An Interview with "Don't Look Back" Director D.A. Pennebaker
5:09 PM PST, February 22, 2007
 Before documentaries were cool, they found their audiences in broken down movie houses and college screenings. D.A. Pennebaker started in the early 60s with two films about John F. Kennedy. In 1965, he filmed Bob Dylan on tour that two years later became the touchstone documentary Don't Look Back. He revisits the film four decades later in a DVD set that includes a new film on unused footage. Here's are talk with the director who has made more than three dozen films (often with his wife Chris Hegedus) including "Monterey Pop and The War Room. --Doug, Amazon Screening RoomWhy did you decide to revisit "Don’t Look Back" 40 years later? Not willingly, I'll admit. It was suggested as a good idea for a new release of the DVD, so with some reluctance I started going through footage with my helper editor, Walker Lamond. Once you start something like this it's hard to stop. How daunting was it to tackle all that unused footage? It's not so bad if you have someone helping you who is really tuned into the material, and you start looking for things to show him and talk about. What did you think of Martin Scorsese's doc on Dylan"No Direction Home?" I really liked it. I'm glad that Marty put that together and used some of that fantastic film that's been lying in a box somewhere. And I liked the interviews that Jeff's (Rosen) been doing over the years. It was a new look at what nobody really knew was there. What did you think of Dylan's lastest, "Modern Times?" The marvelous thing about Dylan is he never stops moving.  How has the music-on-film genre changed since 1967?Well that's a big complicated question. I mean in the 60's you watched performers play until someone else started playing better. That changed into nobody gets to watch anything for more than two and a half seconds, the actual amount of time allowed depends on the anxiety of the director as to how fast the average (imagined) audience will turn to rival network, and rival advertising. How do you think the large audiences for documentaries over the last few years have affected the genre? Well, certainly it means the right documentary (but not necessarily the best) will draw big bucks. Talent is always drawn to big bucks. Do you buy DVDs as gifts? If so, which ones? We do buy DVDs as gifts because we have a few films that are being distributed on DVD and we like to help out in that distribution. Especially the ones that aren't doing so well in the market. A little help never goes unpunished. Do you have some DVD recommendations for our customers? Don't forget to look for our latest film release on DVD Al Franken: God Spoke by my partners in filmmaking Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob, which will be out next month in time to accompany Al as he begins his run for the Senate in Minnesota. What's on your nightstand? My glasses and maybe one of our cats. But not far off is the weapon for starting and stopping our CD player.
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