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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 ... Read more

Reviews (59)

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!)

Trying to be hip, and actually being hip in spite of it
There's no doubt this film was an influential piece of cinema verite for subsequent rockumentaries. With little ado, it follows Bob Dylan and his small entourage (including Joan Baez) around England on an acoustic concert tour in the spring of 1965, in delicious black-and-white (mostly with hand-held cameras.) Much of the time we are in cars and hotel rooms, with occasional footage of Bob onstage performing alone with his guitar and harmonica. On a certain level we get a gritty version of the carefree fun of the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" - Bob and friends mostly hang around, seemingly without a care in the world, not appreciating how fleeting is this era of anyone's youth. At the same time, Dylan spends much of his time in pointless debates with journalists and others who are hanging around, keeping up a self-centered patter that I trust would embarrass an older man looking back on his cocky youth. It's argument for the sake of argument. His insouciant bravado has always been maddening; Bob shows little of his true self to the public in interviews and encounters, but then...he goes onstage, and those songs speak directly to our hearts, now as then. It's a weird contrast between the backstage kiss-off artist and the onstage genius. However, snatches of the real Dylan do slip through in this footage too. He seems wary and insecure around peers such as Donovan. Before going onstage at the Royal Albert Hall, the man who has just spent a long time telling a reporter that Time magazine is meaningless stops to carefully check himself in the mirror before going on. After the same concert, he seems genuinely upbeat and glad about the performance. In these and a few other glimpses, we see chinks in the armor of the self-conscious rebel, and behold, there is a human being beneath. No wonder the songs are so good. (The sound quality of the live performances isn't great in this film, but then it probably wasn't in real life in those days either.)

Vintage Bob...a classic
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.

So good it hurts
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.

Bob's an ass, but that's ok.
If that's who wrote the songs, then that's who's supposed to 'star' in the movie. {Roger Ebert had to check his archives to see if he orginally noticed what a jerk Dylan was,(he was happy to find that his current opinion hadn't been contradicted in his 60's review).} The funny thing is, the journalists who
Bob is so rude to were giving him good writeups.(ps,for whatever reason, Amazon 's been post-scripting this review as being for the vhs version, is it, in fact, for the dvd.) ... Read more

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The three-day Woodstock music festival in 1969 was the pivotal event of the 1960s peace movement, and this landmark concert film is the definitive record of that milestone of rock & roll history.It's more than a chronicle of the hippie movement, however; this is a film of genuine historical and social importance, capturing the spirit of America in transition, when the Vietnam War was at its peak and antiwar protest was fully expressed through the liberating music of the time. With a brilliant crew at his disposal (including a young editor named Martin Scorsese), director Michael Wadleigh worked with over 300 hours of footage to create his original 225-minute director's cut, which was cut by 40 minutes for the film's release in 1970. Eight previously edited segments were restored in 1994, and the original director's cut of Woodstock is now the version most commonly available on videotape and DVD.

The film deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and it's still a stunning achievement.Abundant footage taken among the massive crowd ("half a million strong") expresses the human heart of the event, from skinny-dipping hippies to accidental overdoses, to unpredictable weather, midconcert childbirth, and the thoughtful (or just plain rambling) reflections of the festive participants. Then, of course, there is the music--a nonstop parade of rock & roll from the greatest performers of the period, including Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Canned Heat, The Who, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, and many more. Watching this ambitious film, as the saying goes, is the next best thing to being there--it's a time-travel journey to that once-in-a-lifetime event. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (67)

Spectacular account of the event that deffined the era
No words can describe how wonderfully this film has captured the moment in the event which defined the Hippie Movement, which amazed the world by truley and fully living up to its catch phrase: "Three days of peace, love, and music", and which made those who did not attend wonder what they were thinking.
The music, first and foremost, is truley wonderful. Spectacular performances by CSN, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ten Years After, Richie Havens and so many more. I most especially enjoy watching Joe Cocker's rendition of "With A Little Help From My Friends". His voice and the energy which radiates from him as he performs is truley mesmerizing. And of course who could forget Jimi Hendrix famous performance where he tore up his guitar with his captivating version of the National Anthem. I also love Country Joe's performance of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag". A wonderful performance, it truley captivates the peace and love of the event as, toward the end of the song he encourages the audience to stand and sing to end the war...and the majority of the 500,000 or so audience members stand and sing along.
But it's not just the music that make's this film wonderful. The film show's the organization of the event, the building of the stage etc... We meet the people who made the event possible. And when the people begin to enter the site without paying for tickets....and the producers realize how much money they've lost...they shrug it off and say that they don't mind because the event and the people loving eachother and sharing everything is such a beautiful thing...and that the money doesn't matter. Do producers of rock concerts (or producers of anything for that matter) ever say that money doesn't matter these days? It truley shows what a wonderful generation it was. The audience is beautiful as well, everyone being themselves, everyone having a good time and sharing the experience that was the last bang (and what a bang it was) for the Hippie Movement.

3 Days at Yasgur's Farm
The Woodstock Festival was a defining for the counterculture movement. The young hippies showed a nation that they could exist together in a peaceful, communal state. The Woodstock documentary captures the essence of those three days on a farm in upstate New York. We see hippies skinny-dipping, the locals looking around in amazement on the deluge of people who descending on their quiet, little town, kids, cops and others are interviewed and of course we see the music. From Richie Havens' opening things up with "Freedom" to Jimi Hendrix's defining "Star Spangled Banner", we are treated to a 60's rock who's who. Joe Cocker, Santana, CSN&Y, John Sebastian and Sly & The Family Stone particularly standout and we get bonus material not in the original release from The Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and others. Director Michael Wadleigh's film won a deserving Best Documentary Oscar and a young Martin Scorcese was an editor on the film. Some of the acts are woefully dated and long forgotten, but Woodstock is an impressive snapshot of a memorable moment in our history.

A Document of a Feeling
It's inevitable that arguments will take place, as they do in these reviews, about what the meaning of Woodstock really is -- many have evoked peace and anti-vietnam sentiments and a great social movement, while others take a more mocking tone and dismiss it as a kind of upper middle class fantasy camp, a sewing of the oats before beginning corporate life.

Not having been alive in the 60s, I only know what I've read and been told by those older than myself, but I'd guess that the first assessment is a bit idealistic, while the second is unfair, and that the truth is "somewhere in between," to fall back on the cliche.

What the film does successfully document, I gather, is what it felt like to be young and hippie and excited about music and social protest and all the things Woodstock at least appeared, at the time, to represent. The feeling is what's embodied in the filmic techniques, the scenes chosen, and the performances themselves, and this makes Woodstock a successful documentary.

The 60s were many things, and no film could capture all of them. Actually, in spite of the fact that it allows itself to get very much caught up in the excitement, I think the film has its moments of ironic distance and sobering reality, such as the port-a-san scene (particularly the extended shot of the average joe cleaning the things).

For a good counterpoint, I recommend the Isle of Wight festival film, which captures the darker, more selfish side of the hippie generation.

Beautiful and dirty
Although I was a teenager soon after this concert, I somehow never got around to seeing the moving until this year. (I guess concert films don't get screened frequently on terrestrial TV.) So over the years I've become more familiar with the triple LP of the movie and, of course, the many posters the rock stars in heroic poses that dominated the early 1970s -- i.e. the Who's Roger Daltrey, Jimi Hendrix and Ten Years After's Alvin Lee.

Despite the mud and the squalor, this is an extraordinarily beautiful film, with the screen often breaking up into two or three segments. (Note on the closing credits the name of Martin Scorsese on the production team.)

It's well worth contrasting this movie with the DVD of the 1970 Isle of Wight festival. Only a year separates the two concerts, but the late 1960s idealism of Woodstock gets replaced by prototype British vandalism. The Who perform at both concerts, and make an equally good account of themselves. Daltrey's emotional delivery of 'See Me, Feel Me' helps to explain why 'Tommy' became such a phenomenon in America. Hendrix also performed at both, but his meandering solo at Woodstock was not of the highest standard.

The other highlight of the show was Santana, a Latino band only just beginning to establish themselves in California at the time. As others have noted, the drum solo by Mike Shrieve is impressive for one so young. As with the Who, Santana's album sales will have multiplied as a result of their Woodstock performance.

It's interesting how many great acts weren't at Woodstock -- e.g. Joni Mitchell (despite her song about the concert!), the Doors, Bob Dylan or the Stones. The first two clearly realised how important these festivals were in the breaking of artists into markets, and so they appear on the Isle of Wight DVD.

For most of my life, Woodstock has been a set of static images, largely taken from the cover of the album. But as this film reveals, there is so much more imagery than pictures of beautiful women bathing in the lake. Quite apart from all the idealism of passing whisky bottles and reefers around, of sliding in the mud, the film shows the flip side: of people queuing in the mud to phone home, of helicopters rescuing the sick, of helpers cleaning toilets, and of barefoot stragglers looking for a pair of shoes amid a post-concert site that looks more of a wasteland than the trenches of the First World War.

Enjoy it in all its glory and all its grime.

Woodstock
Woodstock was a great documentary. It had everything from split screen to wonderful music. The sound was great. So many bands in only 3days. It was a time where skinny diping and doing Pot and acid was ok and understandable. Police were not filling the jails with people who did drugs and broke laws. They were letting them be free and discover peace. Woodstock is something that will go down in history as a time of love and peace and understanding. In the end it was more then just the music it was the love and the way freedom brought it. ... Read more

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Much of this PBS documentary was filmed on the first federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., when a number of his former associates as well as notable admirers gathered in Atlanta to commemorate his life.The interviews with former President Jimmy Carter, Congressman John Lewis, Bill Cosby, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Joan Baez, and Bishop Desmond Tutu are moving, but they are no match for the oratory of Dr. King himself.Thankfully, In Remembrance of Martin also makes use of a great amount of archival material, which includes news footage of Dr. King in the years when he was rising to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Dr. King is seen being fingerprinted after his arrest during the Montgomery bus boycott, making his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.In addition to being a tribute to Dr. King and his legacy, the inclusion of news films of Klan rallies and violent scenes of police using fire hoses and clubs on peaceful demonstrators makes this video an introduction to the drama and passion of the entire civil rights movement.--Robert J. McNamara ... Read more