Product Description

BOB DYLAN: DONT LOOK BACK--65 TOUR DELUXE EDITION is the ultimate look at Bob Dylan's concert tour of England in the spring of 1965--one of the most intimate profiles of an artist ever put to film. This definitive set includes the remastered classic film by D.A. Pennebaker, a brand-new, hour-long look at Dylan, and the original 168-page companion book to the film. More than just a concert film, DONT LOOK BACK is a window into the spirit of the 60s, and one of the poet-musicians whose words and songs defined it.

DISC 1: BOB DYLAN DONT LOOK BACK
This digitally-remastered version of the cinema verite classic follows Dylan on his extraordinary 1965 concert tour of England--his last as an acoustic performer. With unobtrusive equipment and rare access to Dylan, legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker achieved an unprecedented, fly-on-the-wall glimpse of one of music's most influential figures--and redefined filmmaking along the way.

DISC 2: BOB DYLAN 65 REVISITED
Forty years after the release of DONT LOOK BACK, D.A. Pennebaker has created this new work culled from over 20 hours of never-before-seen rare footage from his personal archive of film negatives. Raw and unassuming, '65 REVISITED provides a fresh perspective of the young Dylan on the road during his 1965 English tour.

BONUS - DONT LOOK BACK COMPANION BOOK & FLIPBOOK
Originally published in 1968, the 168-page companion book features a complete transcription of the film, over 200 photos, and a new forward by D.A. Pennebaker. The collectible Subterranean Homesick Blues flipbook provides a frame-by-frame look at the film's famed 'cue-card' sequence, considered by many to be the first contemporary music video.

DVD Features Include:
Five Additional Uncut Audio Tracks; Two Commentaries by D.A. Pennebaker and tour road manager Bob Neuwirth; Alternate Version of the Subterranean Homesick Blues Cue Card Sequence; Original Theatrical Trailer; D.A. Pennebaker Filmography; Bob Dylan Discography; Cast and Crew Biographies

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5938 in DVD
• Brand: NEW VIDEO GROUP
• Released on: 2007-02-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 152 minutes

Features

• Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back - 65 Tour Edition is the ultimate look at Bob Dylan's concert tour of England in the spring of 1965 - one of the most intimate profiles of an artist ever put to film. This definitive set includes the remasteredic film by D.A. Pennebaker, a brand-new, hour-long look at Dylan, and the original 1968 companion book to the film, all housed in an eye-catching, collecti

Amazon.com essential video
Both a classic documentary and a vital pop-cultural artifact, D.A. Pennebaker's portrait of Bob Dylan captures the seminal singer-songwriter on the cusp of his transformation from folk prophet to rock trendsetter. Shot during Dylan's 1965 British concert tour, Don't Look Back employs an edgy vérité style that was, and is, a snug fit with the artist's own consciously rough-hewn persona. Its handheld black-and-white images and often-gritty London backdrops suggest cinematic extensions of the archetypal monochrome portraits that graced Dylan's career-making early-'60s album jackets.

Pennebaker's access to the legendarily private troubadour enables us to witness Dylan's shifting moods as he performs, relaxes with his entourage (including then lover Joan Baez, road manager Bob Neuwirth, and poker-faced manager Albert Grossman), and jousts with other musicians (notably Animals alumnus Alan Price and Scottish folksinger Donovan), fans, and press. It's a measurement of the filmmaker's acuity that the conversations are often as gripping as Dylan's solo performances. Grossman's machinations with British promoters, Baez's hip serenity, a grizzled British journalist's surrender to the fact of Dylan's artistry, and the artist's own taunting dismissal of a clueless sycophant are all absorbing.

With the exception of the studio recording of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," the live performances (including five newly restored, complete audio tracks excised from the original film but included on the DVD version) are constrained by crude audio gear. Their urgency, however, is timeless, as is Pennebaker's film, a legitimate cornerstone for any serious rock video collection. --Sam Sutherland

On the DVD
A second disc with more than an hour's worth of previously unseen footage is the main appeal of this latest reissue of Don't Look Back, D. A. Pennebaker's seminal Bob Dylan documentary--and for Dylan completists, it will likely prove very appealing indeed. Of course, the outtakes come from the same material that comprised the original release, filmed during the artist's 1965 British concert tour. Yet a slightly different Dylan is revealed here. He seems to be "acting" (Pennebaker's word) less; he's less caustic and willfully enigmatic, and considerably more accommodating to and genuine with his fans (which may reveal as much about the filmmaker's previous editing choices as about Dylan himself). Best of all is the inclusion of heretofore unreleased music; we see Dylan fooling around with "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and "I'll Keep It with Mine" on the piano, as well as concert performances of "It Ain't Me, Babe," "If You Gotta Go," "To Ramona," and others. Entitled Bob Dylan 65 Revisited, the disc is bolstered by commentary by Pennebaker and then-road manager Bob Neuwirth.

First released on DVD in 2000, Don't Look Back itself remains an interesting if somewhat self-conscious look at Dylan in the midst of his final all-acoustic tour (when the film was released in '67, he had already, and controversially, plugged in his Fender Stratocaster). His adversarial relationship with the press, fueled both by their often-moronic questions and his deliberate self-mythologizing, his interactions with then-paramour Joan Baez, Donovan (Dylan actually seems less scornful of the folk singer than wary of him), and others, implacable manager Albert Grossman's business dealings, and all the rest of the material prove no less fascinating than was the case four decades ago. This Deluxe Edition includes not only a Pennebaker-Neuwirth commentary track, discographies, and such, but also a book containing a complete transcription of the film and an entertaining frame-by-frame flipbook of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" cue card sequence (two alternate versions of the sequence are contained in the set, neither nearly as good as the official one). --Sam Graham

Review
The first and best pop documentary of its kind... a masterpiece of all-access portraiture. --Rolling Stone

Customer Reviews

The Mystery Behind the Enigma
Don't Look Back is the best documentary about a musician on tour that I've ever seen. I can't say enough good things about it, and it is all I can do to imagine how D. A. Pennebaker simultaneously made himself so ubiquitous and so unnoticed as to capture the remarkable footage that he got on Dylan's British tour. From the incredible sequence of Joan Baez warbling the then-unreleased "Percy's Song" even as Dylan is pounding out the lyrics on his typewriter, to the revealing moments where Dylan manager Albert Grossman quite literally strong-arms the BBC into a high-paying deal for a tv appearance, to Dylan himself, at the most accessible he would ever be in his long career, alternately jousting and jesting with the British press, most of whom seem completely ignorant as to which is the jest and which is the joust. Dylan again, talking with a fan who doesn't like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" because "it just doesn't sound like you," (which was the whole point of the song), and Dylan's gritted-teeth reply: "Oh, I see what kind of person you are right away." Dylan yet again, in an astonishingly unguarded moment, bawling out everyone in his hotel room over a wineglass Alan Price dropped out of the window, acting like the only responsible adult in a kindergarten class...and when a drunken Price admits the deed, Dylan lets him have it with both barrels and finally kicks him out, despite Price having been Dylan's best friend in England throughout the entire film. In fact, a lot of this movie is about Dylan shedding elements of his persona, entourage, and his music. Bringing it All Back Home had just been released when Don't Look Back was being filmed, and the album served as a harbinger of the rock and roll shift Dylan's music was about to take. It's far more noticeable in hindsight, of course, but in this film you see Dylan breaking his ties with his folkie past. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" being shown right up front is a dead giveaway, but you may miss some of the more subtle signs: His growing disenchantment with being pegged as a folkie, evidenced by both the abovementioned reaction to his fans and his jests/jousts with the press, both harbingers of the surreal "anti-interviews" Dylan would give over the next few years. Then there is the slow disintegration of his relationship with Baez -- there is a moment about midway or 2/3 of the way through Don't Look Back where Joan walks out of Dylan's hotel room...and though she appears later in the film through the judicious use of editing, Baez has since admitted that that was the moment she walked out of Dylan's life. Another folk-music tie broken, as much by Dylan as by Baez (his near-indifference to her through much of the film is chilling...). There is also Dylan's discomfort with the "Donovan issue", both in being compared to Donovan and in meeting the guy. You can see the uncertainty all over Bob's face during this sequence, and the nicer he tries to be to Donovan -- who quite honestly sholdn't even be in the same room with Dylan -- the funnier the whole thing gets. Then there is Dylan's meeting with the President of Dylan's British fan club -- the bespectacled weedy fellow who looks like he just stepped whole and breathing out of the nightclub scene in A Hard Day's Night. Dylan's conversation with this guy is polite on the surface, but again, there are undertones of discomfort, even dislike, so palpable that they make you want to cringe. Dylan is so clearly disenchanted with some aspects of his career, even though he puts on a game face and acts satisfied with what he's doing, that it's a wonder he didn't completely telegraph his shift to electric music. (Actually, he did -- it's just that most people were too blind to see it coming at the time.)

As I said above, the footage in this film is incredibly revealing. Never again would Dylan be so accessible, so honest and forthright, as he was in Don't Look Back -- and even here, as I've said, you can sense his withdrawal from that accessibility begin. How Pennebaker managed to capture all this intense, remarkable, human footage of Dylan and co., without his subjects noticing or caring about how they came across, is beyond me. Few music documentaries, before or since, have had such verve, or such nerve, as to show their subjects in such a potentially-unflattering light (the only two I can think of that come anywhere close are Gimme Shelter, the Maysles Brothers' astonishing Stones/Altamont document, and Let It Be, the Beatles' on-film disintegration (and final live performance) which stupidly remains out of print). Don't Look Back does all that and more, never cheating, never prevaricating or retreating, always telling the truth. It was a rare achievement for its time, and a film that could never be made today.

(FINAL NOTE: All right, Messrs. Dylan and Pennebaker -- now that Don't Look Back has been remastered and rereleased, how about doing the same with the long-missing and much-missed 1966 followup, Eat the Document? It's no less raw, revealing, and astonishing than its predecessor, and is richly deserving of a rerelease. Here's hoping!)

Don't look ... listen!
The best thing about the DVD version of "Don't Look Back" is the commentary. It puts a lot of things into perspective. But be aware that this is no restored film. The flaws, such as cracks in the negative, are made even more visible by the clarity of DVD. And read carefully: The full-length versions of the songs from the 1965 British tour are presented here in "audio" only. The fact that there isn't a single completed song in the film has always been a sore spot with me, but the filmmaker talks about that on the commentary. All in all, a look at Bob Dylan back in '65 is worth the time to any music fan. And this is currently the best way to view it, despite the few flaws.

The Calm Before The Storm: UK Tour 1965
This black and white film portrays Dylan's last acoustic tour in such an intimate and natural way that the viewer gets the impression of participating in its gradual unfolding. Shot by DA Pennebaker as cinema verite', the innovative techniques used in the film appropriately mirror the innovation that was taking place in popular music at the time, spearheaded primarily by Bob Dylan. The viewer, like a fly on the wall, gets to see Dylan in different settings and situations: moments of tension backstage, hanging out with the likes of Alan Price, Donovan, John Mayall and Marianne Faithful, giving interviews, singing old Hank Williams songs in hotel rooms with Joan Baez, on stage in theatres across England, fooling about with Bob Neuwirth. It's all there.....and more!
Apart from the original film, the DVD offers the viewer the unique opportunity of seeing the film (again!) with an ongoing commentary by Pennebaker and Neuwirth themselves, who shed light into what went into nearly every scene.
Besides, the DVD also includes 5 previously unreleased audio tracks (crystal clear quality) recorded in various locations in England during that same tour.
A fascinating and revealing experience not only for the diehard Dylan fan.