To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back  

 

 

 

 

 

DVD Review

 Don’t Look Back, starring Bob Dylan and others from the faded 1960s folk minute, directed by D.A. Pennebaker, 1967  

 

Long before Bob Dylan began his seemingly endless touring and the equally endless production of bootleg material now numbering twelve units with the recent latest outpouring he could be seen warts and all on a very good documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, 1967s Don’t Look Back (that “don’t look back” good advice for everybody and advice which Dylan has taken with a vengeance). The specific subject matter here is his famous 1965 tour of England at just that point where he was attempting to finally break out of the acoustic folkie guitar syndrome and become what he probably always wanted to be, a rocker. (And getting booed from at the concert hall by folkie purists who wanted their version of Bob Dylan, the protest guy, but he unfazed just kept bopping that electric guitar.)

The thread that unites old and young Dylan is that brashness and distain for glitter and more importantly that serious distance that he placed between himself, the press and other media (there is great footage of him pulling the hammer down on some austere music critic who wanted to box him in with all kinds of silly questions-to which he promptly gave very silly answers-touche) and his fans and just go about the business of being an entertainer. This is a man who has bid the “voice of his generation” business goodbye by then although not everybody got the message (maybe because he didn’t post it in Variety or some such publication) and between his electric guitar, his motorcycle accident and his seclusion for several years down in Woodstock he went out of the public limelight except through some of the greatest songs of his prolific career.    

So this documentary is a very welcome backdrop to the iconic career of Mr. Dylan (although I note that word “iconic” is well-worn out by now by a media blitz usage which has everything more than three minutes old vying for icon status). A film though that leaves one still wondering about the enigmatic Mr. Dylan (“enigmatic” my choice to replace iconic as the flavor of the month), leaves me wondering about where he was heading. We know now because he has said so if for no other reason but also because he has those ten million far-flung concerts in venues from converted bowling alleys to large concert halls that he saw himself as a troubadour, as an entertainer. And while he now seems moodier and less engaged back then you could practically touch the charisma coming off the stage when he was on his game.      

Of course the trials and tribulations of Bob Dylan are not the only items on display here. We get to see the look of a performer when he or she is backstage or back at the endless hotel rooms. How Dylan practiced and how he wrote lyrics when they just jumped from the typewriter. Got to see him interact with other performers like the up and coming Donovan and the already established Joan Baez (whom he was barely interacting with at that point as they were drifting in different directions, or rather he was drifting in whatever direction he was drifting in). The most revealing information though was a scene in which he was singing along with Baez and Bob Neuwirth some Hank Williams stuff. Amazing. We now know after over fifty years of songs, original and covers, that Mr. Dylan is deeply immersed in the American songbook from Woody Guthrie to Frank Sinatra but who knew then how much he esteemed all those influences. If you are a baby-boomer see this one now to prove that when we were very young back then we were in very heaven and for those younger to know what it was like when men and women played folk/folk rock/rock music for keeps.