preposterous in speech. It describes the man in the documentary aptly. Whenever the film pauses to let Dylan take to the guitars and microphone, he is an enrapturing messiah. Off them, he’s bubbled and cold, acting in a way self-important rock stars stereotypically do. It’s not a very flattering depiction to watch, especially for would-be apostles who prefer to think of him as one of his generation’s great thinkers. What was supposed to be a concert film of Dylan’s 1965 UK tour has the spotlight yanked off the concert part by director D.A. Pennebaker, who turned Dont Look Back into a loosely constructed image of Dylan’s behavior backstage and in hotel rooms during the tour.
I imagine the film is more significant now than it was then. It’s not surprising that it has become such a monument in pop culture, intensely embedded in public consciousness as what “Bob Dylan of the 60’s” was like. From Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There to Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home to Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, all reference this documentary as the iconic image of Dylan.
Part of it is Dylan himself, whose off-the-cuff remarks baffle and endure like those of a Lewis Caroll invention; but another part is Pennebaker’s verite fly-on-the-wall approach, letting Dylan himself show the world what Dylan is like. It is because of this that it comes across as unflattering, but it is also because of this that there’s no sense of artifice in the film, which is fantastic for a documentary. For hardcore Dylan fans, Dont Look Back is already essential viewing, for better or worse (don’t worry, loyalists, there’s still a feel-good moment where Dylan essentially schools and destroys Donovan to his face with a passive-aggressive impromptu jam). For the uninitiated, it’s still a great look at how even the best of musicians stumble blindly between landmines in the field of fame.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
I now own three different editions of this film, which I realize is kind of ridiculous seeing how each new release carries over all the features from the previous one. To my credit, they also offer something new that’s actually worth getting if you're a Dylan enthusiast.
When this set was released on DVD in 2007, it contains the commentary track and alternate take of the “Subterranean Homesick Blues” music video from the 1999 edition. It was worth getting, however, for a number of things. The vastly improved picture quality from a digital remastering, for one, and also the inclusion of 65 Revisited—a brand new “B-side” documentary Pennebaker constructed from leftover footage—as a second disc.
This Blu-ray release includes that second disc on DVD, while Dont Look Back itself is supposedly improved to Blu-ray quality; though seeing how it’s from a 40 year old black-and-white 16mm film, you won’t notice any difference between this and the 2007 DVD. It does have one new feature: a 20-minute conversation about the film between music critic Greil Marcus and D.A. Pennebaker that dives into some shenanigans not explored in either film—because they weren’t captured on camera. The interview was conducted sometime in 2010 and shot in HD.
In terms of presentation, the Blu-ray’s standard casing pales in comparison to the 2007 deluxe set, which has cardstock cover, a flipbook of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and a reprint of the 168-page companion book originally published in 1968. The Blu-ray transfer and single interview alone are probably not enough of an incentive to warrant a re-purchase if you already own the previous set. Otherwise, it’s a terrific documentary in a terrific set.
"Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back" is on sale April 26, 2011 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by Da Pennebaker. Starring Bob Dylan.
