The film-maker who showed another side of Bob Dylan
The documentary-maker D.A. Pennebaker, who has died aged 94, was a pioneering force. Best known for his groundbreaking film Don’t Look Back, which followed Bob Dylan on his 1965 UK tour, he had a habit of capturing pivotal moments in the history of both music and politics, said The Guardian. He filmed the 1960 Democratic presidential primary that led to John F. Kennedy’s nomination ( Primary); he shot Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival ( Monterey Pop); and he filmed intimate portraits of artists from David Bowie to Jane Fonda. The opening sequence of Don’t Look Back, in which Dylan flips through flashcards with the lyrics of
Subterranean Homesick Blues, is seen as the first modern music video. Pennebaker was also one of the first people to develop a portable camera that recorded sounds synchronised with images – revolutionary for documentaries, which had until then been carefully curated and voiced-over. Time and again, Pennebaker captured “lightning in a bottle of his own invention”.
Donn Alan Pennebaker was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1925, to John-Paul Pennebaker, a commercial photographer, and Lucille Levick. He studied engineering at Yale, graduating in 1947 after serving in the US navy. He founded a company, Electronics Engineering, which created the first computerised airline reservation system – but his life took a sharp turn when he
was shown a short film by a friend. “In about 15 minutes I saw right away that film-making was what I was going to do for the rest of my life,” he said. Pennebaker sold his company to make his
first short film, Daybreak Express, set to the titular Duke Ellington track and showing the sunrise from New York’s elevated subway.
Following Primary and Don’t Look Back – “regularly cited as one of the best documentaries ever made” – Pennebaker met Chris Hegedus, who became his co-creator and third wife (he was twice divorced). Together they made the Oscarnominated The War Room (1993), filmed on Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign and novel in its focus not on the politician, but on the spin doctors behind him, said The New York Times. Pennebaker’s skill was in subtly contrasting the public and private personas of his stars. Between clips of his performances in Don’t
Look Back, Dylan “antagonises the press, outruns mobs of fans, and loudly types over the voice of Joan Baez while she sings in a hotel room”. Pennebaker knew the importance of “making the camera the least important thing in the room”. Doing away with large crews and elaborate lighting, his footage was rough; he rarely looked through the viewfinder, often leaving the camera on a table, on his lap, or even on the floor. He said there was plenty of luck involved in making documentaries. But “it’s like playing blackjack in Vegas – you assume you’ll be lucky or you wouldn’t do it at all”. He is survived by Hegedus, and his eight children.