Plot
The film features Joan Baez, Donovan and Alan Price (who had just left The Animals), Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and his road manager Bob Neuwirth; Marianne Faithfull, John Mayall, Ginger Baker, and Allen Ginsberg may also be glimpsed in the background. The film shows a young Dylan: confident if not arrogant, confrontational and contrary, but also charismatic and charming. Notable scenes include:
- Dylan's extended taunting of Time Magazine's London arts and science correspondent Horace Freeland Judson who was subjected to what he believes to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan.
- Dylan's interrupting Alan Price's backstage performance of "Little Things" to ask Price why he left The Animals.
- Dylan and Baez singing Hank Williams songs in a hotel room, as well as Baez singing the first few verses of "Percy's Song" and "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word" (which was still apparently unfinished at the time, as Baez later tells Dylan, "If you finish it I'll sing it on a record"; she would record it in 1968.)
- Dylan's pre-concert philosophical jousting with a "science student" (Terry Ellis, who later co-founded Chrysalis Records).
- Grossman negotiating with former Bebop Dance band leader and music agent, Tito Burns.
- Dylan singing "Only a Pawn in Their Game" on July 6, 1963 at a Voters' Registration Rally in Greenwood, Mississippi (shot by artist and experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller).
- A selection of songs from Dylan's Royal Albert Hall performance.
- Dylan regaling the room with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" after proclaiming "Hey, that's pretty GOOD, man!" in the middle of Donovan's performance of "To Sing for You".
Dylan's romance with Baez had pretty much run its course by the time of the tour, and the film candidly captures what amounts to their breakup.
The opening scene of the film also served as a kind of music video for Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues", in which the singer displays and discards a series of cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics (including intentional misspellings and puns). Allen Ginsberg makes a cameo appearance during this episode.
Read more about this topic: Dont Look Back
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)