“I Really Didn’t Know Bob Dylan. I Didn’t Know Who He Was.”

dylan

D.A. Pennebaker interviewed about his landmark 1966 Bob Dylan doc, Don’t Look Back, by the legendary music and culture journo Greil Marcus.

From a 1967 Life magazine review of the movie:

Technically, Don’t Look Back is not much above a home movie. Pennebaker uses available light and his sound pick-up equipment seems to be immersed in potato salad, which loses him a lot of dialogue. But Dylan emerges as a human being. He checks himself in the mirror a couple of times, puncturing forever the theory that he is groomed by a Waring blender. He loses his temper. He reads articles about Bob Dylan and giggles. Fans pursue him, a drunk incites him to violent cursing, friends relax him, a pre-concert wait creates tension. He is alone early on stage (the tour antedated the electric accompaniment he uses today), where his voice and soulful images have the power and the beauty to transfix an audience of thousands.•

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