Bob Dylan

"Contains no Bob Dylan songs or performances," reads a disclaimer in tiny but legible print on the bottom of the back cover of the DVD package, and that is an important point, given that the front cover is emblazoned with two photographs of Dylan, whose name is in the largest print in the overall title of this video, which is Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974: Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein. It turns out that the subtitle is particularly important. Feinstein was the official tour photographer on the European leg of Dylan's 1966 world tour (May 5-27) and on Dylan and the Band's 1974 North American tour (January 3-February 14); he also photographed Dylan at the Concert for Bangla Desh (August 1, 1971). It is these photographs that make up a large part of this documentary. Basically, director, producer, editor, and star Joel Gilbert (whose Dylan tribute band, Highway 61 Revisited, provides the Dylan-like background music) made a connection with Feinstein, now living in Woodstock, NY, and, as the film depicts, flew from Los Angeles to New York where he obtained the photographs and extensively interviewed Feinstein. While he was on the East Coast, Gilbert also took the opportunity to visit with some other people who had some connection to Dylan, including Al Aronowitz, the journalist who introduced Dylan to the Beatles; D.A. Pennebaker, who directed one Dylan documentary, Don't Look Back, and shot another, Eat the Document; and A.J. Weberman, the "Dylanologist" famed for going through Dylan's garbage in the early '70s. Gilbert also takes the opportunity of being in Woodstock to visit homes in the area where Dylan used to live as well as the famous "big pink" house where the Band's Music from Big Pink was recorded. (At least, he walks around the outsides of these domiciles.) The result is a bit of a miscellany, as the aging interviewees muse about Dylan, and Gilbert, with the determination of a true fan, tracks down such locations as the site of Dylan's 1966 motorcycle accident, carefully placing a motorcycle on its side, next to a pair of sunglasses. The film is occasionally funny and always appreciative of its absent subject, and Feinstein's photographs are excellent. But the packaging makes it too easy for a buyer to suppose the DVD actually features a singing and playing Bob Dylan when it does not. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide