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Film Love presents Bob Dylan in D. A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back Thursday, July 31, 2025 The Plaza Theatre | 7:30 pm Introduced by Andy Ditzler On July 31, 2025, Film Love continues its residency at The Plaza Theatre, Atlanta’s legendary independent cinema house, with the classic Dont Look Back – a groundbreaking, intimate portrait of Bob Dylan. This remarkable film of Dylan’s spring 1965 acoustic tour of England is a landmark work of cinéma vérité documentary and an unusually intimate look at this emblematic American artist at a crucial moment in his career. With mobile sync-sound filming only a recent technological development, D. A. Pennebaker took his camera and sound recorder into cramped backstage spaces, hotel rooms, the back of a car, a tour promoter’s office, and many other previously inaccessible places to capture one fascinating scene after another. Amidst his exhausting pace, Dylan negotiates all manner of incoming attention: clearing his hotel room of troublemakers, contending with the ever-present specter of up-and-coming singer-songwriter Donovan, having a notoriously combative encounter with a hapless Time magazine reporter, and of course performing his epochal songs. The famous opening sequence – Dylan’s own idea of a short film for his song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” – became a template for the music video. Though rejected in its time by distributors and promoted independently by Pennebaker, Dont Look Back was eventually voted one of history’s ten greatest documentary films in a Sight and Sound poll. Both entertaining and hugely influential, it reveals much about fame and integrity, as well as the counterculture as it revolved around Dylan’s visionary art and uniquely charismatic presence. Dont Look Back (D. A. Pennebaker, 1967) 96 min, digital projection The Plaza Theatre 1049 Ponce DeLeon Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30306 | 470-410-1939 www.plazaatlanta.com D. A. PENNEBAKER’S DONT LOOK BACK is a Film Love event. The Film Love series provides access to great but rarely seen films, especially important works unavailable on consumer video. Programs are curated and introduced by Andy Ditzler, and feature lively discussion. Through public screenings and events, Film Love preserves the communal viewing experience, provides space for the discussion of film as art, and explores diverse forms of moving image projection and viewing.
