A Complete Unknown
I am not a big Dylan fan, although I understand his significance, but I was drawn to this film because of the praise for the performances and a certain fascination with Bob’s slippery persona as acknowledged by the film’s carefully chosen title.
The praise for the performances is well warranted but just like the man himself, the film is quite hard to pin down. On the one hand, it can seem to be quite a conventional music biopic. Bobby Dylan arrives in New York with his guitar and a stack of songs. He makes a great impression when he visits what appears to be an end of life hospital to see his ailing and now mute hero, Woodie Guthrie (Scott McNairy). In these bleak surroundings, Dylan performs his own tribute to the sick man in bleak surroundings; the camera pans towards Guthrie and his friend Pete Seeger (Ed Norton) who look at one another in that way you probably only see in movies as if to say “this kid’s got something”.
In very short order, Dylan has been taken under Seeger’s wing lodging in the older folk singer’s bustling, happy family home and also finding a place on the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene that Seeger leads. Every time Dylan performs in the first half of the film, and he does so often, we see his music developing and reflecting the state of his relationships and the state of America. He has a freshness and excitement that Seeger understands is like gold dust for the popularity of folk music. The older musician is a decent man concerned that Dylan’s songs should reach the widest possible audience by showcasing his talents and those of the equally luminous new female folk star, Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), at the recently established Newport Folk Festival. In this first hour, as Dylan hones his craft and the subjects for his songs, he and Seeger are close, with shared liberal values and a passion for performing their music.
That then is the rise, familiar in this sort of film; and equally familiar is the second half as the film cuts forward a couple of years to probably the most enduring image of Bob Dylan. Dressed in dark hipster clothes, with big hair and an inscrutable, perhaps bored, perhaps amused expression behind his dark glasses, he strides around town like someone in his own bubble of fame and talent, a superstar. I
t is the price of celebrity then that is the jeopardy in the film’s narrative after the joyous rise. Dylan is irritated by and reacts against the competing expectations of friends and fans alike to be something that his awkward, individualistic character just doesn’t want to be, or not at this time of his life. He behaves a bit badly, dallies between his two main love interests – Baez and Sylvie Russo (a pseudonym for Susie Rotollo, played by Elle Fanning, his real-life girlfriend immortalised on the Freewheeling Bob Dylan album cover) – and most, significantly, evolves into a different sort of singer songwriter who feels trapped by the conventions of the folk scene. This means a break with Seeger, ending with the film’s climax, the controversial set at Newport in 1968. You probably know that story but if not, I’ll leave you to watch the film which handles the drama and portent of this concert with real brio.
As a say, there are many of the tropes associated this type of film: a huge artist and cultural phenomenon makes his joyous breakthrough, encounters some setbacks and conflicts before evolving into the full flowering of his artistry. This film does all that in an enjoyable way and the musical performances are outstanding. Of course, the songs are great and it is always more satisfying when the actors deliver these musical performances themselves. Here, though, the songs do something more. Chalamet, who is excellent as Dylan, gives you an insight into his thoughts and feelings through these songs. At times, it felt like an old-fashioned musical where the narrative is carried by the music. Yet this never seemed clunky. In fact, it links to the film’s title because Chalamet’s watchful, reticent performance leaves you unsure about what he is thinking. Only when making some barbed post coital comments to Baez about her music or when he defends his musical change of direction to Seeger do we seem to get unfiltered, authentic Bob. But then, again, you are never really sure.
The director Tom Mangold shows him absorbing ideas and attitudes from Sylvie in his early days when she lets him move in with her. There is a sense that whilst the politics and experiences she gives him are fed brilliantly into his songs, you are never fully sure how committed he is to these thoughts and ideas.
And there we have it – even within a superficially conventional genre movie, Dylan’s character makes it something less conventional. Perhaps his art is all; it certainly was the most striking impression that I took from this film. Chalamet’s Dylan comes alive when writing, recording and performing. This is most powerfully encapsulated when Sylvie, who loves him and whom he undoubtedly cares for deeply, accepts that what he has when singing with Joan Baez in front of a rapt audience is greater than she and Dylan could ever have. And yet we also know he doesn’t want Joan away from the music.
I really enjoyed the film for many reasons. All the performances, but especially Chalamet and Norton, are subtle, unshowy and authentic. You believe in them as musicians and, as I keep saying, you understand how vital the music is to them. It also succeeded in making me listen almost anew to the songs because the film-making succeeded in convincing you that the world was listening to them for the first time.
You can pretty much make of this film what you want. Some reviews praise it as a solid, entertaining piece of genre film-making, others as a subtle, complex psychological study; and, on the other hand, others criticise it for being conventional or wilfully opaque. Whatever you might take from its portrayal of Dylan at this definitive moment of his life, there’s plenty here to ensure a rewarding visit to the cinema.