Last night I went to see the new big-screen biopic of Bob Dylan. Timothée Chalamet puts in a tremendous performance as the complex individual who, despite being one of the most famous people in the world, remains, in many ways, a complete unknown.
Because whilst we see much of what we know for sure of Dylan’s life, his visiting in hospital of his childhood hero, the musician Woody Guthrie who was suffering with Huntington’s Disease at the time, his rise to prominence in the New York folk scene of the early sixties, and his relationships with both Suze Rotolo, his one time girlfriend who features on the album sleeve of ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, and Joan Baez, a fellow singer-songwriter with whom he not infrequently duetted, we also hear, to the incredulous ears of those who hear it, Dylan own account of how he grew up in a carnival.
And this without any attempt being made to explain why he should feel the need to come up with such an undoubtedly apocryphal account of his youth. And neither are we given any insight into why he was, and indeed remains, on occasions at least, such a contrarian, or what it is that drives the man who, 65 years on, having produced 40 studio albums, is still touring extensively all around the world
But to say as much is not in any way to criticise, far from it, because this is nothing short of a terrific film, one in which it is Dylan’s songs – their words and how they are performed – that clearly matter most. This is something that I suspect the determinedly enigmatic octogenarian approves of, and all the more so given how, significantly involved in the development of the script, Dylan, apparently insisted, some might say typically, that there be at least one totally inaccurate episode depicted within the film.
Chalamet’s performance is, ironically perhaps, pitch perfect. Without ever descending into parody, he brilliantly reproduces not only Dylan’s voice, but his mannerisms as well – both on and off stage. Which is my it is of no surprise that, alongside the seven other Oscar nominations the film has received, Chalamet himself has been nominated for that of Best Actor, something that, to my mind at least, is very much deserved.
The film concludes at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where Dylan, it’s headline act, controversially laid aside his acoustic guitar in favour of a sunburst Fender Stratocaster, and performed his first electric set as a professional musician – all to the apparent dismay of many in the crowd who seemingly wanted more of the traditional style of music to which they were accustomed. Though the comment was actually made in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, at a concert held there a year later, someone in the audience, considering Dylan to have betrayed folk music purists, is then famously heard to cry out ‘Judas’, to which Dylan responds, ‘I don’t believe you – you’re a liar’ before proceeding to play ‘real…loud’ what later proved to be one of his all time greatest hits, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
But while the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival may have been divided by Dylan’s performance, it’s unlikely that those who go to see “A Complete Unknown’ will be similar at odds with one another. For, if my cinema going companion is anything to go by, even those who usually claim not to be able to tolerate Dylan’s music will find much to enjoy in this highly entertaining celebration of the first five years of the Nobel prizewinning troubadour’s exceptionally long career.
And so I hope that there will be those who, currently unappreciative of Dylan’s genius, will one day become true fans of the man who once described himself as nothing more than a ‘song and dance man’.
One can but hope. After all, a believing spouse…it can’t be a complete unknown!
Other Bob Dylan inspired posts:
To read ‘Three times a patient’, click here
To read ‘A shot of love’, click here
To read ‘Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’, click here
To read ‘It’s alright Ma (I’m only GPing)’, click here
To read ‘When there’s no NHS’, click here
To read ‘A hard year for us all’, click here
To read ‘My back pages’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 1’, click here
Some musings 