I love Bob Dylan. I love his songs. I love Timothée Chalamet. I love the folklore surrounding the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Furthermore, I love how director James Mangold captured these people and events in his new film, “A Complete Unknown” (2024).
On Dec. 25, 2024, “A Complete Unknown” was released in theaters. It stars heartthrob Timothée Chalamet as the enigmatic Dylan. This might just be the film of 2024. Right off the bat, the biopic genre can be incredibly tedious to pull off; with a film centered around Dylan, the challenge is even harder. How does one compile the life and work of Dylan into only a two-hour movie?
Mangold answers this question by only focusing on the first five years of Dylan’s long career. The film begins with Bob as an unknown folk artist, and ends with the controversial yet groundbreaking moment when Bob switches genres and goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Dylan means something different to everyone. Some may look at him as just an old artist their grandparents have vinyl records of, while others may think of Dylan as an overrated, pretentious guy who can’t sing and uses a loud harmonica in his songs. For many, Dylan is a prophet: a God-sent musician that changed the landscape of popular music and expressed things commonly unsaid. But what is so funny about Dylan — and what adds to his persona — is that he doesn’t care what you think about him. This is because Dylan is smug (cue “Desolation Row”) and he can be cheeky and write a “diss track” (“Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Positively 4th Street,” etc.); however, what makes Dylan such a complicated artist is that he is an excellent writer and lyricist. People respond to his lyrics, whether one views his songs as nonsensical ramblings of a pre-internet troll or the work of a tortured artist trying to express the innermost feelings of a human being
In an interview with Far Out Magazine, Bruce Springsteen perfectly sums up “who” Bob Dylan is.
“He showed us that just because the music was innately physical, it did not mean that it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and the talent to expand a pop song until it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and he changed the face of rock and roll forever and ever,” Springsteen said.
Artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan are ingrained into the global cultural landscape — they are the artists whose names you know without even listening to their music. As for the living legend himself, this movie pays respect to him in its “origin story” presentation.
The film begins in 1961 with the baby-faced Robert Zimmerman (now going by the name Bob Dylan) navigating the seemingly bleak Greenwich Village, N.Y. folk scene. Almost every new folk song that was released during this time was just a cover. Enter Bob, about to make waves within the community with his self-written songs — many of which convey support for the Civil Rights Movement — like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War.” Guided by his on-again-off-again flame, Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning, Bob becomes a hero revitalizing the diminishing folk scene through his songs. They touched on key political and international issues that became power anthems for the youth and activists.
However, Dylan doesn’t want to be their hero. He doesn’t want to be boxed in. At first, unlike the record companies, the folk community was eager to embrace Dylan. As he outgrew the genre and tried to reinvent himself, the same people who once supported him sought to suppress him from becoming what he wanted to be. It goes so far that Pete Seeger, a music titan of the 1950s folk scene played by Edward Norton, almost smashes an axe on an amp’s wires in an attempt to cut the sound of Bob’s music at the infamous Newport Folk Festival. In fact, the whole third act of the movie is dedicated to recapturing the tension surrounding that event and the controversy of Dylan switching genres.
The film pinpoints pivotal moments from Dylan’s career from the public’s perspective rather than the man himself. This isn’t a critique because how on earth can you pinpoint “who” Dylan is when he doesn’t want you to? The film’s title is literally “A Complete Unknown.”
The movie takes lyrics from “Like a Rolling Stone.” The song’s lyrics, on the surface, tell a tragic tale of a prominent socialite, Miss Lonely, falling from grace. In the song, Dylan presents many characters like Miss Lonely, the mystery tramp, the jugglers, the clowns and the diplomat. Of course, people speculate that this song may be about the Warhol superstar, Edie Sedgwick, who was running with a bad crowd at the time and was possibly having an affair with Bob. Although, what I think this song truly captures — and what the film emulates — is that period of Dylan’s life, regardless of the media and surrounding people, when he felt completely unknown to everyone.
The movie shows how everyone in Dylan’s life tried to impose their own perception onto him of what they wanted him to be. Sylvie often gets frustrated with Bob, as she completely confides in him while he does not. Bob merely responds that he doesn’t let his past define him. All the other cast of characters that populate the song are Dylan as well: they are different personas and guises he has adopted. It makes sense that Bob Dylan himself got to read and tweak the final version of the script because, for Dylan, this movie just adds another layer of fiction of who the generational rock legend, Dylan, really is. Because Dylan was heavily involved in the production of this movie, he had a hand in his own story; he weaponizes storytelling and makes himself a character pre-posthumously.
Joan Baez, another folk legend, is a musician and Civil Rights activist known for songs such as “Diamonds and Rust” (a song about her relationship with Dylan) and her beautiful soprano voice. In the movie, she is played by Monica Barbaro, and I wish she had played a bigger role. The movie seems to hate Baez for some unknown reason and treats her as just the woman Dylan was having an affair with — someone oddly jealous of Dylan’s writing abilities. In real life, she is much more than that. She encouraged Dylan to write protest music and sing at the March on Washington. Because this context was not included in the movie, the viewers may not see the full truth of Dylan’s disillusionment with being a Civil Rights icon and his reasoning for abandoning folk music altogether. Had Mangold not reduced Baez to just a passerby to Dylan, the climax of the movie could’ve been even more profound.
On a technical level, everything is amazing. As someone who religiously watched old interviews of rock stars like John Lennon, Lou Reed and Dylan, I feel I can say that watching Chalamet on screen was like going back in time to the 1960s and being immersed into the world being recreated. Chalamet perfected Bob’s on-camera persona and captured all of his idiosyncrasies from his awkward, slouched posture down to the unclipped fingernails. And his guitar skills? Phenomenal. Chalamet truly has such a dedication and passion for his craft, and this is palpable through the screen.
I can’t write about this movie without talking about the music. The obvious theme throughout the movie is Dylan refusing to be defined, but another not-so-obvious theme is about people listening and feeling something through music. Every song featured in the movie has agency and keeps the narrative of the film running. A song in particular that is sure to warm the heart of any Dylan fan is when “Like a Rolling Stone” starts playing. Hearing those first notes on the organ being blasted in the theater and the rest of the song unfolding after was so incredible to witness.
In the final scene of the film, Bob visits his old folk hero, Woody Guthrie, in his hospital room. Playing in the background is Guthrie’s song, “Dusty Old Dust (So Long It’s Been Good to Know Yuh).” There is no dialogue, no special effect camera work, just letting the lyrics of the song illustrate the scene. Bob eventually leaves the hospital and rides off on his motorcycle to God knows where and the credits roll, playing the all-too-famous, “Like a Rolling Stone.”
There will always be critics who say that this movie only covers the surface level of the Dylan story and that any true Dylan head will be disappointed with this movie. Nonetheless, there is something so undeniably magical about seeing your favorite song and the story of your favorite artist being told that strikes a deep chord inside of you on the big screen with people of all ages sitting around you sharing the experience.
Overall, to quote Timothée Chalamet himself, I was “floored” by this movie.
My rating: 10/10
