In 1961, unknown 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar. He forges relationships with music icons of Greenwich Village on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates worldwide.
Chuck says:
Having tackled the life of Johnny Cash with “Walk the Line,” it seems a natural progression for director James Mangold to examine one of the Man-in-Black’s contemporaries. For any filmmaker, a biopic of Bob Dylan would be a daunting task. However, Mangold manages to create a bit of magic with “A Complete Unknown,” a movie that only covers a small portion of its subject’s life. Yet, it manages to capture much of what made Dylan stand apart from his peers and why he continues to captivate his fans some sixty years later.
The film begins in New York City in 1961. 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) arrives in New York City, having made the pilgrimage from Minnesota to visit Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), the folk singer having been hospitalized are exhibiting the first signs of Huntington’s Disease. During his visit, the young singer meets Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who takes him in. After hearing some of his guest’s songs, it doesn’t take long for him to realize Dylan has a distinctive voice. Phone calls and introductions are made and very soon, the teen finds himself playing in Village clubs and meeting with representatives from Columbia Records. He also crosses paths with two women who would have a significant impact on his life, fellow musician Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and artist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning).
The screenplay by Jay Cocks and Mangold focuses only on the first four years of Dylan’s career, his meteoric rise told in a compact and compelling manner. Scenes of him providing hits for more established artists segue into those in which he’s creating a sensation in the Big Apple’s folk venues, followed by sequences of him cutting songs that would become classics at Columbia. All the while, he keeps those in his sphere guessing as to his intentions.
Russo’s (Suze Rotolo in real life) affection for him comes at a price, as Dylan refuses to be tied down by her or Baez, who also suffers from his mercurial behavior. Meanwhile, record executives become increasingly concerned when their artist begins to deviate from what they thought was his established norm. Perhaps no one is more worried about Dylan than Seeger, who has come to see him as the artist who can increase folk music’s popularity and the progressive messages it contains. The last thing he wants is for his young musical messiah to wander off what he perceives to be his destined path.
Mangold does a wonderful job recreating the sense of optimism of the era. It’s heartbreaking to revisit a less cynical time in which the belief that art could affect change existed, that sensibility pulsing through the film. Much of this due to the performances; Barbaro and Fanning convey the strength and determination in their characters, while the contrariness displayed by Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash proves a nice counterpoint. Norton exemplifies this sensibility the most. Modest but determined to create change in a world that’s quickly passing him by, the actor never plays Seeger as a fool but as a gentle man, blinded by his own optimism.
As for Chalamet, he’s genuinely impressive, immersed in the role to the point that Dylan feels like a natural extension of himself. Spending five years to learn the guitar as well as 30 of the musician’s songs, the hard work pays off, the actor capturing not just his character’s sound but his swagger, petulance and rebelliousness as well. He manages to subsume his own persona, the transformation to Dylan a complete and rousing success.
Of course, Seeger’s fears are realized in his own backyard when Dylan comes on stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, shocking the crowd by playing electric guitar. Seen as a betrayal to the music’s traditional stylings, the hue and cry was immediate, the reasoning for this act a mystery. But, of course, that’s the whole point. Part of Dylan’s mystique revolves around his unpredictable nature, as well as his resistance to share many details about his private life. Yet, instead of repelling his fans, it just draws them further in, “A Complete Unknown” successful not only in chronicling how Dylan’s voice was created but also in maintaining and even fostering the mystery of the artist.
3 1/2 Stars
