I'm not a Bob Dylan obsessive - sure, I've listened to most of his albums (but not all), read a few biographies (including his autobiography, Vol. 1), and seen him in concert (once, 2013). And I've loved his various movies: I'm Not There, Masked and Anonymous, and finally, A Complete Unknown (2024).
The movie starts with Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) hitchhiking into New York, arriving with guitar, a harmonica and a notebook full of songs. He has no money, no place to stay, but he has a newspaper clipping about Woody Guthrie. In a Greenwich Village bar, soe blowhard who's probably Dave van Ronk, tells him Woodie is in a hospitsl in New Jersey.
So Bob heads out there, arriving late, and finding Peter Seeger (Ed Norton) visiting with Woodie (Scoot McNeary). Woodie is almost paralysed, but asks Bobo to sing something, so he lays Song to Woodie on him. Next thing we know, Seeger has invited him out to his log cabin to stay the night.
As Bob starts playing around Greenwich Village, Seeger starts helping him out, introducing him to people, getting him stage time, etc. He sees Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and she sees him. Manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler) sees him too, and signs him.
He also runs into serious, protest-oriented Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), who is a composite character, mostly based on Suze Rotolo. They are soon living together. But when she goes away for a trip, Bob starts an affair with Joan Baez.
As Dylan gets more famous, he also gets more frustrated. He doesn't like playing for bigshots on command, and he refuses to play his popular material with Baez at a big show. It all ends up with him getting together an electric band and playing loud rock and roll at the Newport Folk Festival.
This movie looks like a very true-to-life picture of the 1960s New York folk scene. There's one shot where Dylan walks out of a folk club onto a street lined with folk clubs. There are all kinds of little miniature portraits of the scenesters, like the Dave van Ronk, Theodore Bikel, or Bob Neuwirth. It also takes wild liberties with the actual facts of who met who when and where. The big Newport scene includes events from Dylan's England tour, and puts Johnny Cash into the middle of the decision to go electric. There's some fun stuff where Albert Grossman gets in a fist fight with John Hammond, who's trying to turn down the volume. Seeing two middle-aged men rolling around backstage is a hoot (by the way, I love Dan Fogler a little more every time I see him).
The music is also pretty amazing. Chalamet sings and plays for himself, filmed live. His version of I Was Young When I Left Home was eye opening. Barbaro's Baez was very strong, considering what a voice Baez had. Barbaro might have even toned the vibrato down a little bit to make it sound a little smoother.
But I have to say, the big problem with the movie is the emptiness in the center. Dylan, aside from his music and poetry, is a bit unknowable. His dialog in the movie makes him seem like a bit of an inarticulate asshole - Baez calls him an asshole in one scene. And yet the movie doesn't seem to be saying, here's a jerk who makes great music. It's more like, what a misunderstood genius this guy is.
It also focuses on him so intently that we don't really get much on anyone else, and they are maybe more interesting than this version of Bob. Seeger gets some development: we see him as an open, generous, kind and optimistic man. His failing is that he sees Dylan as a means to an end - to bring folk music and world peace to the people.
I'm Not There took the approach of totally fictionalizing Bob's life, using different actors, different personas. I think that was a good decision. Another approach might have been to show Dylan through the eyes of the people around him. That gets you a more conventional biopic, but helps preserve the mystery of Dylan.
One thing the movie got right was how much of a cute dandy Dylan was. Not sure that Chalamet nailed the voice, but he looked great. So did the whole movie. I guess Mangold knows how to do that.
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