It isn’t easy to craft a biopic about a musician. Often, it feels disingenuous and like hindsight is playing too heavy of a part in it. But with James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, he paints a beautifully complex picture of the artist known as Bob Dylan.
We follow Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) life from his arrival in New York City to the time he went “electric” at the Newport Folk Festival. Helping to bring folk music on a global scale, the movie is a who’s who of people who helped Dylan along the way. Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger meets a young Dylan after the songwriter tries to visit Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in the hospital.
Following the standard biopic set up of famous musician plays their iconic songs for the first time and people are shocked and overwhelmed, the difference in A Complete Unknown comes from the power that Dylan’s songs have. This is not the best singer in the world and yet we have made him an international sensation. That’s the brilliance of Dylan’s lyrics.
So I was captivated by those listening to Dylan’s songs for the first time, emotionally invested from the first note. Because that is the power that I felt the first time I heard a Dylan song. But the real success of A Complete Unknown is found in the supporting cast who fills out Dylan’s rise to fame.
Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) was there at the start of pushing folk music on a wider scale and yet she recognized what Dylan’s words could do. Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) was excited about what Dylan and his refusal to bend to what people wanted him to be could result in. The supporting cast serves to remind us that Dylan is not a perfect person. But he is genius.
A perfect bit of impersonation and intrepretation
When you’re playing someone like Dylan, you can fall too heavily into an impression. It is why movies like I’m Not There from Todd Haynes exist. Each actor got to play Dylan at a different portion of his life. So undertaking Dylan all at once isn’t exactly an easy feat. Yet Chalamet beautifully toes the line between a man moved by social reform and the power of his storytelling while not shying away from the fact that Dylan is egotistical.
Dylan has rightfully been labeled a genius but he wasn’t easy to deal with. The Mangold film was based on a time in Dylan’s life when he scoffed at his folk roots and leaned heavily into rock and roll. It resulted in one of Dylan’s most iconic songs, “Like a Rolling Stone,” but it broke the trust of those who helped him rise. Watching the different levels of Dylan come to life in Chalamet’s performance is truly breathtaking.
I am aware that I am an impartial viewer of this movie because of my own deep love of Dylan. But then, I suppose, that makes me a harsher judge of anything to do with the musician. What I loved the most about A Complete Unknown was Mangold and Chalamet’s determination to showing every bit of Dylan, shadows and all.
A man who refused to do what others wanted of him
One of the more infamous facts about Dylan is that he refuses to play songs people want to hear. His popular work is rarely what he wants to do. A Complete Unknown highlights that fact so beautifully through Dylan’s relationship with Baez.
Barbaro’s Baez is just as talented, beautiful, and fiery as the real musician and watching her try to reign Dylan in is an intoxicating dance. Dylan starts the film off by dating Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning). The two end up creating my all time favorite album cover for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. But Dylan’s relationship with Sylvie doesn’t stop him from constantly during to Baez.
What works in their dynamic though is Baez’s understanding of how crowds, concerts, and music works. Dylan wants to continue to change, evolve, and Baez clearly does too. But she understands how to keep fans invested. She pushes playing “Blowin’ in the Wind” because she knows that is what people want to hear. Dylan doesn’t want to hear that.
Through their relationship, we see a beautiful display of what made Dylan and Baez so captivating together. But it also helps us in understanding how Dylan’s relationships always suffered by his need to be whoever himself, “whoever that is.”
Mangold brights to life my complicated songsmith
Dylan’s music can stick with you and never leave. He has a quote from an interview that has been my favorite for decades: “All I can be is me, whoever that is.” That quote really defines exactly who Dylan is. He never wanted to be labeled and Mangold’s film really brings that to life in such a way that we really understand who he was at the start of his career.
Watching Dylan play smaller venues like the Gaslight to the huge venue at the Newport Folk Festival took us into his world and transported us. I felt like I was hearing these songs for the first time again. Everything about it made me feel special and like I was given a gift as a fan of Bob Dylan’s work.
I cannot say enough good things about A Complete Unknown.
Published: Dec 11, 2024 11:08 am