A Complete Unknown
By: Brian Tallerico (Roger Ebert)
BUZZ NOTE: There is a video about the movie in this seed that I am unable to post which can be accessed by clicking on the "SEEDED CONTENT" link below this message, which will open the original source article.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Complete Unknown
James Mangold ’s “A Complete Unknown” is about all the variables that shape and warp creativity. Eschewing the often-shallow approach of the cradle-to-the-grave biopic to tell a formative chapter in music and world history, Mangold’s film fluidly captures the intersection of art and fame with solid performances, unshowy direction, and organic editing. As someone who generally loathes the “greatest hits” storytelling of films about famous figures and how they often rely on the printed legend instead of doing anything, and someone who has a strong love for the music of the purposefully enigmatic Bob Dylan, I have to admit to expecting “A Complete Unknown” to be predictably out of tune. Like its subject has done so many times in his six-decade career, this one exceeds expectations.
“A Complete Unknown” opens with a recording by Woody Guthrie, one of the main influences on a young Bob Dylan ( Timothée Chalamet ), who we meet on his way to introduce himself to the man whose work “struck him to the ground.” Guthrie, played by Scoot McNairy , is in a hospital in Jersey, and he happens to be visited by the legendary Pete Seeger (a wonderfully understated Edward Norton ) on the day a 20-year-old Dylan stops by in 1961. Seeger convinces Dylan to sing for his hero, and the moment is electric with creativity. It’s one of several scenes in “A Complete Unknown” in which Mangold captures Dylan’s ingenuity and songwriting brilliance with little interruption. One of the film’s greatest strengths is how much it relies on actual performance to tell its story—it has more full songs than a lot of Hollywood musicals and blissfully doesn’t go the medley route of non-stop snippets, choosing often to let the music do the talking.
Dylan’s music had a lot to say in the early ’60s. Several scenes subtly place Dylan’s art in a greater context to capture his importance. In one, as news clips of the Cuban Missile Crisis echo, Dylan plays “Masters of War” in a club. Imagine hearing the unapologetic lyrics of that song while potential Armageddon has practically emptied New York City of people, looking for somewhere that might be safer than Manhattan. It’s indicative of why Mangold’s film works overall—its effort to weave Dylan’s music into the fabric of the storytelling instead of just using it as a soundtrack. The use of news clips to mark the passage of time is undeniably overdone, but it plays into the theme that even an uncompromising artist like Dylan was a byproduct of the world around him, both on a macro and micro level.
As for the latter, the Dylan who would become so popular that he’s nearly a teen idol in the chapter of his career captured in this film was influenced by more than just Guthrie. Seeger, who ends up taking Dylan home after that chance encounter, is introduced in a courtroom defending his freedom of speech and becomes fascinatingly caught between the traditions of folk music and the rebel who may be taking it to an uncertain future. Dylan also meets two women who would shape his early career. Sylvie Russo ( Elle Fanning ) is a variation on Suze Rotolo, the woman on the cover of Dylan’s Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan , here portrayed as a partner who realizes she knows almost nothing about her lover, even as he becomes one of the most famous people in the world. Equally aggravated and enraptured by Dylan is Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), who becomes a superstar behind a “prettier” kind of folk than Dylan wants to play.
Mangold and Jay Cocks’s excellent script never overplays what it’s saying about how Dylan became a poet of his generation, trusting viewers to connect the dots on their own. Was Dylan’s raw poetry a response to Baez’s flowery fame? Was his “man in black” image influenced by his adoration and friendship with Johnny Cash? Why did he push back against his own fans, refusing to play some of his biggest hits on a tour with Baez? Why did he insist on going electric at Newport in 1965, one of the most famous events in folk music history, and where this chapter in Dylan’s life climaxes? Just because they told him not to?
Mangold’s approach demands a great deal of Mr. Chalamet, and he nails it. Not only does he sound like Dylan when he’s singing, he somehow captures the newness of these moments. When he plays “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for the first time in a great scene, it’s a song that a lot of people in the movie audience know by heart. Still, Chalamet and the production somehow convey the immediacy of that moment at Newport when these people are hearing a masterpiece for the first time. It gives the film an electricity that biopics almost always lack, feeling urgent instead of merely like a jukebox that’s been played a hundred times.
Chalamet is ably supported by a great ensemble. Norton and Fanning have been getting some early attention—both have won critics awards already—but the standouts for me are the captivating Monica Barbaro as Baez and a playful turn from Boyd Holbrook as Cash. Barbaro subtly nails how equally enraged and enraptured people could be by Dylan while Holbrook plays Cash as someone who spotted the raw genius in Dylan through all the stuff that fame and expectation put around him. They’re the angel and the devil on Bob’s shoulders.
“A Complete Unknown” opens and closes with not Dylan, but Guthrie, a recording of his classic “ So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh .” Not only does it connect Dylan to a folk music tradition that he would forever reshape, but it’s also got the same dark sense of humor and topicality that would often define his music. “We talked of the end of the world, and then we’d sing a song and then sing it again.” It’s a line reflective of the protest music like “Masters of War” that Dylan sings against a backdrop of the end of the world. And its last line channels the freewheelin’ spirit of Dylan and the easygoing charm of the film about him: “This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home, and I got to be driftin’ along.” Dylan drifted along into New York in 1961 and changed music forever. And we’re just driftin’ along with him still.
Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.
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Never before have I posted an article about a movie that was yet to be released but for personal reasons I did it for this one. Not only have I met and conversed with some of the persons mentioned in the article, including Dylan himself, but also I was in the audience at the 1995 Newport Folk Festival and witnessed when Dylan went electric, one of the most momentous occurrences in Folk Music history and a key issue in the movie.
Dylan came on stage playing songs on his acoustic guitar to the loud cheering of the crowd, but then unexpectedly he picked up an electric guitar and with the band behind him played "Maggie's Farm". Most of the crowd, mostly made up of dedicated classic folk music fans, started to boo, and it got louder. In fact when the song was finished it was thunderous so Dylan walked off the stage, that remained without a performer for a while. Then Peter Yarrow (from Peter Paul and Mary) took the mike and pleaded with the crowd to settle down and that Dylan would return. When everyone quieted down Dylan came back on the stage with his acoustic guitar and performed It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, which is of course the message he was telling everyone. By the way, I didn't boo.
I was in charge of the 1972 Mariposa Folk Festival on Toronto Island, since the person who usually ran it had gone to Europe for a vacation. It was the year that totally unexpectedly Bob Dylan showed up with his wife Sara and son Jesse to just see the festival others had probably told him about. They wandered around the festival, which was happening on 7 different stages simultaneously (we had given up the one big stage day and nighttime concept years before) and then they entered our private management and performer's area. It was there that I shook his hand and greeted them with thanks for coming and my hope that he was enjoying the festival. His words in reply have not been forgotten by me over the past more than a half century - "I really dig your festival, man."
Others who are mentioned whom I have met personally include Pete Seeger. When I had attended the Fox Hollow Folk Festival run by the Beers family on their upstate New York farm I stayed after the festival to help Bob Beers clean up his property. He then drove me to the Hudson River and we boarded Pete Seeger's yacht "Clearwater" that was docked there and I met Pete and his wife Toshi. At a previous Mariposa Festival I had to lift a pregnant Joan Baez, one of the performers, over a fence. Even pregnant she wasn't heavy.
Of course, I never met Woodie Guthrie, but his son Arlo was once a guest in my home when he had a gig in Toronto. But if Ramblin' Jack Elliott is not mentioned in the movie it would be a travesty, because when Dylan was starting out in Greenwich Village Jack was his mentor. Jack stayed over in my house more than once when he was in Toronto, and we became good friends.
A picture of a young Bob Dylan and Jack together.
Should be an interesting movie. Here is a bootleg clip of the Palamino Club in North Hollywood, CA. 1987 when Taj Mahal and Jesse Ed Davis were performing, and in walks Dylan, Fogerty, Harrison to join them. They played for well over an hour. I have a photo Dylan, Harrison Davis, Taj and great NA poet and rebel, the FBI has a dossier on him of over 10,000 pages, John Trudell.
As I'm sure you already know, I can't open that youtube video, but as long as it is as you described I won't delete it.
However, Kavika, I just noticed there was an image on your comment that did not open. If you were to copy it and save it to your computer's picture library as a jpg picture and then copy and paste it from there it will probably open for me.
Chamalet will be one of the nominees for Best Actor at the Oscars.
I'm most interested in how much he sounds like Dylan, by the preview clips it looks like he got pretty clsoe.
If you play the trailer on the IMDb article about A Complete Unknown, you will hear Camalet's singing voice.
He sounds some like Dylan, but Dylan's voice is noticeably more nasally.
Although I watch at least a movie a day on my TV, I have been to a movie theatre here only once in more than 18 years, but once the movie opens at a theatre I intend to go to see it rather than wait for 3 years on TV (due to copyright regulations). If I can pay to watch it on TV I will prefer to do so because I won't go anywhere crowded any more. This is a movie I absolutely MUST see, which, if you've read my first comment, you will understand.