When a musical bio-pic like “A Complete Unknown” comes along, movie red flags always rise. Are we going to get another cookie-cutter, a paint-by-numbers retelling of a famous musician, lined with “magical moments” of inspiration behind the music numbers we know so well, heightened by a performance that is more mime than realistic by an actor who somewhat resembles the real person, but never quite enough that an audience can get past the prosthetics and pretend? I’m happy to report that director James Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “Ford Vs Ferrari,” and “Logan”) avoids many of the pitfalls that strangle such offerings and presents audiences with one of the best musical biopics since 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
In 2007, director Todd Haynes gave us an experimental take on Dylan with his ambitious, if fractured, “I’m Not Here.” At the time, it seemed possibly the only way to tackle a subject as complex and enigmatic as Bob Dylan was through Hayne’s series of episodes utilizing multiple actors standing in to represent different facets of the Dylan persona. It isn’t a bad film but leaves the viewer wanting more. And yet, how do you approach a person who transformed the music landscape, is still with us, and has a career of over 60 years?
Mangold makes a wise decision with “A Complete Unknown.” Rather than taking viewers on a stroll down Memory Lane and spending five minutes a scene on highlights spanning an entire career, Mangold drills down on one specific period, the years between 1961 and 1965, when a young Bob Dylan reaches New York City, explodes onto the folk music scene, elevates the genre into mass appeal, and then blows it to smithereens through reinvention and transformation into the changing landscape of the times by going electric.
For the younger viewer, who may be just discovering Bob Dylan and his music, it may prove challenging to understand how earth-shattering a moment it was when Dylan threw out the folk music playbook at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and played an abbreviated set that was met by, let’s say less than an enthusiastic response from a crowd that felt betrayed by the man they viewed as the messiah of the folk movement. But, as Dylan himself said, “The times, they are a changing.”
Misunderstood is a label often applied to Dylan, and Mangold doesn’t shy away from that term or try to demystify the man. Dylan, the mystery, is still intact throughout this film, but he is not a character kept at arm’s length by the audience. Through Timothée Chalamet’s uncanny channeling of Dylan’s spirit, we get an introspective Dylan who is a sly observer, frequently ironic and funny and doesn’t seek or appreciate fame as much as he wishes to be a musician.
The film shows Dylan’s two central romantic relationships during this period. The first is with Suze Rotolo, who, per Dylan’s wishes, is changed to Sylvie Russo (played by Elle Fanning) for this tale, and fellow folk singer Joan Baez (played by Monica Barbaro.) These relationships don’t add a ton to the story. Still, they are fascinating to explore and leave one with the impression that these two women were significant to Dylan years after his romantic relationship with them ended. Barbaro’s appearance doesn’t quite match the look of the real Baez, but her singing sure does, which keeps the illusion alive.
Two other critical relationships explored in the movie are with Dylan’s folk mentors, Woodie Guthrie (played by Scoot McNairy) and Pete Seeger (played by Edward Norton in an excellent supporting performance.) The film begins with Chalamet’s Dylan visiting Guthrie in the hospital (Guthrie was hospitalized with Huntington’s Disease from 1956 until his death in 1967.) There, Dylan meets Seeger, who recognizes the young singer’s talent and helps him get established in the Greenwich Village coffee house folk scene.
The effectiveness of exploring Dylan’s early career falls on Mangold’s decision-making in executing the drama and creating believability. When doing a musical biopic, there are only two routes: lip-synch the hits using the actual artist’s voice and song tracks, or have the actors do the singing. If you go with the first approach, the result may sound exactly like the original, but you lose a sense of believability. Go with the second option, and you could find your audience tied into knots, weighing how well/not well the actor did pretending to be the actor.
In “A Complete Unknown,” all actors play instruments and sing the songs. Chalamet’s chameleon-like ability to not only look and sound like Dylan in the film’s non-singing scenes is doubled by his uncanny ability to approximate Dylan’s singing voice. Is it just like listening to a Dylan album? No. Of course not. Still, it’s pretty darn close, and the eerie approximation gels the illusion and allows the audience to sink into this story, get caught up in the drama, and lose themselves for 2 1/2 hours of screen time. Chalamet, who has already shown the potential of his acting abilities through films like “Call Me by Your Name,” and the “Dune” series, crafts his best performance to date as Dylan. If his performance doesn’t floor, there is no movie, just a poser “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but Chalamet delivers something so electric here, the movie should introduce a new audience to Dylan and his music, and remind others of his greatness.
For those in the know who love to see visual retellings of famous rock anecdotes, Mangold and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks provide a searing moment ripped from the annuals of music lore when musician Al Kooper sits in on Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” recording session, and delivers the inspirational organ track we know so well.
Throughout the movie, we see Dylan’s rise to success, his increasing discomfort with fame, and those musician handlers who want to keep him confined within the same folk musical genre until there is no more money to be squeezed out of it. Dylan has other plans, and as he begins a full-assault breakaway from the acoustic-driven playing of folk with his “Highway 61 Revisited Album,” the climax of the film comes at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan meets his challengers head-on.
Newport Folk ’65 is not the end of Bob Dylan’s story, but it is a perfect place to end “A Complete Unknown.” We, the audience, have taken the journey and got what we came for, but are left willing and wanting to see where Dylan’s road continues. Could James Mangold and Timothee Chalamet re-team to tell the next chapter in Bob Dylan’s storied career? I don’t have those answers, but if they should, I will eagerly await the opportunity to purchase a ticket.
James Kent is the publisher’s assistant at the Mountain Times and the co-host of the “Stuff We’ve Seen” podcast at stuffweveseen.com.
