Dont Look Back
- For other uses, see Don't Look Back (disambiguation).
| Dont Look Back | |
|---|---|
| File:DontLookBack2.jpg | |
| Directed by | D.A. Pennebaker |
| Written by | D.A. Pennebaker |
| Produced by | John Court Albert Grossman |
| Starring | Bob Dylan Albert Grossman Bob Neuwirth Joan Baez Victor Maymudes Horace Freeland Judson |
| Edited by | D.A. Pennebaker |
| Music by | Bob Dylan |
| Distributed by | Docurama |
Release dates | May 17, 1967 |
Running time | 96 min. |
| Language | English |
Dont Look Back (sic) is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour of Britain. It features Joan Baez, Donovan and Alan Price (who had just left The Animals), Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and his road manager Bob Neuwirth; Marianne Faithfull and John Mayall may also be glimpsed in the background. The film shows a young Dylan: confident if not arrogant; confrontational and contrary; but also charismatic and charming. Standout scenes include Dylan's extended taunting of a much older Time magazine journalist; Dylan and Baez singing Hank Williams songs in a hotel room; Dylan's pre-concert philosophical jousting with a "science student" (Terry Ellis, who later co-founded Chrysalis Records); Grossman negotiating with producer Tito Burns; and a selection of songs from Dylan's Albert Hall performance. Dylan's romance with Baez had pretty much run its course by the time of the tour, and the film candidly captures what essentially amounts to their breakup.
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. The United States' National Film Preservation Foundation has declared the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The opening scene of the film also served as a kind of music video for Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues," in which the singer displays and discards a series of posters bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics (including intentional misspellings and puns). Allen Ginsberg makes a cameo during this episode.
A transcript of the film, with photographs, was published in 1968 by Ballantine Books.
Trivia
- The pop band Belle & Sebastian reference the movie in their song "Like Dylan in the Movies" (refrain: "And if they follow you/don't look back/like Dylan in the movies").
