A Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan Biopic
The first thing to say about this film is that it is a tour de force of the modern film making tradition. The look and feel of the early sixties, that I’m just old enough to remember is recreated extremely well. The filming is superb in terms of camera angles and the way it all looks. The script is a gem of story telling. These are all top of the class, but the acting is superb. Timothée Chalamet playing Dylan almost makes you think you are watching the man himself. Joan Baez is not quite as true to life but makes sense in the way the film works, and Monica Barbaro puts in a great performance. Johnny Cash is even further from the real man, but again works brilliantly well. But there is nothing wrong with any of the cast.
Both the leading actors sing the songs included in the film. It’s an impossible thing to do, but they do it way way better than you’d imagine was possible.
Dylan is, I think, rather more pleasant than the real one. He’s portrayed as a self-obsessed narcisist who his heedless of the needs of those around him. But he doesn’t seem to have the sarcastic scornfulness and arrogance of the actual living breating Robert Zimmerman.
Above all the film tells a great story and keeps your attention so well it was a surprise to see that the running time was 2 hours 20 minutes. If flies by. If you are looking for an entertaining experience this is definitely it.
The first thing to say about this film is that it is a tour de force of the modern film making tradition. The look and feel of the early sixties, that I’m just old enough to remember is recreated extremely well. The filming is superb in terms of camera angles and the way it all looks. The script is a gem of story telling. These are all top of the class, but the acting is superb. The actor playing Dylan almost makes you think you are watching the man himself. Joan Baez is not quite as true to life but makes sense in the way the film works. Johnny Cash is even further from the real man, but again works brilliantly well.
Dylan is, I think, rather more pleasant than the real one. He’s portrayed as a self-obsessed narcisist who his heedless of the needs of those around him. But he doesn’t seem to have the sarcastic scornfulness and arrogance of the actual living breating Robert Zimmerman.
Above all the film tells a great story and keeps your attention so well it was a surprise to see that the running time was 2 hours 20 minutes. If flies by. If you are looking for an entertaining experience this is definitely it.
But why, sixty years later, are we still interested in the doings of the towsled teaser? It’s certainly an interesting story intrinsically. And a lot of the music he and the people he was associated with made in the early sixties is still with us. But Dylan still seems to matter. He has some kind of importance beyond his record sales. But his record sales, while highly respectable, were much further behind the Beatles than I had imagined. (I have just looked them up.) As is often the case with Dylan, it’s hard to see work out what it means. He’s associated with artists like Seeger, Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary who were explicitly supportive of left wing causes. But Dylan rarely puts himself squarely on message. Even a song like The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol has a chorus that sounds like a rebuke to the kind of liberal who was likely to be listening to it.
He rarely wrote songs that were overtly political. Even ones that seemed to be at first listening like Masters of War or A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall are more expressions of how things make you feel than prescriptions for what you should do about it. In the early sixties there were plenty of protest songs around that did a much better job of actually protesting.
Dylan’s appearance at the event where the “I Have a Dream” speech was given by Martin Luther King on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 is about the only real political statement that he ever made. I liked that the film barely covered it. It couldn’t be completely ignored but it didn’t, or at least shouldn’t, be what defined him.
His innovation was to write lyrics that conjured up moods while not in themselves saying anything specific. I don’t think that idea was especially original. Doing it with folk and later rock songs was a bit more out of the ordinary – but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it had already been done by somebody else. And if Dylan hadn’t, somebody was bound to do so at sooner or later. The real reason he attracted attention was that he did it so well. Quite what was so good about them is hard to put your finger on. I suspect that Dylan himself would struggle to explain it. He seems to have got steadily worse over the years.
I like his lyrics but I don’t think they are quite as great as is often made out. I enjoy listening to them but they aren’t worthy of a literary prize in my opinion. I think his skill as a musician on the other hand is underrated. A lot of his tunes are great, and he also knows the right traditional ones to adopt or adapt. He’s also good at finding great musicians to work with. But he hasn’t done anything really great since the seventies.
And then there’s his voice. The fact is that on a lot of his early songs, his voice just fits. It has a character and an energy that at least carries and often enhances the song. But it isn’t a great voice – you don’t seek it out. And over the years it has got worse and worse. There’s the ageing process at work that affects all singers. But there is also the fact that over time his persona has become less interesting. As Joan Baez sang, he burst on the scene already a legend – the original vagabond. But he’s no longer the authentic voice of a tradition or maybe a generation. He doesn’t really have any particular purpose any more.
Will his legacy last for future generations? I don’t think we know why we like him so much. I have a feeling his charms won’t last forever.
Even after all these years Dylan remains a complete unknown.
