Dylan and Lennon: Documentary Questions

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After recently going back and forth with a source, I was thinking about ethics and documentary filmmaking. That's always been a healthy debate within the documentary community. For example, whether to pay sources, let participants see rough cuts, and lately about using AI to generate visuals and voice-overs.

My situation is more old-school.

I’m finishing a film about corrupt Los Angeles attorney Tom Girardi who stole millions from clients and lenders. He famously won a settlement against PG&E for over $300 million and thereafter became known as the “Erin Brockovich” attorney because Peter Coyote played him in that movie.

In an earlier post I nick-named this source “M”.

He's a case runner trying to collect a million dollars in commissions which he says Girardi owes him. M signed up clients in Indonesia for Girardi's law firm — families who lost loved ones on the 2018 Lion Air crash. They settled for a lot of money with Boeing, Girardi being their attorney.

A bankruptcy trustee who was appointed by a judge is handling Girardi’s assets. She decides who among the creditors gets paid from any money she claws back from the sale of assets, such as Girardi's two office buildings, two private jets, and his mansion in Pasadena.

When I spoke to M he told me his claim was going nowhere.

A few years ago, the trustee filed a lawsuit against Erika Girardi, Tom’s wife, a star of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, to recover millions the Girardi law firm loaned her under cloudy circumstances.

An attorney with deep pockets recently stepped up who thought he could get more money than the trustee could obtain if she settles with Erika. So, he bought the case for $2 million.

Attorneys sell lawsuits when they see that off-loading a losing case is smart. Or they buy a lawsuit they expect will bring a big payday.

Kind of like judicial options trading.

I thought I should let my source know the trustee had just come into some cash. Now might be a good time for M to ring her up.

But, I thought, would this be ethical?

Is it cool for me to provide him with this kind of information? I’d be using this to build trust and help persuade him to go on camera. Not paying him, but close.

I was mulling this over when a story in the New York Times (gift article) caught my eye: Dylan and Lennon Go for a Ride

Then the subhead: A film scene at a low moment in 1966 has held a grim fascination for their fans.

Film, Dylan, 1966.

This must be Don’t Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker’s black-and-white verité documentary that he filmed in London right after Dylan went electric. (A must-see, if you haven’t.)

The story in the Times is a bit over-cooked. But here’s the heart of the matter:

At daybreak, they were dressed sharp for their debut as co-stars — Lennon in a blazer over a turtleneck, Bob in a dark jacket and stiff-collared shirt. As they rode in the back of an Austin Princess limousine, the filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker trained his lens on them from the passenger seat. Lennon was stiff. Dylan was jittery.

A brief bit of this scene wound up in Pennebaker's film, Eat the Document, which you can watch in full here.

How did that moment happen?

Even though they were friends Dylan had an axe to grind with Lennon about the Beatle supposedly copying his songwriting style.

Lennon and his fellow Beatles had spent a lot of time at Dylan’s suite in recent weeks. They avoided the film crew as they smoked pot with their host and listened to tracks from “Revolver” and Dylan’s soon-to-be-released album, “Blonde on Blonde.” On this night at the May Fair, however, Lennon said yes, albeit reluctantly, when Dylan asked him to appear in a scene. (emphasis mine)

“He said, ‘I want you to be in this film,’” Lennon recalled. “And I thought: Why? What? He’s going to put me down!”

Dylan wanted to get Lennon on-camera to memorialize his beef with him.

Lennon was rightfully worried he'd be a target of a classic Dylan “put-down”. You can see what that's like in Don’t Look Back when Dylan did a number on an unsuspecting Time Magazine reporter.

So, here’s the question. Did Pennebaker, as the film's director, know his main character, Bob Dylan, was using him and the film to work out a personal vendetta?

After all, Lennon had been avoiding the camera. And said he was leery of Dylan.

A documentary filmmaker in that situation would surely be aware of those dynamics, especially if it involved the Beatles!

I’ve not had that kind of thing happen while shooting a film — a participant using my film to get back at someone. At least as far as I know.

Every source has a rationale and motive for going public, of course. If it’s not articulated or obvious, I don’t make a big effort to find out.

Maybe Pennebaker thought, no big deal, if it doesn’t harm my film, let Dylan make it happen.

What I wish he'd said was, "Bob – tell me on camera why you orchestrated that scene?"

The Times article says Lennon and Dylan shot heroin that night. And got into the limo completely stoned. Though Lennon later denied it.

Regardless, as filming continued in the car, Dylan got nauseous and quite sick.

Here is the entire limo scene, uncut as far as I can tell.

There is a break in the middle when Pennebaker had to change film magazines. A 16mm film roll lasts ten minutes. It looks like Dylan's road manager, Bobby Neuwirth, is sitting next to Pennebaker, holding the boom mic. But I could be mistaken. The audio goes silent a few minutes before the end. I have to suspect the tape rolled out and Neuwirth didn't notice or know how to change it.

Pennebaker turned off the camera, and Lennon helped him haul Dylan from the limo to his hotel room. They laid him on the bed. He looked “dead,” according to Pennebaker.

Why the did he turn off the camera!

Neuwirth or the driver could have stepped in to be the caregiver. Verite filmmakers like Pennebaker don't usually turn off the camera in such a moment. Unless it was to literally save someone's life.

As for M, I did tip him off about the bankruptcy trustee possibly having some money for him.

He texted me later: “I emailed her last week, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”