Dont Look Back
Encyclopedia
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film
by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan
's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.
In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The film 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
, John Mayall
, Ginger Baker
, and Allen Ginsberg
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. Notable scenes include:
Dylan's romance with Baez had pretty much run its course by the time of the tour, and the film candidly captures what amounts to their breakup.
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 cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics (including intentional misspellings and puns). Allen Ginsberg
makes a cameo appearance during this episode.
The original title of this film is Dont Look Back (i.e., without an apostrophe in the first word). D.A. Pennebaker, the film's writer (and director) decided to punctuate the title this way because he "was trying to simplify the language". Many sources, however, assumed this to be a typographical error
and swiftly "corrected" the title to Don't Look Back (i.e., with an apostrophe in the first word).
A transcript of the film, with photographs, was published in 1968 by Ballantine Books
.
reviewer wrote:
. The DVD packaging was also given new artwork.
The phrase has since passed into popular culture in several instances.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.
In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
and Alan Price
Alan Price
Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
(who had just left The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
), Dylan's manager Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
and his road manager Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...
; Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
, Ginger Baker
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...
, and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
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. Notable scenes include:
- Dylan's extended taunting of Time MagazineTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
s LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
arts and science correspondent Horace Freeland JudsonHorace Freeland JudsonHorace Freeland Judson was a historian of molecular biology and the author of several books, including The Eighth Day of Creation, a history of molecular biology, and The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science, an examination of the deliberate manipulation of scientific data.-Life and career:The Eighth...
who was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan. - Dylan's interrupting Alan Price'sAlan PriceAlan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
backstage performance of "Little Things" to ask Price why he left The AnimalsThe AnimalsThe Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
. - Dylan and Baez singing Hank Williams songs in a hotel room, as well as Baez singing the first few verses of "Percy's Song" and "Love Is Just a Four-Letter WordLove Is Just A Four-Letter Word"Love is Just a Four-Letter Word" is a song written by Bob Dylan, and long associated with Joan Baez, who has recorded it numerous times, and performed it throughout her career. Written by Dylan somewhere around 1965, Baez immediately took to the song, and began performing it, even before it was...
" (which was still apparently unfinished at the time, as Baez later tells Dylan, "If you finish it I'll sing it on a record"; she would record it in 1968.) - Dylan's pre-concert philosophical jousting with a "science student" (Terry EllisTerry Ellis (manager)Terry Ellis is an English record producer and manager best known for his early work with Jethro Tull, and as co-founder of Chrysalis Music in 1969....
, who later co-founded Chrysalis RecordsChrysalis RecordsChrysalis Records was a British record label that was created in 1969. The name was both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis...
). - Grossman negotiating with former BebopBebopBebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
Dance bandDance bandDance band can be one of several kinds of musical ensemble:* British dance band* Dansband, a Swedish pop genre* A Eurodance band...
leader and music agent, Tito BurnsTito BurnsTito Burns was a British musician and impresario, who was active in both jazz and rock and roll.-Biography:...
. - Dylan singing "Only a Pawn in Their GameOnly a Pawn in Their Game"Only a Pawn in their Game" is a song written by Bob Dylan about the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. It was released on Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin album of 1964...
" on July 6, 1963 at a Voters' Registration Rally in Greenwood, MississippiGreenwood, MississippiGreenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the...
(shot by artist and experimental filmmaker Ed EmshwillerEd EmshwillerEd Emshwiller was a visual artist notable for illustrations of many science fiction magazine covers and for his pioneering experimental films...
). - A selection of songs from Dylan's Royal Albert HallRoyal Albert HallThe Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
performance. - Dylan regaling the room with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" after proclaiming "Hey, that's pretty GOOD, man!" in the middle of Donovan's performance of "To Sing for You".
Dylan's romance with Baez had pretty much run its course by the time of the tour, and the film candidly captures what amounts to their breakup.
The opening scene of the film also served as a kind of music video for Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues
Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
", in which the singer displays and discards a series of cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics (including intentional misspellings and puns). Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
makes a cameo appearance during this episode.
Credited
- Bob Dylan
- Albert Grossman
- Bob Neuwirth
- Joan Baez
- Alan Price
- Tito Burns
- Donovan
- Derroll Adams
Uncredited
- Howard Alk
- Jones Alk
- Chris Ellis
- Terry Ellis
- Marianne Faithfull
- Allen Ginsberg
- John Mayall
- Brian Pendleton
Title
Typographical error
A typographical error is a mistake made in, originally, the manual type-setting of printed material, or more recently, the typing process. The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but usually excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors...
and swiftly "corrected" the title to Don't Look Back (i.e., with an apostrophe in the first word).
Production
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.Release
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
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
.
Reception
The film has been very well received by critics. It currently has a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews. The film also received a 5 star review from allmovie. In August of 1967, a NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
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.
Home media
Dont Look Back has been available on DVD for several years. It was digitally-remastered and re-released on DVD February 27, 2007. 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 alternate version on 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 Revisited65 Revisited
65 Revisited is a 2007 American documentary film by D. A. Pennebaker, made from footage the director shot for his famous 1967 film, Dont Look Back. Both films show Bob Dylan and entourage during their 1965 concert tour of the U.K...
. The DVD packaging was also given new artwork.
Influences on popular culture
- The band Belle & SebastianBelle & SebastianBelle and Sebastian are an indie pop band formed in Glasgow in January 1996. Belle and Sebastian are often compared with influential indie bands such as The Smiths, as well as classic acts such as Love, Bob Dylan and Nick Drake. The name Belle & Sebastian comes from Belle et Sébastien, a 1965...
reference the movie in their 1996 album If You're Feeling SinisterIf You're Feeling SinisterIf You're Feeling Sinister is the second album by Scottish pop group Belle & Sebastian, released on the independent label Jeepster Records in the United Kingdom and Matador Records in the United States...
during the song "Like Dylan in the Movies" (refrain: "And if they follow you/don't look back/like Dylan in the movies/on your own"). - Jill SobuleJill SobuleJill Sobule is an American singer-songwriter best known for the 1995 single "I Kissed a Girl", and "Supermodel" from the soundtrack of the 1995 film Clueless...
references the movie in her 2000 album Pink PearlPink PearlPink Pearl is the fourth album by American singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, released in 2000. .The record, whose name is both a model of pencil eraser by Eberhard Faber and a slang term for the clitoris, contains the singles "One of These Days" and "Rainy Day Parade".The album includes the satirical...
during the song "Heroes" (lyric: "Dylan was so mean to Donovan in that movie"). - INXSINXSINXS are an Australian rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. Mainstays are Garry Gary Beers on bass guitar, Andrew Farriss on guitar/keyboards, Jon Farriss on drums, Tim Farriss on lead guitar and Kirk Pengilly on guitar/sax...
pay tribute to the opening sequence in their video for "Mediate" from their 1987 album, Kick. - The 1992 satire film Bob RobertsBob RobertsBob Roberts is a 1992 film written and directed by Tim Robbins. It is a satirical mockumentary, chronicling the rise of Bob Roberts, a conservative politician who is a candidate for an upcoming United States Senate election...
includes several scenes that are influenced by the movie, including a clear parody of the opening scene, complete with misspelled words ("Dange", for example). - The opening sequence with Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video is alluded to in a 2008 ESPN commercial with Kenny Mayne.
- The same sequence was also parodied in the video for Weird Al Yankovic's song "Bob"
- The video was also parodied several times on Royal Canadian Air FarceRoyal Canadian Air FarceAir Farce Live, also credited as Air Farce, previously Royal Canadian Air Farce, and Air Farce—Final Flight! for the final season, was a Canadian comedy series starring the comedy troupe The Royal Canadian Air Farce that previously starred in an eponymous radio show on CBC radio from 1973 to 1997...
, where his mumbling would be exaggerated. - The vinyl version of the Waterboys' bootleg of their performance at the Glastonbury Festival is entitled "Don't Look Back."
- In the movie Patti Smith: Dream of LifePatti Smith: Dream of LifePatti Smith: Dream of Life is a 2008 documentary film about Patti Smith directed by Steven Sebring. It was presented at Berlin International Film Festival. The movie won the "Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary" at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and aired on the PBS series P.O.V...
, Patti SmithPatti SmithPatricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
references Dont Look Back, discussing the scene where Dylan hails a taxi. - In the 2007 mockumentaryMockumentaryA mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox StoryWalk Hard: The Dewey Cox StoryWalk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a 2007 music comedy film written and produced by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan, directed by Kasdan and starring John C. Reilly...
, the main character (Dewey Cox) goes through a transitional period in 1966 that heavily resembles Dylan, and Dont Look Back in particular. Most notably during a press conference scene in which a reporter compares Dewey to Dylan. Dewey replies, "Why doesn't anyone ask Bob Dylan why he sounds so much like Dewey Cox?", parodying a press conference in Dont Look Back where Dylan provides a similar response when a reporter compares Dylan to fellow singer-songwriterSinger-songwriterSinger-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
DonovanDonovanDonovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
"Give the anarchist a cigarette" is uttered by Dylan upon learning that he had been pejoratively labeled as an anarchist by various newspapers in 1965. The event is captured in the final scene of the documentary.The phrase has since passed into popular culture in several instances.
- A bootlegBootleg recordingA bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
album of live Bob Dylan songs has been called "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette". - A film has also been given the title Give the Anarchist a Cigarette.
- The phrase has since been used by the anarcho-punkAnarcho-punkAnarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. The term anarcho-punk is sometimes applied exclusively to bands that were part of the original anarcho-punk movement in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
band ChumbawambaChumbawambaChumbawamba is a British musical group who have, over a career spanning nearly three decades, played punk rock, pop-influenced music, world music, and folk music...
for the title of a song on their album AnarchyAnarchy (Chumbawamba album)Anarchy is a 1994 album by anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba. Many of the tracks address specific social problems, such as homophobia, strikes or fascism....
. The song is about Bob Dylan and includes the lyrics, "Give the anarchist a cigarette/ 'Cause that's as close as he's ever going to get/ Bobby just hasn't earned it yet". - It is also the title of the autobiography by Mick FarrenMick FarrenMichael Anthony 'Mick' Farren is an English journalist, author and singer associated with counterculture and the UK Underground.-Music:...
, a musician and anarchist.