Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back

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Summary: It is a classic look at a classic man
Review: Don't look Back gives every rock and roll fan a chance to go inside rock and roll's greatest mind, Bob Dylan. The movie is extremely well directed and the footage is excellent

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Summary: I Had Forgotten How Cool Dylan Was/Is
Review: I got this movie a couple of years ago and for some strange reason (ie, It had been permanently borrowed)I had stopped watching it. So, after I sniped it back, I popped it in the VHS. To my suprise it was still good. Dylan and his group of unruley friends are great to watch. They harass science students, get in drunken arguments, screw with the Press and bicker over harmonicas. It's just a great movie for any Dylan fan to have.

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Summary: "The Shadow Knows"
Review: The standard by which all "rockumentaries" are forever after judged. Not only is the subject the most important artist of this century, the presentation is perfect. No serious student of film or music can ignore this work. It defines brillance.

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Summary: The Greatest Movie About a Pop Star
Review: Don't Look Back is absolutely the greatest movie about a pop star available right now. The director P.A. Pennabaker captures all the excitement and the hard pressure that was on Dylan at the time. The scenes showing Dylan talking with some journalists (especially with a young student) are classics. Everybody who are interested in Bob Dylan or just rock'n'roll must see this movie.

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Summary: Doesn't get much better than this!
Review: This movie is the model movie for all musical documentaries. The close-up look into the tour life of Bob Dylan is so great, you feel that you are in the room with him. The music is excellent. The scene with Dylan and the science student is a classic, and shows the wit of Dylan, that also appears in his music. Pennebaker's work with this film is as good as it gets. I have watched the movie many times over and still love it. It is a great film to add to your video collection.

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Summary: A Must See Classic!!! Dylan at his elusive and intense best
Review: Dylans best moment is when he explodes at the group of friends(?) in his hotel room when he discovers someone has thrown a glass out of the window of the hotel!!! A man of passion!!! END

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Summary: At last we have a definition for cool
Review: DA Pennebaker's unique unobtrusive directorial style has deservedly earned him the nickname 'the eye'. This fly on the wall documentary of Dylan and his motley crew at the height of his fame in 1965, just before his electric conversion later that year,is no holds barred and shows both sides of the mans personality. From the endearing young man talking to the Liverpudlian schoolgirls at the Adelphi Hotel to the sarcastic biting foe of the 'Times' reporter. The performances are second to none, particularly the impromptu party rendition of 'Baby Blue' that was requested by scottish folkie Donovan. This is definitely the standard by which all rock 'n roll documentarys should be judged by. It also gives us the sixties definition of 'cool', Ray bans, leather jacket and endless cigarettes. Bob Dylan was the man who invented the 'rock star' and this film chronicles the birth of that idea. END

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Summary: Candor Found
Review: How you describe yourself within America's popular culture machinery usually secures something we can see but never feel. This said, how can you describe the works of Dylan without the use of all five senses? Here we see him move, hear his voice, perhaps feel his presence, but never come to true terms with him because he never allowed us to and that can just frustrate you to all hell as you through down your thoughts and scream, "But I wanted to KNOW the man!" This answer to "Hard Days Night" is Dylan in England for a few days of candid camera. But if nothing else, it was Dylan's chance to ask his public not to emulate their leaders over their own head. END

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Summary: So good it hurts
Review: This film gives the viewer a candid view of an incredibly talented, precocious, irreverent, and actually quite beautiful young Dylan revealed in wonderful concert and behind-the-scenes footage. After seeing the film I felt that Dylan's legendary arrogance has been perhaps misunderstood -- actually he was pretty humble and engaging with school kids and fellow musicians -- more interested in learning from them than in showing off his own talents. What comes off as arrogance is his almost allergic aversion to simplistic, cliched, or hypocritical concepts imposed upon him by clueless, syncophantic journalists and fans. His trenchant verbal sparring with a reporter from Time magazine, in which he argues that the readers of Time are settling for secondhand drivel and that Time has too much to lose by telling the truth, is one of the most refreshing and amusing interviews I've ever seen. Likewise, one can appreciate his struggle to avoid being pigeonholed as either a political activist or a folk singer; certainly his political sensibilities are profound, but he understandably chaffed at the attempts to turn him into a mouthpiece for any single cause or established movement. His instinctive fight to keep the doors of perception ajar has proven well founded; it is precisely his protean shape-shifting and incessant search for new levels of meaning and musical expression that have made him such a timeless icon. The one sour note in the film was his obviously strained relationship with Joan Baez, not only a brilliant singer in her own right but also a witty mimic and comic, whom he relegates to groupie status and mostly ignores. Given the fact that she invited Dylan to share her stage when he was virtually unknown, one would have expected Dylan to have invited her to sing a song or two. What a waste of talent -- but then, apparently their romantic relationship was in its death throes, so it may be unfair to judge. Ultimately, this film made me sad simply because it shows the sheer brilliance of a person at a moment in time that is now forty years in the past. We can look back, but we do so at the risk of having our hearts broken.

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Summary: Vintage Bob...a classic
Review: It would be impossible for me to say all I wanted about Bob Dylan in a short review, so I will just say I'm a huge fan. Don't Look Back is a classic, a must-have for Dylan fans. This fly-on-the-wall film shows Bob at just 24, ready to turn the music world on its head by "going electric." Dylan is shown doing what he does best (besides writing songs): toying with reporters and would-be interviewers like a cat would toy with a mouse. There is the infamous run-in with the Science Student (my favorite part of the film). Dylan turns every question the poor kid asks around and fires them right back with honed precision, leaving the young Englishman confused and babbling. There is the hilarious part at the end of the film where Dylan insists "I am just as good a singer as Caruso. Have you ever heard me sing? You have to listen closely, but I hit all those notes. And I can hold my breath three times as long, if I wanted to." Dylan is poking fun at himself, but the befuddled reporter doesn't get it. And then there are the intimate, silent shots of Bob on a train, removing his trademark sunglasses and revealing visible exhaustion, reminding those watching of the enormous pressures being placed upon him. Add all this to the concert footage and the classic opening to the film, in which a deadpan-looking Bob is filmed holding cue cards with lyrics to "Subterranean Homesick Blues" printed on them, and you've got a wonderfully entertaining look at one of the world's greatest artists. Included are supporting players like Joan Baez (slightly obnoxious in this film), Donovan, and Bob's manager, Albert Grossman. All Dylan fans, and fans of rock-oriented films, should see Don't Look Back. You won't regret it.