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04/01/2005 Eat The Document: must-see film capturing Bob Dylan at his peak
Eat The Document isn't available from your high street music dealer; if you're lucky, you might see an illegal copy on sale in a street market. It was originally commissioned for broadcast on ABC TV, but never transmitted by the network, nor distributed for cinema exhibition. The bootleg DVD version of the film is, nevertheless, a must-see record of Bob Dylan at his creative and performing peak - the 1966 European tour when the conservative folky dullards vainly tried to resist his emergence as the prime musician of the rock era. Eat The Document, which appears to be circulating in several different versions (colour/black and white; and with varying content), demonstrates that Dylan's soaring creativity as a musician isn't matched by his skills in the film medium - either as a director or editor. Viewed as a documentary film, purely on its technical merits, Eat The Document is a mess - it's easy to see why it's rarely seen in public. Much of it resembles the rushes of a home movie project. Variously self-indulgent, disconnected, and over-arty, the documentary scenes eventually manage to evoke an impression of life on the road, but the viewer has to work very hard. Much of the dialogue is barely audible. The nadir of the film is the seemingly endless scene in which Dylan and John Lennon, sitting in the back of a moving limo, and clearly the worse for wear, engage in a duel of massive egos, to little avail. While the long Lennon scene is tedium on stilts, at least it has a clear purpose, unlike the twitchy, recurring inserts - the steam train, the tracking shot of the waddling dog, the archetypical old boozer, the pain-in-the-butt fan outside the Albert Hall, and the Julie Christie lookalike. No, if you're merely a film buff, Eat The Document isn't for you. But if you're a Dylan fan who regards the mid-'60s trilogy of albums as some of the most important art of the twentieth century, you'll be utterly enthralled by this film, shortcomings notwithstanding. Though it's not as well assembled as Don't Look Back, Don Pennebaker's fine feature on the 1965 tour, Eat The Document is the more important film, simply because it has more footage of Dylan's performances, from a more important time. And, unlike the snatches on Don't Look Back, many of Eat The Document's performances run to complete songs, shot variously by cameras on the stage, off the stage and, notably, in dressing rooms and hotels. The setlist is colossal: Tell Me Momma; What Kind Of Friend Is This? I Can't Leave Her Behind; Like A Rolling Stone; I Still Miss Someone; I Don't Believe You; Ballad Of A Thin Man (twice); Baby Let Me Follow You Down; Mr Tambourine Man; On A Rainy Afternoon; It Ain't Me Babe. The performance footage catches Dylan solo; fronting The Hawks - singing, playing guitar, harp, and piano; and jamming, with both Robbie Robertson and Johnny Cash. The second version of Ballad Of A Thin Man, with Dylan on piano, is simply exquisite: it might be the best recording of a Dylan performance ever captured on film - the voice and the intensity have never been surpassed. The dynamics, the vocal control and the diction demonstrate just why Dylan is viewed by many as the premier performance artist to have strutted the world stage. Consistently engaging, richly rewarding, Eat The Document's live footage is pure, prime Dylan. And throughout the film, you have the creative whirlwind - the recurring, iconic image of the little man from the North Country with the Cuban heels, the big hair, the stylish shades, the neatly cut Italian suit, as well as the piercing intellect of the jive-talking smart-ass who just knew that, at this point in history, he was the coolest creature on the planet. For any viewer who hasn't witnessed the artist's palpable charisma at first hand, Eat The Document's handheld camera shots, up close and personal on the main man, will come as a revelation. The existence of different versions of the film suggest that there's more where this came from. And that, someday, Dylan or his heirs will commission a thorough re-edit of all available footage, to make a film which is a fitting testament to a period of raging creativity, which would position him incontrovertibly as one the half dozen greatest artists of the century. Until such a film is released, we'll have to make do with the DVD bootleg of Eat The Document. It's less than perfect, but it's enough to be getting on with. Gerry Smith
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