By Braden Murray | LTVN Sports Director
I find it strange that “A Complete Unknown” is the first straightforward movie based on Bob Dylan’s life, considering he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures in pop culture history.
There have been numerous documentaries made about Dylan’s life and career — with Martin Scorsese making two of the most popular. The three-and-a-half-hour documentary, “No Direction Home,” focuses on Dylan’s rapid ascent to fame, and the much shorter “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story” tells the story of Dylan’s rambunctious tour in 1975.
It should be noted that I am a huge Bob Dylan fan, with my level of fanhood increasing steadily over the last two years. Earlier this year, I decided to sit down and listen to all 40 of Dylan’s studio albums, beginning with his 1962 album, “Bob Dylan,” and ending with his latest in 2023, “Shadow Kingdom.” If I had to pick my three favorite albums, I’d have to go “Highway 61 Revisited,” “John Wesley Harding” and “New Morning.” In preparation for this movie, I began reading Howard Sounes’s biography “Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan.”
In “A Complete Unknown” we follow Bob Dylan and his career from the moment he steps foot in New York City in 1961 to his legendary and controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
In recent interviews, Timothée Chalamet, who plays the role of Bob Dylan in the film, revealed he’s been preparing for this role for five years. From the moment Chalamet’s character is introduced in the movie, it is obvious how much work he put into this role. Chalamet has nailed Bob’s mannerisms and way of speaking. If you close your eyes, it wouldn’t be hard to envision Dylan himself delivering the dialogue.
Chalamet also learned to sing and play guitar and harmonica in Bob Dylan’s unique styles. Most impressively of all, though, is that all of the performances are done live. To the untrained ear, it might be nearly impossible to distinguish between Chalamet and Dylan’s renditions of the songs featured. But as someone who has listened to hours of Dylan’s music, I have a hard time not hearing Chalamet doing his best impression.
The movie looks gorgeous and the recreation of early 1960s Greenwich Village is stunning. The costumes, hair and makeup are also spot on. While Chalamet may not look exactly like Dylan, the hair and costuming do enough to convincingly transform him into the early versions of Dylan.
Early in the film, we are introduced to Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning). These are the two women that Dylan ends up dating at the same time. Barbaro is great as Baez and like Chalamet, she also sings and plays the guitar live.
Fanning’s acting in the movie is also top-notch, but her character gets the least to do and is probably the least accurate to the real person she portrays. Fanning’s character is based on Dylan’s real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo, but Dylan requested her name be changed in the film.
Other noteworthy figures in the film include Pete Seeger (Ed Norton) and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). Like Chalamet and Barbaro, Norton and Holbrook learned to sing and play their instruments live. Holbrook’s Johnny Cash is a real standout for me. He stole every scene he was in.
The real turning point comes about halfway through the film when Dylan decides to begin recording and playing with a live rock band. This decision greatly angers some in the folk community who feel as if he is selling out to make more money.
The film impeccably depicts the mental anguish that Dylan was likely going through during this time. The story showed him not wanting to completely alienate his fans, while also wanting to experiment with different types of music.
In one of my favorite scenes, we see Dylan rush into his apartment and reach for his guitar while humming the melody of what would become “Like A Rolling Stone.” Scenes where we see Dylan’s writing process or him in the studio were enjoyable and done well in this film.
Dylan’s character also rings true throughout the film. Director James Mangold and fellow screenwriter Jay Cocks don’t try to sanitize Bob Dylan’s image, which is a trap many modern biopics fall into. They portray Dylan as the moody and standoffish person he was at this time.
Though I did thoroughly enjoy this movie, it is nowhere near perfect. I would have liked to see more of Bob Dylan’s struggle during the early days in New York. He spent months playing dingy clubs to small audiences while sleeping on friends’ couches. It’s true that Bob’s career rapidly progressed early on, but in the film, Bob is signed to a major record label after one of his first performances.
There’s also something weird to me about the pacing of the film. Everything moves too quickly. The audience doesn’t really get time to breathe, jumping from song to song, barreling towards the infamous performance at Newport in 1965.
The film is largely representative of reality — for the most part. Songs are presented in the correct order and the inspiration for the songs is usually accurate. For example, take Sylvie (Suze) leaving for an extended trip to Italy. In the movie this inspires Bob to write “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” which is accurate. The timeline gets wonky later in the film when Bob is seen recording “Highway 61 Revisited” before the performance at Newport Folk Festival in 1965. In real life, the song and album of the same name weren’t recorded until after the festival.
While this film might not do enough to satisfy the most dedicated Bob Dylan fans, it’s good enough for me. I’d recommend this film to anybody who’s ever even heard of Bob Dylan and his music. Even my sister who hates Bob Dylan thought it was a good movie.
