The Bob Dylan documentary he calls a “propaganda movie”
Music documentaries are a difficult thing to perfect; what can often start as an earnest attempt to give a peek behind the curtain of our favourite artists, can often turn out to be inaccurate, contrarian, boring, or all of the above. In the modern day, the vast majority of music documentaries are composed of various old men talking to cameras in front of racks of vinyl records. It is a far cry from the gonzo-esque fly-on-the-wall documentaries of the 1960s, but then some people were openly critical of that style, too. Bob Dylan, for instance, was not particularly happy with the results of his own documentary, Don’t Look Back.
Directed by D. A. Pennebaker, Don’t Look Back follows the exploits of Bob Dylan during his 1965 tour of the United Kingdom. The film offers a stunning insight into the day-to-day life of the folk hero while on tour, interacting with fans and fellow musicians alike. Pennebaker managed to capture Dylan at a pivotal moment in his musical development, documenting his music only months before the songwriter famously ‘went electric’ at Newport Folk Festival only months after filming on the documentary ceased.
Even the heretics that have not yet been converted to the cult of Bob Dylan can only stand in muted wonder at Don’t Look Back; it is a wonderfully honest, well constructed documentary which has since acted as a blueprint for countless other films. Nevertheless, Dylan himself was not best pleased with the final results of Pennebaker’s film.
Speaking to Playboy in 1978, the songwriter rallied against the documentary, complaining about his lack of input into the final product. “Don’t Look Back was somebody else’s movie,” he shared, “It was a deal worked out with a film company, but I didn’t really play any part in it”.
What Dylan seems to be missing, there, is that his lack of involvement in the edit is a large part of what makes Don’t Look Back so great. There are parts of the film that do not reflect particularly well on Dylan, and that is the kind of honesty and insight that is missing from the vast majority of music documentaries. The scenes in which Dylan is shouting at fans or those around him, getting frustrated with the breaking of glass, show a side of the songwriter that is not often evident upon listening to his discography.
“When I saw it in a moviehouse,” Dylan continued, taking issue with how the editing of the film had presented the songwriter, “I was shocked at what had been done. I didn’t find out until later that the camera had been on me all the time. That movie was done by a man who took it all out of context. It was documented from his personal point of view. The movie was dishonest, it was a propaganda movie”.
In contrast to the thoughts of most of the film’s viewership, Dylan did not think that his portrayal in the film was particularly interesting or accurate at all. “I don’t think it was accurate at all in terms of showing my formative years,” he attested, “It showed only one side. He made it seem like I wasn’t doing anything but living in hotel rooms, playing the typewriter and holding press conferences for journalists. All that is true, you know. […] But it’s one-sided”.
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