Though shooting had completed for the film, Dylan's July 1966 motorcycle accident delayed the editing process. Once well enough to work again, Dylan edited the film himself. ABC rejected the film as incomprehensible for a mainstream audience.
It has never been released on home video and prints are rarely screened in theaters. Some footage filmed for Eat the Document was used in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, and 3 song excerpts are special features on the DVD.
Other scenes include Dylan and Robbie Robertson in a Glasgow hotel room writing and working through new songs, most of which remain unreleased and unpublished. Among these songs are "I Can't Leave Her Behind", which was later covered by Stephen Malkmus for the I'm Not There soundtrack. The film also includes a piano duet, backstage in Cardiff, with Johnny Cash performing Cash's "I Still Miss Someone".
Background and post-production
According to Howard Sounes's biography, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, after his motorbike accident in July 1966, Dylan viewed a cut of the material edited by Pennebaker and Bob Neuwirth and thought it was too similar to Dont Look Back.
Despite having no filmmaking training, Dylan decided to re-edit the film himself, assisted by longtime associate Howard Alk and with (uncredited) assistant editor Gordon Quinn, co-founder of Kartemquin Films. Pennebaker stated: "It's not something you learn parking cars in a garage. You gotta know some of the rules and he didn't know any of the rules." Dylan and Alk's cut was eventually shown to ABC television, who promptly rejected it as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience.[1]
Commenting on the film when it was screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in December 1972, New York Times critic Vincent Canby quotes from the program notes written by Howard Alk, describing the reaction of ABC Television as "What city are we in? What's happening?" According to Canby, Alk explains:
"Instead of trying to re-create the 'real' event with a vérité documentary approach, the editors looked for what each shot itself wanted to be. Conversations unheld, events untranspired. Some real music, some not. Murder, villainy, slavery and lust. We hope a real movie. Perhaps even a comedy."[2][3]
Bootleg releases
Eat the Document was never given a theatrical release or made commercially available on VHS or DVD, but unauthorized bootleg copies circulate among Dylan collectors. The bootleg DVD cover photo was taken on the train line between Dublin and Belfast, near Balbriggan.
John Lennon scene
Some bootleg versions of Eat the Document include a longer scene featuring Dylan in a limousine with John Lennon in the early hours of 27 May 1966. As Dylan shows signs of fatigue, and may be impaired by alcohol or drugs, Lennon urges him to get a grip on himself: "Do you suffer from sore eyes, groovy forehead, or curly hair? Take Zimdon!...Come, come, boy, it's only a film. Pull yourself together."[4]
Lennon would later recall in an interview with Rolling Stone that he and Dylan were "both in shades, and both on fucking junk, and all these freaks around us... I was nervous as shit. I was on his territory, that's why I was so nervous."[5][6]
