A Complete Unknown
This Bob Dylan and the whole American Folk world will immerse you completely. Completely driven by the music, you’re drawn into the lives of a young music-obsessed Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), his girlfriend Sylvie Russo (a fictionalised version of his first love played by Elle Fanning), Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and his wife Toshi Seeger (Eriko Hatsune) and family, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), Bob Neuwirth (Will Harrison) and the Newport Folk Festival committee. Now I want a biopic about everyone else!
We see the complications of being and living with genius and creativity and the battle lines in the American folk world (which are partly age/generation, outlook and musical preference lines in the sand). As well as performers clashing and learning from each other. There’s also commercial marginalisation hinted at — by gender, ethnicity, output (acoustic vs electric, traditional vs the new and now, commercial vs indie). Even whether folk can or should learn from popular music of the time such as The Kinks? Is it noise or is it art?
Whilst Dylan could be both a charismatic, super cool and awful boyfriend at points — sometimes all at the same time — and there’s definitely an imbalance in the mental load in the relationship here as he apparently can’t brew coffee or remember to put out bins! What we do see is a great musical talent who was also a musical sponge and interested in music, all kinds, for music’s sake and for the fun of working alongside other musicians. Literally influenced by everyone and everything he heard. incredibly sensitive musically. This is reflected in the street scenes as he catches snatches of all kinds of different music — and at another time can observe a Blues slide guitarist and pick up the style and tempo in a similar vein.
Dylan’s electric moment is spectacular as the tranquil Folk Festival turns into a riot and a sea of horrified untranquil faces. Though this is a very US-centric biopic — the ‘Judas’ moment actually came during a tour of the UK in Manchester. Here the wider tours are ditched (like Mike Bloomfield and his upcoming blues off the bill of the Festival) in favour of a very narrow sphere of influence and geography.
Love too the ensemble playing — all the people around him are fully rounded too — and you want to know about all of them. Even the acts we see preceding Dylan in folk clubs, all day Hootenanny’s or at the Festival — I want to hear all of their music too! I love how the movie is framed by Pete Seeger, the wider Seeger family, a riled up Folk music community, the recording studio teams and the very ill Woody Guthrie, who’s still being cared for by visits from his friends.
Equally fully presented is Joan Baez who see intrigued by Dylan — as person, creative talent — and perhaps musical rival. And we see their clash of personalities on and off stage as Dylan will offer his unsought advice on lyrics, music and more.
Throughout we see Dylan battling the overwhelm of fame, and I’m really glad to see Sylvie Russo standing up for herself at the end. We also see Dylan realising the consequences of their actions and reflecting on their behaviour — there is cost. He’s a flawed human being, not divine, and despite great lyric drops and insight, realises that he lacks integrity and faithfulness. It’s heart-breaking for both of them.
Most of all this biopic will put you in love with music again and get you searching out those mentioned for seriously good tunes! Enjoy too the fashions!
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