Cheap Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (DVD) (Bob Dylan) (D.A. Pennebaker) Price

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Customer Reviews of Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back

Pay no attention to the bardic singer-songwriter behind the curtain
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." <
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>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. <
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>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. <
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>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). <
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>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? <
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>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.

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Truly awful
Wow wow WOW!! Difficult to get through this one, but as you only live once give it a glimpse. It might hurt, but thats what I was looking for and it felt so sweet. Bob is king!

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The man and the movie.
I've been sitting here reading many of the reviews for this DVD. I didn't want to submit my own until I had read them all, because I didn't want to rehash any of the criticisms already covered by others. Well, I have no desire to sit here and read all 70 of them, so, here goes... <
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>I liked this movie. I didn't LOVE this movie, but I did like it. Of course, I didn't have any preconceived ideas about what it should be, so that helped a lot. As a movie, I liked the way it was filmed. Pennebaker did a great job of intimately capturing what was happening during Dylan's 1965 tour of England. He certainly got an accurate portrayal of the many moods of Bob Dylan, warts and all. But the sound is awful. There are many parts in this film where I can't understand the dialogue at all. Subtitles would have been great. And that's about all I have to say about the technical quality of the DVD. <
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>About twenty years ago was the one and only time I've seen Dylan in concert. It was one of those "Be the 23rd caller..." type of deals, where I won front row tickets to the show from a radio station. It was a great show. So, obviously I'm a fan of the man's music. But Dylan as a person, frankly, really gets under my skin, particularly in this film. <
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>First off, I'm so sick of hearing Dylan say that he's not a folk singer, and shouldn't be called one. He's been saying it his whole career. If he didn't want to be labeled a folk singer, he should've stayed out of the coffee houses in Greenwich Village back in the early 60s. Because, guess what? Folk singers performed in those coffee houses in Greenwich Village back in the early 60s. Sounding a lot like Woody Guthrie also was a good clue for many of the people that labeled him a folk singer. <
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>And since I'm already in a funk, let's talk about his overt rudeness with the media. Dylan sure spent a lot of time giving his fans and the media a hard time in this movie. What was that all about? One reviewer said that Dylan was too young, and wasn't prepared for all the crazy stuff that goes along with fame. Groupies, sycophants, and an intrusive media are all part of fame's package deal, I'm afraid. There's no reason Dylan shouldn't have been hip to this. After all, Beatlemania was already in full swing when this movie was filmed. It sounds to me like Dylan wanted to have his cake and eat it too. I think Dylan used this dislike of the public as an excuse to be rude to everyone around him. <
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>If you're just a casual fan of some of Dylan's music, you probably won't get much out of this film. It was done too early in his career to include many of his bigger hits. But if you're a die-hard fan, it'll probably be worth the price. But remember, I warned you, the sound quality is horrible. Admittedly, I didn't view this on a state-of-the-art Dolby surround-sound system, but I've got a feeling it wouldn't have helped much. Some of the musical performances don't sound too bad, but most of the dialogue sounds like it was recorded on one of those old 40-pound cassette tape recorders with a built in microphone the size of a pencil eraser. <
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