criterionforum.org

rspaight wrote:Not to drift too far off-topic (he said as he drifted too far off-topic), but...

The most likely theory I've heard for Dylan not playing guitar live is that he has back problems and it's too uncomfortable to stand around with a guitar for that long.

domino harvey wrote:I'm still waiting on the deadbeat member here who stiffed me on a trade for the old deluxe DVD box, so I guess I'm reluctantly going to buy this. Paint my chicken coop!

FrauBlucher wrote:Beaver

frankiecrisp wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:Beaver

The review says the alternate subterranean homesick blues video is new its been around for years

Roger Ryan wrote:

frankiecrisp wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:Beaver

The review says the alternate subterranean homesick blues video is new its been around for years

I suspect the alternate video is the same one included on the original DVD release of Don't Look Back, so it has indeed been around for years. However, a newly-edited version has just been released on-line to promote the new BOOTLEG TAPES VOL. 12 which features three different audio takes edited together and previously unseen footage of Dylan doing the cue card routine on a rooftop.

But it's the audio restoration that genuinely makes the new DVD/Blu-ray stick out, thanks to a painstaking process that would help correct earlier mixes of the movie, which tended to employ a "fake stereo" set-up that panned the mono tracks. (Listen to the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" opening on previous DVD releases, and you can hear the bass line bouncing back and forth between your speakers.) That meant going back to quarter-inch magnetic master tapes in Pennebaker's vaults — what Criterion audio supervisor Ryan Hullings calls the "holy grail" of Don't Look Back materials. "D.A. had stored them properly since day one, so they were in excellent physical condition," he relates via email. "The problem was that those tapes used a special version of Fairchild Sync, which was only used for a very, very brief time in the mid-Sixties...and modern tape heads can't read it. I looked all over New York for someone who could transfer the audio, so I wouldn't have to ship these priceless materials out of the state, and no one could play them."

Salvation came in the form of Peter Oreckinto, a former Kiss roadie living in Los Angeles who had a reputation for being "an analog film-audio guru." Hullings sent him the masters and crossed his fingers; the West Coast resident then built his own bespoke tape head from scratch that could read the outdated signal. "He sent back an audio sample as a test," the Criterion employee recalled, "with a note that said 'I have no idea whether this will sync up, but give it a shot.' We were floored by how amazing the recordings sounded — and it synced up perfectly with the picture!"

"It actually changes the movie," Hendrickson says, in regards to the restored sound. "Take the Donovan scene: It has always been read as this big takedown, with Dylan taking the guitar and trying to one-up the singer. But now, you can actually hear Donovan ask Dylan to play 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' for him — it changes the intention of the scene entirely. It's not nearly as negative! All of us in the office were watching the movie right after we put the sound track in and we suddenly, Wait...did he just request the song?!? And none of us could remember hearing that before."

FrauBlucher wrote:I picked this up along with Gimme Shelter. Can the 60s ever be repeated for music and their scenes. Just an amazing time for those who experienced it.

Yaanu wrote:A new featurette on the restoration of DONT LOOK BACK, including some new details on the audio restoration:

But it's the audio restoration that genuinely makes the new DVD/Blu-ray stick out, thanks to a painstaking process that would help correct earlier mixes of the movie, which tended to employ a "fake stereo" set-up that panned the mono tracks. (Listen to the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" opening on previous DVD releases, and you can hear the bass line bouncing back and forth between your speakers.) That meant going back to quarter-inch magnetic master tapes in Pennebaker's vaults — what Criterion audio supervisor Ryan Hullings calls the "holy grail" of Don't Look Back materials. "D.A. had stored them properly since day one, so they were in excellent physical condition," he relates via email. "The problem was that those tapes used a special version of Fairchild Sync, which was only used for a very, very brief time in the mid-Sixties...and modern tape heads can't read it. I looked all over New York for someone who could transfer the audio, so I wouldn't have to ship these priceless materials out of the state, and no one could play them."

Salvation came in the form of Peter Oreckinto, a former Kiss roadie living in Los Angeles who had a reputation for being "an analog film-audio guru." Hullings sent him the masters and crossed his fingers; the West Coast resident then built his own bespoke tape head from scratch that could read the outdated signal. "He sent back an audio sample as a test," the Criterion employee recalled, "with a note that said 'I have no idea whether this will sync up, but give it a shot.' We were floored by how amazing the recordings sounded — and it synced up perfectly with the picture!"

"It actually changes the movie," Hendrickson says, in regards to the restored sound. "Take the Donovan scene: It has always been read as this big takedown, with Dylan taking the guitar and trying to one-up the singer. But now, you can actually hear Donovan ask Dylan to play 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' for him — it changes the intention of the scene entirely. It's not nearly as negative! All of us in the office were watching the movie right after we put the sound track in and we suddenly, Wait...did he just request the song?!? And none of us could remember hearing that before."

hearthesilence wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:I picked this up along with Gimme Shelter. Can the 60s ever be repeated for music and their scenes. Just an amazing time for those who experienced it.

Depends on how you frame the question. Given the cultural shift that went on during that decade and the role rock music played in that (how new it was, the connection it had to youth culture, and the economics of the business at the time that made its breadth and diversity possible), I can't imagine it ever being repeated.*

But, at the same time, I see it spun too many times by people blinded by nostalgia that rock music then was so much better than any other time, which is a load of garbage.

* Actually, the alternative explosion of the '90s may have been close, but it was a big bang that faded much more quickly. 1993 was a peak year, but by the next, Kurt Cobain was dead and the political climate took a hard turn to the right.