A Complete Unknown (2024) (1 Viewer)

Had some free time, decided to venture out to the mall on XMas eve to my local AMC theater to use my A-List subscription, and took in a viewing of "A Complete Unknown". Was kinda dreading the nearly 2.5 hour running time, but the pacing is fairly nice, never once thought the movie was dragging along as it moves through the film's plot points. The movie lives up to the title, you don't get much background on Bob Dylan's life before the early 1960s, but the film bounces around the early 1960s, hitting some early highlights of Dylan's musical journey. While I don't have any Dylan in my music library (pretty small collection anyhow), in college, there was one room in the hall who was always playing Dylan, so through just daily osmosis of being exposed to Dylan, I was familiar with his songs/music output.

Chalamet's portrayal gains more confidence as Dylan himself finds himself through his early beginnings in folk music and navigating through other genres and historical events happening during that time period. The direction by Mangold is good, the script / concluding plotline is a bit of a weak point, but overall, still an enjoyable biopic embracing the title's promise. Heh.

[DaveF]

My dad is a long time Dylan fan (a taste I did not inherit ). I’m trying to get him to go to a Christmas Day showing this afternoon with me. I have no specific interest in the movie otherwise, but it would be fun to see it with my dad.

 

[benbess]

Liked it a lot! One of my favorite movies of the year. Casting was perfect not just for Dylan, but for Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). From my pov gives good insider stuff about some of what was happening in Dylan's life and career from 1961-1964, and the music is great. I wish we could get an extended cut of this movie, because I feel like a lot didn't make it into the film, even though it is pretty long already. My rating: A-

 

[DaveF]

And my dad apparently preferred to stay home and watch Dune 2 (with my HBO Max login) to going out today. I get it. I’m a little disappointed. But that’s family.

 

[Jake Lipson]

And my dad apparently preferred to stay home and watch Dune 2

Well, at least he chose a film with the same lead actor. Maybe it will help convince him to see this one with you later. A Complete Unknown is good, but Dune is easily the better film of the two Chalamet was in this year.

I saw A Complete Unknown yesterday and liked it up to a point. I found it to be a well-made but fairly standard musician biography. You already know what you are getting buying the ticket because so many of the beats here are common to this genre. But it is a perfectly serviceable application of that traditional biopic formula to Bob Dylan's early career. It just doesn't really contain much surprise in terms of the style in which things are presented.

The cast is easily the best thing about the movie. Chalamet is impeccable and fully committed. The music performances are great. I really hope this is a breakout role for Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez. She has a supporting role because the movie is centered on Dylan, but she is equally excellent. Baez is also able to call out Dylan on his behavior, which I appreciated because he is not the most sympathetic protagonist as portrayed here.

The downside here is that I don't really feel like I know that much more about Dylan as a person (or even as a character) after spending an overlong 2 hours and 20 minutes watching the movie. Maybe that's the point because he is a private person, but it does hold the movie back somewhat.

 

[Jake Lipson]

 

[benbess]

One of the things left out of the movie was the famous meeting between Dylan and the Beatles in 1964. I wonder if they filmed it and it got left on the cutting room floor, or if for copyright or length reasons they just didn't even try to do it. I think Dylan had some influence on John Lennon especially. John was writing rather basic love songs at that point, but was impressed by the complexity of Dylan's writing, and for that reason and many others decided to stretch his wings lyrically.

Help! When The Beatles Met Bob Dylan

On 28th Aug 1964, after playing a show at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York, The Beatles met Bob Dylan for the first time at The Delmonico Hotel. Dylan and mutual journalist friend Al Aronowitz

www.thisdayinmusic.com

 

[Sam Favate]

One of the things left out of the movie was the famous meeting between Dylan and the Beatles in 1964. I wonder if they filmed it and it got left on the cutting room floor, or if for copyright or length reasons they just didn't even try to do it. I think Dylan had some influence on John Lennon especially. John was writing rather basic love songs at that point, but was impressed by the complexity of Dylan's writing, and for that reason and many others decided to stretch his wings lyrically.

Help! When The Beatles Met Bob Dylan

On 28th Aug 1964, after playing a show at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York, The Beatles met Bob Dylan for the first time at The Delmonico Hotel. Dylan and mutual journalist friend Al Aronowitz

www.thisdayinmusic.com

There is always Sam Mendes’ four Beatles biopics to make that happen. Maybe they can get Chalamet to cameo!

 

[benbess]

A Complete Unknown is obviously not a documentary, but for some reason I was slightly surprised by how many things are just made up for the movie. But I can see why, for dramatic reasons, most of the changes were made.

What the Bob Dylan Biopic 'A Complete Unknown' Gets Wrong

What is true and what is false in the new Bob Dylan biopic, 'A Complete Unknown.'

www.rollingstone.com

‘A Complete Unknown’: What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in the Bob Dylan Biopic

Is Elle Fanning’s character based on a real person? Did people really go that nuts when Dylan went electric? And did Johnny Cash ever actually offer Dylan a Bugle?

www.vanityfair.com

 

[Malcolm R]

I've never understood the point of making movies about a real person that are then mostly fiction. If the person's real life isn't interesting to support a film without "enhancement", then don't make it.

These musical "biopics" seem to be simply an excuse to link together performances of the greatest hits inside a largely fictional framework.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m pretty familiar with the history and the film seemed basically true - more of a matter of the history being condensed than completely invented out of whole cloth.

At the end of the day, does it matter much that the film had the audience calling him “Judas” and him responding “play fucking loud” in Newport instead of Manchester? Heck, music historians thought for decades that that moment had happened in London due to a mislabeled bootleg release. I don’t think that kind of condensation really hurts anything.

Dylan did hang out with Woody Guthrie, and Dylan did hang out with Pete Seeger, and Woody and Pete hung out, but all of them might not have hung out at the same time. Showing them together conveys that they knew each other and were part of a moment together and that’s certainly true. Does it really matter if the details are compressed to an understandable shorthand that gives the audience the vibe of the moment in history?

Does it matter that the film shows Al Kooper coming up with the organ part for Like A Rolling Stone on take one when it was actually on take four?

Apparently the one change that Dylan asked for was that they use a pseudonym for his non-famous ex-girlfriend, which seems not unreasonable. The thinking was that a movie puts everyone back in the spotlight and that performers like Joan Baez signed up for that life and his ex very clearly didn’t. I don’t think it matters much - anyone with access to a biography or Wikipedia can find her real name - but if it made Dylan feel more comfortable about advising on the accuracy of the script, so be it.

And then there’s the whole thing that the Dylan character was making a point of in the film, which Bob has made over and over in real life, that some of these details don’t matter. He’s always obscured the literal truth in favor of the emotional reality - what it felt like to be there vs the exact granular nature of what happened. His autobiography is littered with little distortions of the truth that add up to a larger picture of what it felt like to live through those moments.

The Dylan character in the film has a line, “When people ask me where the songs come from, they don’t really want to know where they came from. They want to know why they didn’t come up them.”

And that’s sort of the thesis and guiding light of the story. Bob followed the material wherever it went and if there was a secret to his genius, other than simply being born with something more than the rest of us, it was that he did what the music told him to do, not what people expected of him. And that could lead to exchanges like the one where he tells Baez that her songs are like oil paintings in a dentist’s office, and where she tells him in response that he’s kind of an asshole. I think it’s possible both things are true. I do think a lot of Baez’s writing was overly precious and comes across as more engineered than organic, and I think those qualities leave it more as being of a time rather than for all time. But it’s also not a kind thing to say to your kinda-girlfriend.

So my takeaway is that while the film does a bit of rearranging history to make the story come through clearer, it’s nothing any more egregious than any other biopic. The film evokes the feeling of what it was like to be there in those moments and I think that’s the truth that matters most.

 

[TravisR]

To steal from David Milch and Deadwood, history is a lie agreed upon.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm sure there are documentaries or books about Bob Dylan out those who are interested in that. A dramatic film simply has different goals than a purely factual thing. Condensing things as needed makes sense for dramatic structure, but also for telling the story in a reasonable running time. I liked the movie and would not hesitate to recommend it. But it already felt its length at 2 hours and 20 minutes.

 

[Wayne_j]

I was planning to see this on Christmas but I came down with a cold. I will probably watch Monday night.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I was planning to see this on Christmas but I came down with a cold.

Feel better soon!

Variety has this article discussing what really happened and where dramatic license for the movie. Spoilers in the article, obviously, for anybody who hasn't seen the movie yet.

‘A Complete Unknown’ Fact vs. Fiction: Bob Dylan Experts Go Deep on What’s True or Fanciful in the Celebrated Biopic

What's real or fictionalized in the Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown'? Several experts, including the author of the source book, go into detail.

variety.com

 

[benbess]

Historian Douglas Brinkley in this 5-minute video explores Dylan's relationship with the movies since long before he became famous. Below that James Mangold and key members of his sound team talk about the film for about an hour.





Bob Dylan praised the book that helped inspire the movie and recommended it. I have the audiobook version of it now and I've just started listening.

 

[Jake Lipson]

 

[benbess]

Chalamet has said in several interviews that one of his hopes for the movie is that more people will get into Dylan's music and lyrics.

Timothée Chalamet says his ‘greatest hope’ for ‘A Complete Unknown’ is that younger generations discover Bob Dylan

The actor spent years preparing to play the legendary singer, learning the harmonica and guitar in the process.

www.yahoo.com

Growing up my family had a few Dylan albums, but some of the most well-known versions of some of his early songs were done by others. In college I bought the three CD best-of boxed set called Biograph when it came out. That was forty years ago, which is mind blowing. Still a great set, and you can listen to it with amazon music unlimited if you have that. It's a good selection, but I wish it was chronologically arranged rather than the mixed way it's presented.




About twenty years ago Bob Dylan's radio show Theme Time Radio Hour started playing on XM satellite radio. For this radio show Dylan became one of the best DJs in history for music by other artists. His encyclopedic knowledge of good music from different decades is displayed. From diving into that Dylan Goes Electric book it was clear he was transfixed by music starting from when he was about 11, often listening to the radio all night, collecting and listening to records, learning to play instruments, etc. He once even borrowed/stole some records from someone when he was a teenager so that he could listen to them and study them. This radio show ran for three seasons, and now is difficult to find. But here's an example of a show with the theme Time.



Dylan's albums in the 1960s are all really good, but starting in the 70s things get more rocky. Sometimes there's only one song on an album that's really good, and in the 80s there were a few albums that were more or less duds. But still even recently there are albums with wonderful and thought-provoking songs. In the year 2020, sixty years after he started recording music, Dylan came out with an epic 16-minute song called Murder Most Foul, which is one of his best from my pov. It would be good to have a Biograph Part II set that would select some of the best songs from the last 40 years, including this one.



Here are the lyrics from the official Dylan site...

Murder Most Foul | The Official Bob Dylan Site

www.bobdylan.com

Finally, here's Chalamet being interviewed about the music for the film by music expert Zane Lowe for 50-minutes, and below that the trailer for Scorsese's insightful documentary No Direction Home, which covers roughly the same era as this movie.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It speaks to the quality and shear breadth of Dylan’s songwriting and recording that you can ask ten different fans what his best work is and get ten different but completely respectable answers.

For me, his best period is the one he’s in now. Dylan scholars debate exactly when it started but I’d say the first hints of this era began with “Oh Mercy” in 1989, came into sharp focus with “Time Out Of Mind” in 1997, and took off into the stratosphere when he started producing all of his own records (under the name Jack Frost) starting with 2001’s “Love and Theft.” Every single thing he’s put out since 1997 has been a masterpiece.

And that includes Theme Time Radio Hour, which is a delight. The fun thing about that show is that Dylan as DJ mixes together truths, urban legends and outright falsehoods and unless you’re a genius level music scholar, you’d never know anything he said was anything less than on the level. A lot of the show was actually curated and written not by Dylan but by producer Eddie Gorodetsky but Dylan makes it seem as if he’s speaking off the cuff.

One thing with Dylan you gotta keep in mind - and the movie gets at this a little - is that almost everything he says about himself is a lie, or at least, a distortion of the truth. The real truth is in the art. When I think of this, I’m reminded of something Bruce Springsteen said describing his job: “telling a lie in service of the truth.”

I am convinced that Dylan never wanted to be or set out to be a folk hero and that he never wanted to be “the voice of a generation” - folk music was just the most readily available entry-point into a career when he got started. Some of the stuff that was so controversial in the 1960s seems so silly now that I wonder what a younger audience member unfamiliar with the history might think of it all. That a whole group of people would herald him as a saint and savior when he sang his lyrics backed by acoustic guitar, but then felt he was the antichrist when he sang those words holding an electric instrument instead - its flabbergasting that people felt so strongly about something so unimportant.

The concert where an audience member yelled “Judas!” and Dylan said back, “I don’t believe you” was in Manchester, not Newport. The interesting thing about that, if you listen to the recording closely, you can hear another shout from the audience at the same moment where someone says something to the effect of “I’m not going to listen to your records anymore” - it’s impossible to tell from the tape but it’s very plausible that this was what Dylan was responding to when he said “I don’t believe you.”

The details around his 1966 motorcycle crash that led to his eight year hiatus from touring are very fuzzy. The accepted story is that Dylan had a near-fatal accident in upstate NY necessitating a break from performing and recording. But oddly, for a near-fatal accident on a main road, there’s precious little evidence that it happened as described. The police were never called. An ambulance was never called to the scene. Dylan’s wife is said to have picked him up and drove him to the home of his city doctor hours away. That doesn’t necessarily add up to the way one would respond to a near-fatal injury. Some Dylan scholars and historians believe that Dylan was in a minor accident, walked away more or less unharmed, but used the incident as a way to get off the merry-go-round he had been on. He was allegedly on high doses of amphetamines throughout 1965/66, pushing himself to keep his output up (that “Bringing it all Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde” were all made in less than a year is insane) and to keep touring, and that he knew he had reached the end of that particular road. If he had kept going as he had been, he very easily could have been just another 60s star who died from drug abuse. So instead, he took himself off the board. He killed that particular character he was playing, the Dylan that everyone put their hopes and dreams and expectations into, to save himself.

 

[TravisR]

Chalamet has said in several interviews that one of his hopes for the movie is that more people will get into Dylan's music and lyrics.

The noblest of goals and it will happen. Certainly not every 18 year old that goes and sees the movie because they think Chalamet is good looking will suddenly become a Dylan fan but there are definitely people that are going to hear this music for the first time and become fans because of this movie.