Don't Look Back | the bob dylan '65 tour documentary
sadi ranson-polizzotti
It always comes back to Bob Dylan. Or it does for me anyway. So why should it be a surprise that again, I wanted to watch the two tour films, Don’t Look Back(1965 tour) and Eat the Document (footage of the 1966 tour).
There is something about Dylan in these early recordings that captures and holds me the way it captured and held so many. Seeing him last summer at Campagnelli Stadium in Massachusetts was to hear the echo of the young man captured in these early films, because despite years, time, and experiences that no doubt had soured Dylan (his divorce from his “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Sara, and more, the death of his mother, which saw Dylan dressing in his now trademark black on black), I still see, and saw on that summer night, the same Bob Dylan who wrote the words that inspired me to want to just live. To suck up life, no matter how good or bad it was, but to simply take life on its own terms, without need to have all the answers. It was Bob Dylan who taught me that it was okay not to know everything. Who said, “Don’t think twice, it’s alright…” words, lyrics from various songs that at different points, I have found immensely comforting and moving in ways that no other musician (or poet) has ever managed for me.To watch Don’t Look Back is to see Dylan the young man; as a hopeful youth, smart and a bit arrogant, but by turns shy and introspective as well. Though still in his early twenties, Dylan is wise beyond his years and also, he is a wise-ass. During an Interview with a British Journalist, Dylan is asked, “What is your message?” Dylan shrugs off the question as if it is absurd as if to say, "What message?" Or, "Don’t be ridiculous."
Dylan knows it’s all about interpretation and even says so. When asked by the same journalist “How do you know they (the fans) understand (the songs)? Dylan says, “Sure”, of course they do, but goes on to add that we all have our “own definitions of words.” We all “have our own self” meaning, the meaning is going to change depending on who is doing the listening, which is absolutely true and rather obvious. We hear what we want to hear, we interpret how we will and Dylan knew and knows this. That he knew it at such a young age is impressive, and while he in part seemed to court the role of folk hero and prophet and helped feed his own myth, in many ways, the image was also largely out of his control. It seemed that people needed a folk hero at the time – someone to help explain all that was going on around them, or at least put what they were feeling into words in some way that would help make sense of the sixties and Dylan did that. Not only did he have so many charms and in his way, the looks to pull this off, but he had raw talent and a voice that the world had not seem the likes of before then.
Like any good poet, he saw what the rest of us saw – same events, same things, but like anyone, he is a conduit – a translator if you will – and depending on who is doing the translating, the story will always vary. There are those among us who have a gift; who are better conduits or decoders. This is what true poetry is about. A great poet is no different from anyone else, except for the fact that s/he is a better decoder of their environment or the human condition or whatever the subject may be.
To prove the point, assign two poets six words (random words). Ask both poets to write a poem using all six words. The poem can be of any length, any style, and about whatever they want, but it must use all six words. You can also play this game with the same rules but instead of six words, provide a first line for the poem or a title. Each poet will write and the results will likely vary astoundingly. The point is, we all see the same six words, to carry the metaphor, but how we use them, how we translate them and put them into our language and incorporate them into our lives, or our way of thinking, will be vastly different from person to person, depending on experience, background, morality or lack thereof, intellect, talent – so many factors.
I recently read that the entire human race shares between 98 and 99% of the same DNA and I wondered, is this true? It seems true enough. Then I read that it was that 1% that made us who we were – that gave us our eyes, our nose, the color of our skin and hair, the way we look, think, smell, even the state of health – all determined by this 1% (and yes, certain environmental factors will come into play, of course, but the fact remains nonetheless.) One percent seems so small. Then I look at Dylan or anyone else I admire greatly and I realize that 1% is everything.
The 65 tour shows an easy-going Dylan. He is by turns cocky, playful, at times, moody, always mercurial, kind, so much so that he invites a gaggle of sixteen year old girls up to his hotel suite (and not for any sordid reason – or none that we see or that seems apparent). Instead, Dylan seems content just chit-chat. Here is Bob Dylan, his guitar slung about his neck, low and casual. He walks about the room, lightly picking at the strings. Talks to the girls, who seem startled (one girl keeps saying, “oh god, pinch me, pinch me!!” that the Bob Dylan is talking to her. (for out-takes of this footage, see the Video section).
This scene is one of the most comfortable moments in this footage. Dylan and the young girls seem like siblings. He acts not like a pervy popstar as so many likely would have, but like a big and protective brother, even taking time to explain why he has written some recent songs that the girls don’t seem to like. He is still his usual playful, impish self, but there isn’t a trace of any nasty mockery here. Dylan seems genuinely willing to answer their questions, giving of his time and his thoughts more than he has or would to any journalist, most of whom he seems to hold in contempt.
Throughout, with various journalists, we see Dylan toying with each – a game of cat and mouse. He is evasive, never or rarely giving direct answers, often turning the tables. It’s the same Dylan we saw with Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes, the first interview Dylan had given in years. That same evasiveness is there – but then, Don’t Look Back shows that in this regard, Dylan hasn’t changed much in his attitude toward interviewers and holds his cards close. Really, who can blame him? Who likes to be poked and prodded and expected to have all the answers or to reveal so much of themselves. .Here are journalists unwilling to answer the same questions when fired back at them – why should Dylan be held to a different standard. Why does his soul, his inner world become public property simply because he is famous? I don’t see this written anywhere in the “rules.”
Fame is not a giving over of your most private self – it should not be the price of fame. A reasonable expectation and loss of privacy seems inevitable, but to give it up happily, willingly as we seem to expect strikes me as sort of absurd. I certainly wouldn’t’ want anyone picking at me in the way I’ve seen journalists pick at and question Dylan. Had it been me in his shoes, no doubt I too would be tempted to toy with, torture, bullshit and otherwise confuse and make-up stories simply to entertain myself. I might become something of a Sphinx as well, and why not.During the 65 tour, Dylan was still singing mostly his acoustic stuff that he had already performed in the U.S. A writer of the book Highway 61 by Continuum-Books (see this section as to more info. on this), himself a Dylan expert, conjectured that during the taping of this Don’t Look Back and the tour, Dylan was clearly tired of these songs by now, and his performance, that of a puppet lifelessly singing the words but lacking the conviction behind them that he had at the outset. Maybe that is true. It certainly seems plausible enough and I’ve heard that even Dylan himself has said this (though I do not know this for a fact) and we all know that the next year showed a markedly changed Bob Dylan – a man who had changed from folkie to a roaring electric, shocking his fans and even losing some along the way, but always gaining others. That said, the Dylan of 65 still seems lighter. He appears to be more cohesive, pulled together, part of the group and at the center. In short, less fragmented. There is Dylan still engaged, involved, conversing, and even when mocking, there is a sense of play that one can’t help but find charming. The 66 tour and resultant footage is markedly different.
Of course, there is the famous scene in Don’t Look Back in which a young “science student” comes to interview Dylan and is toyed to the point of, it seems, almost tears. Dylan deftly turns the interview around, taking any question from the young man (who would later turn out to be one of the founder’s of Chrysalis records, I’m told), and firing them back like missiles. We see Dylan actually interviewing the journalist, making the young man squirm, as if to say, “Here, this is what it feels like.”. True enough, this young journalist appears even to the viewer insecure in his role and lacking in authority. Perhaps Dylan sensed an easy target and a way to pass the time before a show. Or perhaps he simply wanted the rest of us to know what it felt like to be put on the spot and asked such things as “What is your whole attitude toward life, toward people….” and the young man continues, “…toward me.”
Dylan laughs and says simply, “I don’t like them [people].” and about the journalist says, Dylan says “No attitude. I don’t know you." The science student also points out, almost presciently, that "I may be someone worth knowing." Dylan laughs and says, "Aha!" to which the student says, "I may be able to do something for you someday..." He was right. Maybe Dylan went a bit wrong here. It's hard to say with a backward glace, but then, look at what became of this young, bright 'science student' - and perhaps precisely because of this exchange. We can never know.
Dylan’s answer points out what to us now should be obvious. Journalists, like fans, like so many people, have this pre-conceived notion of who Bob Dylan is, and who he was at the time; what he “stood for.” For Dylan, it seems that he keeps reiterating why should we expect himto know the answers to questions that we ourselves cannot answer. Why should Bob Dylan understand his “absolute meaning,” or what he “stands for” when the rest of us aren’t quite sure who we are. It’s enough to piss anyone off.
Yes, one can argue that Dylan set himself up in some ways. He sang (and still sings) with an authority and a conviction that contribute to his role as a man with the answers. He certainly seems to know what he’s talking about. He is able to synthesize things in a way, as noted earlier, express things that leave the rest of us feeling autistic, and perhaps and herein lies the issue and why it should not be any surprise that journalists expect this “prophet” to have all the answers. Did Dylan put himself out there as a prophet though, or did we set him up as one? Was it that he fed into his own myth in order to become a success and in the process, in the doing, convinced the rest of us that he knew more than we did? Dylan keeps telling us in various interviews that he doesn’t know more – that anyway, absolute Truth seems to vary from person to person. How do we reconcile the private Dylan with the on-stage Dylan who appears, convincingly, to have it all figured out? The man who writes such incredible lyrics that bring it all together for us? The fact is, we can’t, and maybe neither can Dylan.
What I remember most from the more recent 60 Minutes – Ed Bradley interview is Dylan saying of that time (the sixties) that “those lyrics” “that music” “came from a place of magic” insinuating, almost, that it was not <i>he</i>, Bob Dylan, who was responsible, but that it was more about circumstance and some greater power over which he personally had no control. That Dylan was merely lucky in the moment, blessed more than the rest of us. That does seem a little too modest – and I’m not sure that I buy it. Surely Dylan must take most if not all of the credit for his incredible work. It didn’t “just happen.” But was he blessed? Absolutely, if we’re speaking of raw talent. Did he also work hard to get from Hibbing, Minnesota to being one of the most successful stars in the world? Absolutely. There are no easy answers here.
But Dylan has struggled with his success throughout his career, both embracing and alternately turning away from it at various moments – both reactions seem perfectly normal. After all, nothing is ever all good or all bad, and Dylan is still just a man, no matter how much we may want him to be our prophet our leader or The One or whatever role he has filled and is filling for us. He has lived and lives a life of such extremes. So then, is it any wonder that he should seem at once both vulnerable and confidant. That Bob Dylan is a full of contradictions should come as no surprise – nor the fact that he remains an absolute enigma.
It all seems so perfectly understandable to me, so perfectly normal, and <i>that</i> is also something Dylan has sought consistently, achieving most during his marriage to Sara (note, this relationship came sometime after this particular tour). It was a marriage in which Dylan lived, for the most part, a quiet and domestic life, settled, with children, and with all of the expected paternal and husbandly feelings and emotions that should come along with that. It was a marriage that under any “normal” circumstance may have lasted a lifetime, but given the demands of the road (and there <i>where</i> demands), and that more, Sara never “liked that side of things”, it seems sadly inevitable that in time, the marriage would succumb and fall victim to the trials and tribulations of a huge success and a life on the road.
While on the road and married, Dylan remained faithful to Sara for many years, though after a certain period of time (about a decade), the enormous stress of such success (the fans constantly seeking him out, problems with neighbors – no fault of the Dylans, but more of too-eager fans – and all of this combined with those things that tempt the rest of human kind and that were, if you’re Bob Dylan, available at any time, was it unreasonable or unrealistic to think that true love would triumph here?
Eventually, Dylan began sleeping with other women (again) while on tour and while still married to Sara, and Sara was not there to help balance things out. Dylan was also more out of control, using hard drugs and drinking more.
To be perfectly honest, it seems unfair for anyone to excuse Dylan’s infidelities (of which there were, apparently, many) by waving a hand and saying his wife was not there to “keep an eye on things” or to police her husband. For one, Sara had the children to deal with and tried hard to give them as normal a life as possible and more, it was her right to not like life on the road. Dylan alone is responsible for the split-second decision between feeling legitimately lonely and sad and trying to resolve his marital problems versus taking a band-aid solution – a brief affair, or quick one-nighter or whatever that would only worsen the situation.
There were men in the band who took Polaroids of the groupies, the young girls, who gathered outside before and after every show. The Polaroids were then passed to Dylan who had “first pick” of the girls. The rest of the girls were distributed to various band members (chosen by their respective Polaroids) or even shared (exchanged like a commodity – hardly people at all, it seems) and the “rejects” – unwanted by Dylan or band members – were given to the roadies and crew.
Is this difficult to imagine of Dylan or is this understandable? Are we surprised or not surprised? Does it change anything – make him a lesser person in any way, diminish those lyrics we’ve long-held close to our hearts? Does it even diminish his love for Sara?
My answer would be a resounding No. That, like anyone, Dylan was and is capable of contradictory feelings and actions. That no matter how much we may want to reduce our own life or that of some other’s to simple black and white, right and wrong, in the final account it is all shades of grey. It is possible to love and to cheat – which is, I think, the worst part and most devastating part of any infidelity. One wants to say or believe, Betray me if you must; devastate me, leave me, but make that a clear and final separation. Love and betrayal should not co-exist in our world, yet they do
That we are capable of such great and spectacular betrayals while still in love (even deeply so) is perhaps most disturbing of all. Love, we want to believe, conquers all. But the truth is, it’s not always so.
It’s a great notion, and one that certainly both Dylan and Sara wanted to believe in and it seems both made great efforts to see their marriage and their through and that, even after a bitter divorce, there remained a real and true depth of feeling – surely a hallmark of true love, if we can quantify or define such a notion. There are greater and lesser loves. There are for us, and surely there are and were for Dylan. Joan Baez may have been okay for the 65 tour and to hang around with and certainly her own profile is rumored to have been of some use to Dylan, but it always strikes me as more of a buddy-buddy relationship; otherwise friends who sometimes fall into bed. Don’t get me wrong; that still counts as an affair, but this type of thing cannot be held up against the love Dylan would feel for Sara. When asked by Baez why he never asked her to marry him, Dylan replied honestly, “I married the woman I love…”
Don’t Look Back is without question one of the most revealing road documentaries of any musician that I have ever seen – and that is likely due to the subject himself. It’s Bob Dylan, how could it <i>not</i> be fascinating. And although my friend (a Dylan expert far more knowledgeable than I, no question) tells me, as noted, that Dylan was largely bored during this tour, I still see that young man full of play and cockiness and hope and conviction and yes, undeniably, an incredible sex appeal that he is both keenly aware of and yet it seems a little uncomfortable with – hanging back a bit, feeling his way into and through this success. Something was happening to Dylan, as Dylan himself notes “I feel like just been through something…” after playing The Royal Albert Hall. He had proven himself. Truly arrived and it seemed clear now that nobody, not even Donovan, whom Dylan joked about (a touch of insecurity perhaps, that retrospectively, seems almost laughable) could remove Dylan from his rightful place at the top. Dylan was here to stay – but the next year’s tour – the 1966 of Europe also shot by Pennebaker but directed by Dylan and entitled Eat the Document would show a changed man, although note that in this film, one of Dylan's best performances, in this reviewers view, is captured on Pennebaker's hand-ground lens specifically for the shot of his live performance at the piano of "Ballad of the Thin Man." (also available on the Video section here on Tant Mieux under this same Dylan section of the site under Video.)
sadi ranson-polizzotti
*Note: Tune back in later this week for more on Dylan and the <b>Eat the Document</b> film that shows the ’66 tour. This article first appeared on Blogcritics
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