A Complete Unknown

Last night I took myself out to see A Complete Unknown in a mostly packed, small theater downtown. In case you're not paying attention, it's a Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet as the folk-rock legend in the early part of his career, based on Elijah Wald's book, Dylan Goes Electric. It depicts this gifted, young songwriter coming out of nowhere (or Minnesota, whatever), working his way up from a nobody who couldn't get his songs played on the radio until he let Joan Baez cover them, struggling with his sudden fame and success, and struggling to do what he wanted musically despite everyone around him having their own ideas on what he should do. It depicts Dylan as a mystery man with really intense personal boundaries, hiding much of himself away from others, communicating most clearly through his music, perhaps to the extent of struggling with relationships. And it focuses intensely on how he helped bring the Newport Folk Festival to a peak of popularity before his decision to "go electric" (cf. the song "Like a Rolling Stone") brought him into direct and heated conflict with the Newport board.

Maybe it's nostalgia for the period – although it was before I was born. Maybe it's warm feelings for the music – although I've never really been a big fan. But something about this movie hit me as really powerful. I mean, I shed tears during it, as early as the second scene with dialogue. I sympathized with Dylan even while finding him somewhat frustrating as a character. He comes across as a bit of a vagabond, even in the midst of great success – a two-timing lover, a freeloading guest who shows up at his exes' apartments unannounced and then fails to ingratiate himself, a sore winner who recoils from his fans' adoration and adulation, a loose cannon whose cooperation cannot be counted on when asked to get with any program but his own. Still, it's kind of wild to think of him being jeered and pelted with random objects when debuting "Like a Rolling Stone" at Newport. The idea that such lovey-dovey, flowers-and-rainbow types could be so quickly stirred to such a pitch of rage over that song, because of its electric guitars and Wurlitzer organ, is an irony that lands hard. But Dylan came out the winner, as our culture knows well.

The movie is directed by James Mangold, known for such movies as Cop Land; Girl, Interrupted; Walk the Liine; 3:10 to Yuma; Logan and Ford v Ferrari. He also, in the interest of balanced reporting, sent the Indiana Jones franchise off into the sunset with a stench of failure. It stars Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a slightly fictionalized love interest, Boyd Holbrook (The Predator) as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro (Chicago Justice, The Good Cop) as Baez, Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as Dylan's agent, Scott McNairy (Halt and Catch Fire) as Woody Guthrie, and two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Cabaret, Catch Me If You Can) as the angriest guy on the Newport board. I'm impressed with the cast but particularly with Chalamet, who looks like he's really playing guitar, harmonica and piano and actually singing – though Dylan's actual recordings are better produced.

Three Scenes that Made It For Me: (1) A then "complete unknown" Dylan shows up at the sanatarium where Guthrie is dying of Huntington's disease and plays for him and Seeger a little song he wrote. It might be the earliest I've ever cried during a movie. (2) Guthrie tactfully tells Baez, the morning after sleeping over, that her songs remind him of the oil paintings in a dentist's office. (3) A very drunk Cash tries to move his crookedly parked land yacht so Dylan can take his motorcycle out. High-level honorable mention: Fanning (as the barely fictionalized girlfriend) leaves Newport, and Dylan can't find the words to stop her. You almost think if she gave him time to write and perform a song, he might be able to say what he means. Like, "Babe, without you here there's nobody on my side." Though that wouldn't have been quite true. He did have people on his side, and still does after all these years and, my goodness, 55 albums and oodles of touring. Even though Dylan, or at least Chalamet as Dylan, doesn't vividly convey to you "how does it feel" to be where he's at during this part of his career, you do somewhat get a sense of it and the movie wholly succeeds.