Description:
A classic documentary returns to the public eye, having shed none of its mythological glow - indeed, for a few it will have gained some, thanks to the inclusion of five complete, in-concert tracks in audio form retrieved from the archives of director D. A. Pennebaker. Don't Look Back captures, on film, something both more and less like the last time Dylan toured as a solo acoustic performer. The concert sequences are kept deliberately short because Pennebaker was primarily interested in making a film that showed what Dylan -- and his mobile environment -- were about. Thus we have Dylan, often hyperactive, flitting about, inquisitive, communicative, sometimes insular, sometimes odd, drawing people into his space as often as gruff manager Albert Grossman tries to push them out again.
Alan Price, soon to leave the Animals (either by choice, or by dint of a boot in the backside), is a constant presence, starting with a drunken conversation in Dylan's hotel room in London. Marianne Faithful, almost spectral, shows up quietly. Less hushed are the legions of reporters, most of them obnoxiously ill-informed; the gradual progression that leads from English newspaper reports about Donovan (hyped, disconcertingly, as a new Dylan) to Donovan being inducted into the menagerie is more amusing. This, then, is Dylan and company caught with their hair down -- and, in this edition, minus the censor bleeps and print scratches. Taking advantage of the capabilities of DVD, Docurama have included a commentary track that features irreverent and sometimes ribald discussion by director Pennebaker and Bob Neuwirth, the tour manager for the 1965 tour. Their comments take in everything from camera design to who was doing what to whom, and provide as much entertainment as the film itself. Also included is an alternate version of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" cue-card piece -- still with Alan Ginsberg in it, mind you. Don't Look Back is an excellent and essential DVD release. ~ Steven McDonald, AMG
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