Who is Bob Dylan? That’s the question still being asked after the countless albums, tours, accolades, interviews, assessments and even answers that fans and critics alike have provided over the many decades of Dylan’s career. And it seems that after all this time, there is still no definitive answer. Or at least, the only definitive answer is that there is none.
Unquestionably, Bob Dylan is a mythic figure; his story is as rich, complex, and never-ending as America itself. That his life should be adapted again, updated and re-told to a new generation should come as a surprise to no one. This time, Director James Mangold’s 2024 film “A Complete Unknown” tells the story of Dylan’s rise to prominence during the ’60s folk movement and his later rejection by those who initially embraced him after his switch to electric guitars.
Timothée Chalamet, who also produced the picture, effortlessly slides into the Bob Dylan persona, conjuring up an authentic and constantly shifting portrayal that never amalgamates into a lifeless imitation. There’s more than enough resemblance between the two figures — especially in Chalamet’s astonishingly accurate vocal performance that proves almost as pleasant to listen to as the real thing.
Reaching a fair facsimile of the especially eccentric screeching, slurring and crooning of Dylan’s iconic vocal temperament is no small feat, but Chalamet went the extra mile after spending almost five years in preparation for the film, learning to play the guitar as well as Dylan’s signature harmonica.
Chalamet’s central performance is just the imperfect impression necessary for a biopic so obsessed with the unknown. While the film is a chronicle of actual events, adapted from the non-fiction book “Dylan Goes Electric,” an enrapturing sense of mystery is maintained in the incongruities between the Bob Dylan we see on screen and the one in real life. Director and screenwriter James Mangold, a progenitor of the musical biopic genre’s rather infamous 2005 landmark “Walk the Line,” smartly sidesteps some of that movie’s biggest issues by scaling down the screenplay, co-penned with Jay Cocks, to focus on a specific era in its subject’s life rather than attempting to tell Dylan’s story from beginning to end.
The film begins as Bob Dylan, blowin’ in the wind from parts unknown, makes his way to New York City in the early ’60s. Locating the hospital room of folk music legend Woody Guthrie (Scoot Mcnairy), Dylan drops in on his famous folk hero, who is recovering from a rare genetic disease, to play him an original tune. There, he happens to befriend the equally important musical activist Pete Seeger, played by a deliciously old-fashioned Edward Norton, who introduces Bob to the wider world of music and its key players, including music executives and future collaborator Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro).
Moving from the stage to the studio and onwards, Chalamet’s Bob is given ample time to strut his stuff before his career inevitably begins to take off. Dylan’s slow-rolling, extended ballads and understated persona help these moments stand out from the loud and flashy figures that typically come to find themselves as leads in a musical biopic. From an outsider’s perspective, it could be easy to write Bob Dylan off as a simple and somewhat unremarkable figure, but Mangold asks the audience to sit back and observe him in his quiet, revolutionary glory.
At this point, Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), who acts as the renamed version of Dylan’s real-life romantic partner Suze Rotolo, enters the picture. Like the audience, she is taken with Dylan’s freewheelin’ attitude and inherent charm but grows frustrated by his refusal to open up. Discovering Bob’s birth name, Robert Zimmerman, Sylvie demands to know more about Dylan’s past and all of the strange experiences he occasionally alludes to, including a time spent in the circus, which apparently yielded him a friendship with a traveling cowboy.
Dylan resists Sylvie’s demands not because he wants to be difficult but because he is so fully intent on existing as the current version of himself, in the here and the now, rather than in the past, which would otherwise hold him down. At this point, the audience comes to understand that Dylan is gifted with an almost supernatural ability to reinvent himself on a whim. He seems to exist outside it all, living unburdened from the pressures of normal life. However, as fame and notoriety start to follow Dylan’s every move, our seemingly invincible man of myth starts to succumb to his all-too-human shortcomings.
Rather than the typical pitfalls of celebrityhood, it’s the expectations placed upon Bob by the public that prove to be the most inescapable. The world and the folk movement leaders who propelled him into stardom in the first place expect him to fit into their idea of Bob Dylan and not stray from the aspects on which his musical persona was founded.
In the end, we already know that Dylan refuses to compromise on his artistic ambitions and reclaims the public’s acceptance, but realizes that no matter what he does next, the world will always see him as “Bob Dylan.” Never again will he be able to shrink away into the shadows and become someone else like he was once able to.
It’s this layer of partial tragedy that elevates “A Complete Unknown’s” story into something much more than a greatest hits album and well worth the time of any self-respecting Bob Dylan aficionado. The film is a dreamy, breezy serenade that isn’t afraid to mix things up as it goes along and injects some rough and rowdy energy into the fray. Simply watching Timmy Chalamet bounce from place to place and make his way through the world never grows old. And while it sure is a shame that some of the film’s supporting cast don’t get the room they need to really shine, it’s hard to hold those gripes against a movie that has such a secure hold on its main protagonist.
“A Complete Unknown” doesn’t accomplish anything as revolutionary as rock and roll music — after all, it’s a tale passed down through time, and this version just happened to hit all the right notes — but what the film does do well, it does with such an authentic atmosphere, textured setting and vivid clarity that it’s sure to inspire the next kid out there to hitch a ride to the big city and make a lasting mark on the world that we’ll still be examining for the next 60 odd years to come.
Gayle Sanders • Jan 21, 2025 at 11:15 am
This was an excellent review. You have more than knowledge; you have an understanding across times. A grandmother of a high school student commends you.