Dont Look Back | |
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Directed by | D. A. Pennebaker |
Written by | D. A. Pennebaker |
Produced by | John Court Albert Grossman |
Starring | Bob Dylan Joan Baez Alan Price |
Edited by | D. A. Pennebaker |
Music by | Bob Dylan Donovan |
Production companies | Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc. |
Distributed by | Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc. |
Release date |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United States |
Dont [sic] Look Back is a 1967 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in England.
In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [1] [2] In a 2014 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted Dont Look Back the joint ninth best documentary film of all time. [3]
The opening scene of the film has Dylan displaying and discarding a series of cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics to his 1965 song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (including intentional misspellings and puns). [4] This was the first single from his most recent album, Bringing It All Back Home , and a top ten hit in the UK when he filmed it there (a fact discussed in the film). Allen Ginsberg appears in the background having a discussion with Bob Neuwirth.
The film features Joan Baez, Donovan and Alan Price (who had just left the Animals), Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and his road manager Neuwirth. Marianne Faithfull, John Mayall, Ginger Baker and Allen Ginsberg may also be glimpsed in the background. Notable scenes include:
The original title of this film is Dont Look Back, without an apostrophe in the first word. D. A. Pennebaker, the film's writer director, decided to punctuate the title this way because "It was my attempt to simplify the language". [5] Many sources, however, have assumed this to be a typographical error and have "corrected" the title to Don't Look Back. In the commentary track to the DVD release, Pennebaker said that the title came from the Satchel Paige quote, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you," and that Dylan shared this view.
Dont Look Back was shot in black-and-white with a handheld 16mm-film camera and utilized direct sound, thus creating the template for the "rockumentary" film genre. [6] Production began when Dylan arrived in England on April 26, 1965, and ended shortly after his final UK concert at the Royal Albert Hall on May 10. [7] Pennebaker has stated that the famous "Subterranean Homesick Blues" music video that is shown at the beginning of the film was actually shot at the very end of filming. Pennebaker decided during editing to place it at the beginning of the film as a "stage" for Dylan to begin the film.
The film was first shown publicly May 17, 1967, at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco, and opened that September at the 34th Street East Theater in New York.
A transcript of the film, with photographs, was published in 1968 by Ballantine Books.
Dont Look Back has been very well received by critics. It has a rating of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 55 reviews. The film received a 5-star review from AllMovie and has a Metacritic score of 84, indicating "universal acclaim". [8] In August 1967, a Newsweek reviewer wrote, "Dont Look Back is really about fame and how it menaces art, about the press and how it categorizes, bowdlerizes, sterilizes, universalizes or conventionalizes an original like Dylan into something it can dimly understand". [9] [10]
Kurt Cobain identified it as the only "good documentary about rock and roll" in a 1991 interview with his Nirvana bandmates, a sentiment with which Dave Grohl concurred. [11]
The film has been parodied and paid homage to by many other films and television shows including This Is Spinal Tap , [12] Bob Roberts , [13] and Documentary Now! . [14] The opening sequence featuring "Subterranean Homesick Blues" has likewise inspired many music videos, including INXS' "Mediate", [15] MC Evidence's "The Far Left," [16] "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Bob" [17] and Hozier's "Almost (Sweet Music)," [18] and was cited by journalist Roger Friedman as "the most copied, most revered, music video of all time". [19]
Dont Look Back has been released and re-released on home video in many formats, from VHS to Blu-ray, over the decades. A digitally remastered deluxe DVD edition was released on February 27, 2007. [20] The two-disc edition contained the remastered film, five additional audio tracks, commentary by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker and Tour Road Manager Bob Neuwirth, an alternative version of the video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues", the original companion book edited by D. A. Pennebaker to coincide with the film's release in 1968, a flip-book for a section of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video, and a brand new documentary by D. A. Pennebaker and edited by Walker Lamond called 65 Revisited . The DVD packaging was also given new artwork.
On November 24, 2015, The Criterion Collection released a newly restored 4K transfer of the film on Blu-ray and DVD. [21] The Criterion version contained new special features.
Donovan Phillips Leitch, known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer. He emerged from the British folk scene in early 1965, and subsequently scored multiple international hit singles and albums during the late 1960s. His work became emblematic of the flower power era with its blend of folk, pop, psychedelic rock, and jazz stylings.
Bringing It All Back Home is the fifth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. In a major transition from his earlier sound, it was Dylan's first album to incorporate electric instrumentation, which caused controversy and divided many in the contemporary folk scene.
Donn Alan Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. Pennebaker was called by The Independent as "arguably the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture".
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 14, 1965, and released as a single by Columbia Records, catalogue number 43242, on March 8. It is the first track on the album Bringing It All Back Home, released some two weeks later. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also entered the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart. The song has subsequently been reissued on numerous compilations, the first being the 1967 singles compilation Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. One of Dylan's first electric recordings, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is also notable for its innovative music video, which first appeared in D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Dont Look Back. An acoustic version of the song, recorded the day before the single, was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 1961–1991.
Renaldo and Clara is a 1978 American film directed by Bob Dylan and starring Bob Dylan, Sara Dylan and Joan Baez. Written by Dylan and Sam Shepard, the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.
Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of parts of Europe with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series ABC Stage 67.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a 1975–76 concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan with numerous musicians and collaborators. The purpose of the tour was to allow Dylan, who was a major recording artist and concert performer, to play in smaller auditoriums in less populated cities where he could be more intimate with his audiences.
Robert John Neuwirth was an American folk singer, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist. He was noted for being the road manager and associate of Bob Dylan, as well as the co-writer of Janis Joplin's hit song "Mercedes Benz".
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music and rock and roll scene. He was famous as the manager of many of the most popular and successful performers of folk and folk-rock music, including Bob Dylan; Janis Joplin; Peter, Paul and Mary; the Band; Odetta; Gordon Lightfoot; and Ian & Sylvia.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is a 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer and songwriter where he became the center of a cultural and musical upheaval, and continues through the electric controversy surrounding his move to a rock style of music.
"Talkin' World War III Blues" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that was first released as the tenth track of his 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Like nearly every song on the album, it is performed by Dylan solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica played in a rack.
Sara Dylan is an American former actress and model who was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In 1959, Noznisky married magazine photographer Hans Lownds; during their marriage, she was known as Sara Lownds.
Sally Ann Grossman was an American model and the wife of Bob Dylan's one-time manager, Albert Grossman. According to some Dylan biographers, she introduced Dylan to his first wife Sara. She operated the Woodstock-based Bearsville Records following the death of her husband in 1986.
"Love is Just a Four-Letter Word" is a song written by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Joan Baez, who has recorded and performed the song numerous times throughout her career.
Festival is a 1967 American documentary film about the Newport Folk Festivals of the mid-1960’s, and the burgeoning counterculture movement of the era, written, produced, and directed by Murray Lerner.
65 Revisited is a 2007 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker. It was made from footage the director shot for his 1967 film Dont Look Back. Both films show Bob Dylan and entourage during their 1965 concert tour of the UK. The newer film includes outtakes from its predecessor, and adds several full-length song performances.
The soundtrack album for the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There was released as a double CD on October 30, 2007. It features only one recording by Dylan himself—his previously unreleased recording of the title song "I'm Not There" recorded during The Basement Tapes' sessions in 1967—plus various other artists' recordings of songs written by Dylan. These CDs do not contain the movie sound track. Fragments from less than half of the titles are heard in the film, which features more of Dylan's own recordings. The end credits relay a complete list of music heard in the film.
The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is a 2019 American documentary film, composed of both fictional and non-fictional material, covering Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concert tour. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is the director's second film on Bob Dylan, following 2005's No Direction Home. The bulk of Rolling Thunder Revue is compiled of outtakes from Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, which was filmed in conjunction with the tour.
"Bob" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the 2003 album, Poodle Hat. The song is a parody sung in the style of Bob Dylan, and all of the lyrics are palindromes as is the title. For example, the song's first line is "I, man, am regal—a German am I", which reads the same when reversed.