Don't Look Back

D.A. Pennebaker allows us as viewers on the outside, perhaps not knowing anything about Dylan, to sit in on intimate moments such as conversations between Dylan and his friends, interviews and composing music on the spot. He does this in such a way that he blends in with the crowd and is part of the party. As an audience member, you almost feel like you’re on the road with Dylan. All the while, Pennebaker’s avant-garde technique is capturing Dylan’s every moment. In the vast majority of scenes, Dylan

When someone is as famous as Bob Dylan, people assume that they know what that person is like. Because of this phenomena, the famous often adopt personas or put up fronts. I felt that there were instances in which Dylan was putting up a front, and acting cynical and jaded. I felt this way because there were also instances in which he seemed to show his true feelings. There is a scene toward the end of the film in which Dylan and others are riding in a car. Dylan reveals his pure emotion, commenting that he felt he had just been "part of something special,” but then quickly changes to his cynical persona when told the press is calling him an anarchist. You can even tell that Dylan has a buzz from the performance just by looking at him. He seems almost gidddy and upbeat for one of the first times and then goes back into trying to maintain the cool “I’m in control” mood. Pennebaker does a prodigious job of showing us Dylan’s personal side in only very brief moments. For example, there is a part just before Dylan is to go onstage and he and Alan Price and a few others are goofing around and playing piano. Dylan just in regular conversation casually asks Price if he’s still playing with The Animals. Price looks down and says, “It happens….ya know,” and tries to nonchalantly brush it off, but we see him biting at his tongue. The moment is almost frozen in time the way Pennebaker shoots it. Pennebaker then gets a marvelous shot of Dylan reflecting sincerely with a kind of uneasy, sympathetic look. The first few times I watched this film, I completely missed that amazing scene and it wasn’t until I heard the commentary that I truly saw what a powerful few seconds that was.

I wouldn't say that we saw the real Bob Dylan, because only Bob knows who Bob is, but perhaps we got a glimpse as to how he would like to be known. While Dylan was finally achieving wide commercial success in England post Beatles, he was also advancing a new genre of music and performers. Dylan was rapidly approaching his peak of success, driven only the love for music and also his attitude. Dylan also played a huge part as a trailblazer on the road to super stardom. D.A. Pennebaker did an exemplary job of being the pioneer filmmaker to venture into this new style of filming. His filming techniques were a radical and drastic new way for the world to look into the lives of others. Pennebaker captured many incredible moments in the life of Bob Dylan during that crazy summer of 1965.

Many of the traits we see watching Dylan from an outside view come off as absolutely arrogant and pretentious, but we are also very quick to forget that this is everyday life for him, being interviewed constantly and being asked the same questions. Dylan is acting much of the time in order to keep himself sane and also so that no one could get close to him or learn too much

Some topics in this essay:
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