Summer Concert Series: Down from the Mountain (2000)

 The movie, O Brother Where Art Thou (2000) brought a renewed interest in folk and bluegrass music. In fact the music was so important to that movie that a concert film was created based around the performers who did the songs heard there. As strange of an idea as this is, Down From the Mountain works wonderfully.

Despite the presence of D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back (1967), Monterey Pop (1968)) as one of the directors there is little cinematic about this movie. You can close your eyes and simply listen to the music and get pretty much the same out of it. That may sound like a major insult, but when the music is this good one hardly needs anymore. Those who know my taste in music (or anyone who reads my Cowboy Church posts) will hardly be surprised to hear me praise this movie, it is a perfect example of what I listen to when I am not watching movies. Such incredible artists as Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Union Station, The Cox Family, Ralph Stanley, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, John Hartford and The Whites perform here and all of them are at the top of their game. From the perfect voices of Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss, to the incredible lyrics of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, to the incredible musicianship of Ralph Stanley and Union Station, this film gives country, folk and bluegrass fans all they could want from a concert movie and much more.

A pure auditorily treat, even if cinematically it leaves some to be desired. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Summer Concert Series: Don't Look Back (1967)

Few films have changed documentary film-making more than Don't Look Back. There was absolutely nothing like this movie before.This was not a rock and roll musical like the Elvis films or The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. Nor was this a straight forward documentary. Nor was this a concert film. This was something completely new and startling. Something nobody excepted but that inspired many generations of filmmakers yet to come. Others have tried to recapture the magic of this movie but no one has ever succeeded. Even today this film feels just as fresh as it must have in 1967.


 Director D.A. Pennebaker was a one of a kind filmmaker and in many ways this is his masterpiece. This film had none of the polish that one would see in a Hollywood film. This is often a rather cheaply shot and looks it. However this is what makes the movie so powerful. It makes it feel more intimate and real. Any Hollywood polish would only have the effect of diluting the intimacy and rawness of this this movie. This film is not great in spite of it lacking this Hollywood polish, but rather because of this and this would be one of its largest influences on future documentary filmmakers who would make similarly raw and unpolished films.

This is a very intimate film that shows Bob Dylan in a completely honest light. It never holds back on some of the more off-putting parts of Bob's personalty at the time. When given interviews he is cold and distant to the people asking him questions refusing to give one of them a straight answer. This is a well known facet about Dylan, that he never truly lets anyone into his confidence outside of his music. He never cares to discuss any deeper meanings to his songs, instead wanting the music to speak for itself. Still I do feel sorry for some of the poor reporters who simply are trying to do their jobs. Despite this much of his kidding of these reporters is actually very witty and funny. At times one has a feeling that much of this kidding wasn't meant to be malicious but rather Bob just trying to have a little fun with what had become monotonous to him. Still Bob's basically berating of a Times magazine reporter does take on a surprisingly vicious tone and is more than a little difficult to watch because though I often agree with much of what Bob is saying, I also feel very sorry for the poor man and know that I would truly hate to be in his place. However I am grateful that this documentary does not simply supply us with an idolized or Hollywood-like version of Dylan.

My favorite scenes feature a very different intimacy with Bob and these are the moments he spends either in his hotel room or car with his friends. I especially love the moments they spend sharing songs with one another. I love that he spends time in his hotel room simply playing and sharing songs with his friends. His brief covers of Hank Williams songs are a special delight for me being a fan of both singers' music. I was surprised when I first saw this film at how perfectly Bob's voice fits these classic songs. I also love Donovan and Bob's little song contest (Donovan with To Sing For You and Bob with It's All Over Now Baby Blue). I also love the little joking conversations the group has ("give the anarchist a cigarette") and their reactions to various news stories about them. These moments give you a look at Bob Dylan that can not be seen anywhere but this film, making this incredibly valuable to my fellow Dylan fans.

Joan Beaz almost has a too brief presence in this film. Yet she delights completely with her lovely singing and natural charm in front of the camera.
 

Don't Look Back is about Bob Dylan's last tour as an acoustic singer (in 1965). However the film opens up with one of Bob's first real rock and roll songs, Subterranean Homesick Blues. This opening sequence predates the music video, but certainly looks ahead to it. This is the famous scene in which Bob holds up cue-cards that contain lyrics as well as some jokes (humor has always been an important part of Dylan). Director D.A. Pennebaker shot this scene multiple times in different locations. Listening to this and comparing it to the performances of The Times They Are A Changin' and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, it becomes all the more obvious why a song like this truly shocked Dylan fans when it first came out. One has to wonder if him considering this new change in musical styles was why he told a Times reporter that he wasn't a folk singer in this film.

This is a must watch for any Dylan fans and for anyone who wants to watch cinema history as it was being made.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Summer Concert Series: Monterey Pop (1968)

It has often been said that movies from the past are like time capsules. Few however are as much so as so as Monterey Pop. For 78 minutes you feel like you have been transported back to the 60's. What may come as a surprise to some watching this film is to see the huge melting pot of people that attended this festival. While the excepted very hippie looking people are there, there are also Hell's Angles and average everyday people. However once you think about this it could not make more sense. Just like you don't have to be a hillbilly to enjoy country music or a highbrow to like classical music, you don't have to be a hippie to enjoy the music here. The scenes with just the audience are essential to this film's personality as it helps give you the feeling that you are there with them. Little things like a women who says she is cleaning the chairs because she is lucky, audience members in tents and sleeping bags (this was a three day festival) and how much the audience is visually moved by Ravi Shankar's performance, help make this movie more than just a concert film. However while everything feels peaceful in the audience (despite a police offer worrying that something might happen at the movie's beginning), there are some true acts of rebellion on stage. At the end of a loud rocking performance of My Generation, The Who go completely crazy causing much destruction including of their own instruments. Jimi Hendrix during his band's performance of Wild Thing humps a guitar amp and then his guitar itself (in case any of you thought this was a family film). Yet even this is counterbalanced by the rather tame performances of Simon and Garfunkel and The Mamas and the Papas. Just like the audience on stage the performers are just as much a melting pot. The feeling of pure sixties is enhanced by the psychedelic images behind many of the performers.


When I first saw this movie, I was surprised by just how much music there was and how we did not see these performers off stage. The reason I was surprised by that is that I was only familiar with director, D. A. Pennebaker for his Bob Dylan documentary, Don't Look Back (1967) which did not spend much time on stage but a lot of time with Bob off stage. However Pennebaker still gets to show a lot of his groundbreaking film-making style and this is certainly a well directed movie. Also with this great of music you want to listen to it.

While this is not the first concert film, it is the one that made this a popular type of movie for many years. Still compared to later films like Woodstock (1970), Gimme Shelter (1970) or The Last Waltz (1978), this movie can seem a little primitive. The technology used to record this film is far behind the ones used for those later efforts. As such the sound and picture quality feel more like footage for a newsreel instead of for a full blown feature film.

The 78 minute run-time, proves to be much too brief. After watching these talented artists give a great performance of song and want to see more, they leave never to be seen in this movie again. This was a three-day music festival and we wish we weren't missing out on all the great music we did not get to hear. Likewise the scenes with the audience are too brief to have the effect of, say, Gimmie Shelter. Still we feel this way because what we got was so darn good despite being way too brief.

While this may not live up to later concert films, it remains a much watch for anyone interested in 60's pop-culture or music and a darn entertaining movie for others.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Summer Concert Series: 65 Revisited (2006)

I am sure many of my readers are very familiar with the excellent Bob Dylan documentary directed by D.A. Pennebaker, Don't Look Back (1965). Well more was filmed for that great movie than was used in the final film. Much more. Because of Pennebaker released a whole feature film, mostly made of unused footage from Don't Look Back four decades later. If you want to see this film, it does appear as a bonus feature on the Don't Look Back Criterion DVDs and Blu-rays.

The major difference between 65 Revisited and Don't Look Back is that in this film the focus is more on the music. With Don't Look Back Pennebaker explained that he did not want to make a film about Bob Dylan as a musician but rather as who the poet was behind his poetry. Because of this in that film, clips of Bob performing songs were used but rarely whole songs. 65 Revisited lets the songs play from beginning to end, including some we just got clips of in Don't Look Back. These performances show Bob at his best. Not only are the songs he is performing, some of his best songs of the era, but he performs they with such joy. He just looks so comfortable (something rare to see Bob being on camera) on the stage and is putting his full heart and soul into these songs. In Don't Look Back Bob stated that people went to his shows for entertainment not because they were great art. This concert footage could be the perfect argument for that. While the songs he is performing are great works of art, these performances show that he is as great of an entertainer as he is an artist. Dylan fans like myself will eat this footage up as it is truly indispensable. Not all the music is concert footage though. There is plenty of great footage of Bob and Joan Beaz singing songs together for themselves between shows. These songs are just pure fun.

The non-music footage is equally indispensable. Bob gets one of his best wisecracks in this film as he tells a reporter that asks him "Where do you see yourself in the future," "Sleeping." I also love his interactions with some young fans. I especially love some young girls chasing the train Bob is in waving to him. These scenes seem like the opposite of the Bob Dylan we see in Festival (1967), who hides from the crowds. It is just as nice to see this side of Bob.

It is hard to believe a movie comprised of outtakes from another movie could possible be this good. However this is not only a great companion piece to Don't Look Back, but a fantastic film in its own right, that can be considered a work of cinematic art on its own terms.

-Michael J. Ruhland