Don't Look Back

There are many words that we associate with Bob Dylan, but one of the primary ones is "enigma." And that's part of why "Dont Look Back," the D.A. Pennebaker-directed documentary recorded during the 23-year-old Dylan's 1965 tour of England, remains such a beguiling subject. We're granted unprecedented access to the artist at rest and at work -- the type that no filmmaker would ever receive today, much less with final cut privileges. But access is not tantamount to insight, especially with someone as brazenly repellent as Bob Dylan. We see all sorts of other stars (Joan Baez, Donovan, Allen Ginsberg) who fail to break him out of his walled-off persona. By film's end, we may be further away from him than before.

What you realize, while you're watching this seminal rock-doc, is that we don't need to "know" Dylan at all. Better yet that we just get to watch him work. Pennebaker's cameras capture exactly that: His last acoustic performances during the time period, along with the daily-grind stuff like interviews and glad handing. This is not a "concert film," but it's a distant cousin to that genre-call it a "tour movie."

Criterion's Blu-ray release of Pennebaker's picture is a trove for Dylan fans -- if you qualify for that group, then this indeed earns the phrase "must-own." There are hours upon hours of extra features included alongside the feature film, starting with an audio commentary (recorded in 1999) featuring the director alongside Dylan tour manager Bob Neuwirth. A number of other features focus on the filmmaker, as well: There are three short films by the filmmaker produced prior to "Dont Look Back" (including "Lambert & Co." and "Daybreak Express," two works noted for exhibiting an experimentally-minded evolution in Pennebaker's style), a newly-recorded interview with Pennebaker and Neuwirth, and footage of a conversation held between the director and music critic Greil Marcus.

Also included are two shorter films that are comprised of outtakes and other odd ends from the production of "Dont Look Back." Those would be "65 Revisited" (which was produced in 2006 for another release) and "Snapshots from the Tour" (which features a number of never-before-scene deleted sequences from the original film). That leads us into the Dylan-focused section of the special features. There's an audio recording of the artist being interviewed for the Martin Scorsese-directed documentary "No Direction Home" (with outtakes from "Dont Look Back" filling up the screen as Dylan speaks), as well as an alternate edit of the film's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" sequence. Also included are five audio recordings of Dylan performances taken from the 1965 tour, none of which were included in the original film. The disc rounds out with a few odd ends of its own: There's an interview with Patti Smith about the influence of Dylan and the film, a theatrical trailer, and a short documentary about Pennebaker's aesthetic evolution.

You could spend an entire day watching this disc, without ever getting to the film itself. But when you do, it looks new. Or, better yet, it looks the way it might have looked 50 years ago, back when it was "new." Pennebaker supervised this restoration and transfer of the film himself, and the results are faithful to his chosen format (16mm) and shooting style (which emphasized naturalism). The film has a look that fluctuates throughout the running time-sometimes too bright, sometimes too dim -- and every scene feels as though it were rendered in a separate shade of gray. Beyond that palette, though, the high resolution of the transfer is clear: Each image and composition has the fine detail of a master's sketchbook. The transfer is a triumph.

As outlined in a recent Rolling Stone article, the original quarter-inch master tapes containing the audio for the finished film had to be shipped cross-country to the one man capable of building a tape deck to re-record them. Only after that could "Dont Look Back" be restored to its original standard. And even the team who worked on the film were surprised at what they found -- or rather, what they heard. The improvement is such that new lines are entirely audible: An impromptu Dylan performance of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was once thought to be a dig at Donovan, who was sitting nearby. But with the new mix, you hear Donovan requesting the song himself. If the remastered visuals are a triumph, then this new sound mix just might be a miracle.

"Don't Look Back"
Blu-ray
$39.95
Criterion.com