Here’s how film critic Roger Ebert starts out his 1998 review of Don't Look Back: “What a jerk Bob Dylan was in 1965. What an immature, self-important, inflated, cruel, shallow little creature, lacking in empathy and contemptuous of anyone who was not himself or his lackey. Did we actually once take this twirp (sic) as our folk god?”
Now here’s a quote from a 1967 Newsweek review: “Don't 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."
I believe the Newsweek reviewer was talking about people like Roger Ebert, a journalist who in his 1967 review complained when Dylan taunted and teased reporters who deserved what they got. Of course, it would behoove any person who thinks like the Newsweek critic to watch the Don't Look Back Deluxe Edition DVD extra, 65 Revisited. Watching an hour's worth of clips edited out of the original film, scenes of Dylan shopping and enjoying his status as an idol, lie in contrast to what we see in Don't Look Back.
You can’t blame director D.A. Pennebaker for his artistic editing. When he followed Dylan, Joan Baez, and the rest of Dylan’s gang on the 1965 British tour, he produced the intimate portrait of a young, deservingly arrogant artist dealing with fame. Had the "folk god" been seen as a bit of a prima donna, asking for pink ties to match his shirt, the film wouldn’t have made me want to exist in Dylan’s world. It also wouldn’t have made the film the cinematic milestone it is today.
It’s not overstating it, to call the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video at the beginning of Don't Look Back iconic. It’s an often imitated cultural landmark, one that exists only if you see Dylan as an anti-pop star.
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
I'm going to be writing my own review of this sometime this week, but wanted to make one comment addressed in yours. That alternate take on the video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is worth the price of this box all by itself. It's shot in what looks like a park (as opposed to the back-alley look of the version we all so well). But what is freaking hilarious about it is Ginsberg changing his clothes all the while in the background. Don't ask me why, but I find that to be absolutely priceless.
Anyway, good review. It really is a great repackaging job isn't it?
-Glen
2 - bella cohen
I saw "Don't Look Back" on VHS when I was in college and that was a life-affirming event that made me want to immerse myself in Dylan's world; this review is absolutely right on in commenting on the essence of Dylan's persona lying not in his jerkiness (which is a characteristic available to everyone, especially at age 23, especially in the context of sudden and crushing fame) but in his artistry (which is unique to Dylan himself). I think famous people really do pay a price for their fame, primarily the fact that they remain in a state of arrested development from the time they become famous; witness Dylan casting himself as a prodigal son in the (underrated) film "Masked & Anonymous," at age 62! And think, more devastatingly, about how old Michael Jackson was when he became famous....
Still, "Don't Look Back" is a great, great film and I can't wait to purchase it and see it on DVD. Despite the title, it actually achieves something otherwise impossible in the life I live today: it actually makes me nostalgic again for my time in college. "But I was so much older then..." yada yada yada!!!