New York, early 1960s. Against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and tumultuous cultural upheaval, an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, destined to change the course of American music.
19 Feb A Complete Unknown (2024)
Fragrant Mustard Carnaval
Dylan was famous in his early years for not just serially adopting a persona, but pulling the whole environment including us into that construction. In the period of the movie he made up a Woody Guthrie past, with hobo and Carnaval, sometimes circus.
The thing about his serial identities: Folk Justice, Rock Star, Jewish Mystic, Country Signer, Filmmaker, Fundamentalist Biblethumper, Cocktail Crooner, Social Justice (again), Balladeer, and now marathon touring lead, is how seamless he made it seem.
At least in the beginning, he pulled the rest of us into his identity-dominated narratives as well. At least the first three.
Naturally, I would go and see this movie. I am interested in film, identity and introspection, and I trace some of that back to my formative years, partially dominated by this phenomenon on legs. I am just a couple years younger than Bob and though I never met him, I was in the cohort that was entranced first by the movements he supported, then the radical introspection and sliding metaphors, then a more detached understanding of the pain of identity we share.
This film reminds me to revisit some of his work — all after the period of this film — just to remind me of turning points where my identity did not follow while watching his slip.
The movie is well done, I guess. There’s a story. The acting is okay, and the two abandoned partners (Norton and Fanning) are superb. The performances were credible, though Dylan’s actual voice (often characterised as raspy) is ambiguously genuine and tentative. If all you have are the recordings, you miss the exposed vulnerability in the performances. The Johnny Cash comparison — shoehorned in here — is almost apt.
Chalamet does perform well enough.
But holy cow, to make a movie with funders, they had to make one with a story. And as we all know, movie stories are about desire, usually love, and often boy-girl. So we get Bob as bad partner, more or less because he’s a jerk.
There’s a clumsy scene where he is about to go on the Folk Stage and perform non-folk music for no good reason at all other than to destroy friendships. At the very cusp (the script has it) he is begging his love through a fence to not leave. She does. He doesn’t really care. This scene was clearly reshot several times, because the movie turns on this fulcrum.
The scene fails, and I have to say the whole movie misses the mark of what this man was, and what role he played in the world and lives like mine. His poetry is much like Dylan Thomas’ in this period.
‘I’m Not There’ is a better movie and more apt. And you really should see the 4 hour ‘Renaldo and Clara.’ And even Pennebaker’s two doccos, including the ‘lost one’ edited by Dylan.
Posted in 2025
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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