For folks who like their folk legends with that Chesterfield mildness plus no unpleasant aftertaste, smoke a pack of A Complete Unknown, the nicotine-stained Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold. Young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in the village on a train from Jersey in 1961 to meet his folk hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). Turns out Woody is in the hospital with Huntington’s disease, with fellow folk musician Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) singing away at his bedside. Dylan gets to play Woody a song he wrote for him, which is well received. Seeger is intrigued and gets Dylan introduced to the folk scene, where Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) is already held in high regard.
The reaction to Dylan by the folk labels is immediate, but he is made to do covers instead of originals. Dylan gets involved with activist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) but cheats on her with Baez when she isn’t around. As he rises, Dylan finds his increasing fame uncomfortable, something he commiserates about with Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). As Dylan starts getting his words out to a wider audience, the folk-powers-that-be at the Newport Folk Festival start to worry that their movement will be eaten by a mile-high jukebox.
I was about a quarter of the way through A Complete Unknown when I realized it is a folk music paraphrase remake of Caddyshack. Mangold and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks took the Elijah Wald book Dylan Goes Electric and gave it the Doug Kenney nosebleed treatment. To their credit, this may have been subconscious because who is ever completely conscious when they are rewatching Caddyshack? Pete Seeger is Ty Webb, helping guide Dylan through the East Village country club like a folksy Mr. Rogers. The Newport guys are the snobs, with Dylan and the bunch being the slobs.
Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.
“…Dylan starts getting his words out to a wider audience, the folk-powers-that-be at the Newport Folk Festival start to worry…”
Joan Baez, one of the greatest musicians of all time, is reduced with undershirt nipple close-ups to a Lacey Underall stand-in. Even Johnny Cash acts like Carl Spackler, drunkenly careening around, chasing invisible gophers. Even the finale, where Dylan goes electric, is cinematically just the golf course blowing up. If this sounds fun to you, that may be because you do not recognize Caddyshack as the s**t-filled cavity of a motion picture it is. So, just know that A Complete Unknown comes off as really boring throughout.
None of this will stop Chalamet from shining out with the ultimate movie Dylan. It is a tousled hair masterwork of a performance, completely adapting the essence of Dylan to a folk music Batman. And like many Batman movies, you can be impressed with the lead while thinking the story around him is crap. Still, all the promise of bright-eyed Dylan in the beginning disappears when the Batman sunglasses come on, and he starts riding a motorcycle.
Not that this isn’t cool, but the whole origin story of how he became Dylan Batman is skipped over. What was so unsatisfying about everything he wanted once he got it? Other than being recognized on the street, that element is missing. Also missing is all the weed. There is no weed in this movie. It’s a movie set in the East Village folk scene in the ’60s, and there is not a trace of weed. I saw what may have been an ambiguous lid on the floor in the corner once, but it may have been my lungs seeing what they wanted to see.
Instead of weed, we have so much cigarette smoking it has to be a product placement. I smoked two packs a day at one point, and even I was grossed out by the nicotine levels. This movie makes Bob Marley: One Love look better and better. It also made me appreciate a movie I used to hate, Inside Llewyn Davis. A Complete Unknown is a pan of Dylan pot brownies with no pot and the mix still soupy. Not to be taken seriously.
"…a folk music paraphrase remake of Caddyshack."
In the film, Dylan arrives in NYC by automobile, not by train. Keep up the good work.
Here’s my review: 10/10 stars. This movie, directed by James Mangold, is about the evolution of Bob Dylan during his early career (1961-1965). I’m a big Dylan fan and I’ve been skeptical about earlier Dylan biopics, like I’m Not There (2007) and No Direction Home (2005). Making a biopic about a living person, especially one as enigmatic as Bob Dylan, is normally an impossible task. But every once in a while, a biopic comes along where the actor so authentically fills the character he’s playing, you think that you’re seeing the actual person. Think: Jamie Foxx in Ray (Charles), Austin Butler in Elvis or Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line, playing Johnny Cash, a film also directed by James Mangold.
We are able to watch right before our eyes as Timothee Chalamet organically evolves into the character of Bob Dylan, in the same way Dylan evolved as a singer songwriter from folk to rock. At first, Chalamet sort of acts and speaks like a young Bob Dylan. By the end of Act 1, he starts to look and sound like Dylan. But by Act 2, Chalamet becomes Bob Dylan — in the way that he looks (big hair and Ray-Bans), acts, sounds, plays the guitar and sings. It’s a magical transformation to see Chalamet perfectly capture the essence of Dylan as both a singer and as a person. Due to the production delayed by the pandemic, Chalamet prepared for five years for this role, perfecting his guitar, harmonica and singing skills. It’s an well-earned Oscar-worthy performance.
But the film is about Dylan’s evolution as a songwriter, singer and cultural change-agent. Dylan evolves, but not everyone around him does. His business promoters, some members of his band and many of his fans want him to play the old stuff. The film’s climactic scene takes place at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Dylan goes electric. The festival sponsors and the fans all want Dylan to play songs from his folk past. But he’s moved on. “What they want me to play Blowing in the Wind my entire life?” Dylan sings to his muse in She Belongs to Me: “She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, She don’t look back.” He’s looking ahead, not back.
[…] For folks who like their folk legends with that Chesterfield mildness plus no unpleasant aftertaste, smoke a pack of A Complete Unknown,… Source link […]