DAVID BIANCULLI

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DON'T LOOK BACK
June 27, 2020  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

 
Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England is chronicled in this 1967 D.A. Pennebaker documentary, which captures all the insanity, and heightened reactions, as Dylan injected electric guitars and a propulsive into his former acoustic folk act. Backed by the musicians who would later call themselves The Band, Dylan is fearless and gleefully confrontational, upping the intensity and volume as some members of his audience boo – with one famously screaming “Judas!” at the former folk balladeer. It’s an amazing backstage look as well, and shows us a fawning Donovan, an out-of-it John Lennon, a smitten Joan Baez, and Dylan excoriating reporters at press conferences and in individual interviews with a rapier wit they seldom comprehended. “You know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” And the documentary starts with Pennebaker’s pioneering “video” for Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” in which Dylan flashes through cue cards of his lyrics as poet Allen Ginsberg loiters in the background. You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows… but you do need to watch this documentary.
 
 
 
 
 
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