D.A. Pennenbaker’s 1965 film, made after Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman approached the director, has gone down in film history as one of the greatest documentaries ever made. It is a grainy, handheld, crackling and lo-fi piece of celluloid genius. To a twenty-first century audience it appears almost embarrassingly intimate. In a world of “reality” film and television it screams in its frankness and utter lack of polish. It charts Bob Dylan’s 1965 concert tour of England and is just as revealing of its host country as it is of its moody protagonist. Both seem touchingly at odds and one of the central themes is the England of 1965 getting to grips with this gravel-voiced, insouciant young man who seems to be finding England just as hard to swallow.
These tensions bubble under the surface and erupt at two points during the film. The first is the famous interview with a stiff-collared music journalist who simply cannot understand Dylan and consequently hammers him with moronic questions in an excruciating fashion. The second is a near-scuffle at a hotel afterparty with folk singer Donovan where Dylan is trying to find a culprit/scapegoat for some glass being thrown.
Throughout the film, Dylan is spindly and sweet and alarmingly young, seeming at times to be just an eager enthusiastic child and at others a menacing and frustrating teenager. His entourage are similarly innocent and naive; with the lovely Joan Baez constantly being filmed eating in the back of the car and absentmindedly humming Dylan songs. There is amazing footage of her singing while he types. The life of tour - of hotels, car rides and endless young fans crowding their car (and at one point jumping onto the car and not letting go) - is not glamorous so much as it’s constant; they never seem to stop and you certainly glean the sense that Dylan was hounded by the press. Everyone seems very concerned with the message of his songs and the seriousness with which they ask him questions at times borders on ridiculous. I particularly enjoyed the shot of a journalist dictating his review down the phone in a cut glass accent that seemed quite at odds with the sentiment of his words; “He is not so much singing as sermonising... the times they are a changing, they are when apoet and not a pop singer fills a hall like this.” A beautiful film, full of nostalgia and revelation, and worth watching for the music alone.