But when they're away from public places, they're still never more than a hummed note or a strummed string away from a song. Cash talking with Carl Perkins is a lot like Dylan talking music with his friends, and more to the point, music is just everywhere for each of them.īoth films feature extensive concert and studio recordings, which makes sense when you're looking at a musician's life. Wonder what happened to him.īut this seeming night-and-day contrast in the tone of Cash's and Dylan's lives 40 years melts down to nothing as soon as music shows up. The kid sounds more like Dylan than Cash, by the way. Where Dylan's encounters with fans can be showdowns, Cash listens quietly to a kid with a guitar and a harmonica and sets him up with an audition at Columbia Records. He goes hunting, he visits his family, he goes back to his hometown, he coaxes his Dad to sing a song.

If Dylan's world feels like a frenzy, Cash's feels relentlessly calm.

Pennebaker's theme turned out to be chaos, the life of a tightly wound musical genius who aimed for salvation and ended up getting a near-lethal dose.Īlmost all the non-music scenes in 'Don't Look Back' bubble with tension, whether it's confronting angry people in a crowd or turning a routine personal encounter into a one-act drama. Both documentaries were made by young filmmakers - Pennebaker and Robert Elfstrom - who seem to have filmed everything, then figured out a tone and theme.

Bob dylan johnny cash