Hello, readers! I’m Christina, one of the producers for the Book Maven: A Literary Revue. I’m an adjunct professor of writing based in Richmond, Virginia.
and I will be splitting time on film reviews here. You can check out last week’s review of Nickel Boys in case you missed it.I write to you moments after seeing A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic, relevant to our book universe as he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, beating out favorites like Haruki Murakami, Philip Roth, and Joyce Carol Oates for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” In Dylan’s own contrarian tradition, he did not attend the ceremony. Now, in 2024, Timothée Chalamet plays Dylan in A Complete Unknown directed by James Mangold.
My expectations for this movie were low — not because I didn’t have faith in Timmy, but because it’s hard to execute a great biopic. What even makes a great biopic? Is it telling the events of someone’s life just as they occurred? Or is it turning a life into a compelling story? Autofiction writers know: sometimes truth-telling isn’t about the facts at all. It’s about perspective.
Chalamet’s Dylan, characterized by his hunched shoulders and long guitar-picking nails, rips his cigarettes, revs his motorcycle, and blows his harmonica. With hair that grows taller with each level of fame, Chalamet’s Dylan is often in transit: to a gig, to Sylvie’s, the studio, or fleeing fans. He’s always got a song he’s muttering, but the scenes cut out before we watch him finish writing them.
Rarely is there a moment of stillness—who is this Bob Dylan? More importantly, who does A Complete Unknown think Bob Dylan is?
When we first meet Dylan, he’s hitchhiking to see his then-hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), in the hospital where he plays a song for his idol. He’s taken in by Pete (Edward Norton) and Toshi Seeger (Eriko Hatsune), and soon thrust into scaffolded success. A local gig. A cover record. A single. And then, the Joan Baez’s (Monica Barbaro) cover of Dylan’s single! Even when he’s up-and-coming, we don’t see struggle. Nowhere to stay? He’ll crash with Pete. When he’s hungry, his girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning) pays for lunch. With no struggle, there’s no triumph.
The storytelling formula is: character wants X but can’t have it because Y. In this film, not much stands in Dylan’s way. Everyone we meet looks at him in awe. He’s an undeniable talent. Conflict arises piecemeal in the harsh world that surrounds him, but only comes through on the TV and radio: the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK. Meanwhile, Chalamet’s Dylan stares blankly ahead.
I had no idea what it was trying to say, and couldn’t distinguish between its intentions and my own interpretation. For example, in a round table of the folk festival board members, one remarks that they can’t hire an all white rock band for authenticity’s sake. The irony is unclear, nearly unclockable: is Mangold saying good on these guys for recognizing rock and roll was started by black musicians? Or is Mangold saying something more interesting, more complicated, that these men think they’re progressive, and yet have curated an all white line up themselves.
Another detail that left me unsure: Bob Dylan starts writing political folk songs after meeting Sylvie. Is the movie trying to say that he was inspired by her activism? That she taught him something? That he stole her purpose? That he used politics as a means for art, rather than art as a means for activism?
There are so many things I wish I had seen: Bob Dylan’s creative process, the consequences of his infidelity, people disliking him (there had to be some), the purpose of art and activism — do they go hand in hand? Must you choose one or the other? What happens when your tastes change? In the right hands, a Bob Dylan biopic could handle those forever-relevant questions. If you ask me, you can skip this trip to the theater.
Oh, my. You couldn’t be more wrong. But I will admit that for those of us who grew up in the 60s, so much of the context is embodied in us, and for your age cohort, I guess not so much. Everyone was learning from peers and the unfolding political situation and the music and culture. And “we” all know by now that while a genius musician, Dylan remains an enigma. Talented, ambitious, aloof, etc. But the takeaway should NOT be to skip seeing the movie. Quite the opposite.