Director James Mangold proves by this film that Bob Dylan was, and still is, an enigma. Timothée Chalamet does exactly what the title portrays as mysterious, puzzling question mark. But there’s no doubt that Mangold cast actors who worked long and hard to perform music as it was evolving from folk to rock in the mid 1960’s. There are 40 songs in this film, 26 in their entirety, and Chalamet, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger were shot singing and playing guitar live for this film. Norton actually got to play one of Seeger’s guitars.
The script is adapted from the Elijah Wald book “Dylan Goes Electric” with the screenplay by Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York, The Age of Innocence). It only describes Dylan from other observers’ points of view. The only glimpse you get about how and what he’s thinking, is through his lyrics.
Mangold and Chalamet met for the first time at the Director’s Ford v Ferrari premiere at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival right after the Unknown script was finished. Chalamet started taking guitar and voice, and watched Dylan videos for his speech pattern through the COVID pandemic. Norton and Barbaro did same.
It follows when Dylan went to New York City to find his folk idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy-Nightbitch), writing his own songs and performing in open mic nights. When asked where he came from, Bob made up stories about working in the circus, instead of that he really grew up in the less romantic setting of Hibbing, Minnesota. There he grew up in a middle class Jewish family who owned their own furniture store, but always kept those details under wraps.
You see how he kept personal details hidden, even from his love interests. Sylvie (Elle Fanning) is a fictional partner who didn’t like Dylan being involved with other women. Fanning plays a rather quiet, bland character always looking with faraway stares. But when he hears Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) sing in a club, he takes notice. They sang together and became lovers leaving Sylvie behind. But we never see any real emotion in either relationship.
Barbaro is beautiful and has a beautiful voice but without the signature Baez tremolo. Again, there isn’t much exposed regarding his emotional connection to her or anyone. (One true side story of interest, not in the film, is that Dylan was once so enamored with Gospel superstar Mavis Staples early in their careers, he proposed to her, but she flatly rejected him.)
Mangold shows that the 1960’s were a watershed of turmoil in America. He shows back-to-back archive news reports of the JFK assassination, the emerging Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights movement. These were topics that Dylan worked into lyrics in songs. For example, “The Times They are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” With new musical influences from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones, music tastes were evolving and Dylan became a huge fan of the man he revered on the electric guitar, “The Man in Black,” Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). Mangold also directed Walk the Line about Cash.
Norton and Chalamet are the focal point of this film. They show mutual respect for each other as friends and performers until Dylan is influenced by the harder, louder sounds that were out there and it all comes to a head at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Bob Dylan worked with Mangold), giving him notes on the script and was complimentary of casting Chalamet to play him. No word yet on Dylan’s reaction to the finished product. This film is long, packed with songs and credible, committed performances by Chalamet, Norton, and Barbaro. We like it, but wished we’d seen a more 3-dimensional characterization of Dylan, exposing his own point of view, instead of as a Complete Unknown.
Searchlight Pictures 2 hours 21 minutes R
Related posts:
Ford v Ferrari Stunt Coordinator, Robert Nagle
Knives Out Writer/Director Rian Johnson talks about having the whole cast on the set
THE CAMPERS AT THE SUNDANCE PREMIERE OF CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE AND THE FILM.
Interview with Waves stars Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Taylor Russell and Writer/Director Trey Edward Shults talking teen angst, family and sound design.
Flag Day
Eddie Redmayne and Tom Harper talk challenges making The Aeronauts
