Timothèe Chalamet is Bob Dylan ‘A Complete Unknown’.

Trailer is out. I was sceptical on his casting but less so now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcNNteP22gQ

This film has one glaring problem and it isn't Chalamet.

It's a bio-pic of a popular musician, so it's going to let everyone hear a bunch of songs they know by heart and will dutifully plod along, cherry-picking a few dramatic events and overdoing them. The formula is so tired it can be done in a sleepwalk. I expect this will be made with a reverence that will appeal to the most avid and tiresome members of his fan club. And it will make a lot of money because it's a big fan club.

I trust James Mangold with this, based on Walk The Line and Ford vs. Ferrari. I mean, I also liked Bohemian Rhapsody as a Wikipedia page on film. Wasn't compelled at all to see the Elton, Amy Winehouse, etc. ones.

why does is start with bass rumble is dylan going to fight galacticus

I don't want to watch a biopic of a musician I like because I have my emotional connection set and I don't want someone to try to manipulate it. And I don't want to watch a biopic of a musician I don't like, because, duh. That doesn't leave much in the genre. I remember liking The Glenn Miller Story.

I'm Not There is my favorite music biopic, but the trailer has me cautiously optimistic (helps that I generally like Chalamet).

I'll see this as soon as it opens, but I'd say its biggest challenge will be the shadow of Inside Llewyn Davis--not really about Dylan, of course, but immersed in that moment, and what Dylan stuff there is is great, especially the shadowy glimmer of the Robert Shelton-reviewed performance.

Chalamet regardless spent time researching Dylan during the pandemic, visiting former homes of Dylan in New York City and consulting director Joel Coen during this time.[10][11]

Just read up on it a bit--I thought it was about the Greenwich Village period, didn't realize it was Newport '65. So that's something different than Llewyn Davis.

Million dollar quarter but Nashville skyline

I can't take any of these seriously after Walk Hard

I don't usually care for these, but I did enjoy Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic. That will be the standard to beat here.

timothee looks like a young elijah wood not a young robert zimmerman here and also not sullen enough. he's got the blinking while playing down though

Would prefer a feature length biopic about the making of 'Brownsville Girl'

Maybe he could play Donovan next.

Sam Shepard and Bob Dylan locking themselves in a motel room somewhere to write it...

Think I’d rather see this

https://www.broadwaysf.com/events/girl-from-the-north-country/

My 12 year-old pretty much thinks Timothy is the bee's knees and will watch anything he's in, he is very much stoked to see this. I hadn't even seen the trailer yet and he was excited to show me.

Girl from the north country sucks

lol good to know

edward norton seems great as pete seeger but that's the only part that seems even remotely appealing about this, from the trailer at least

This is a film made for people who believe Dylan should never have gone electric and should have married Joan Baez.

Chalamet is actually the best part about it -- had he been one of the many people playing Dylan in I'm Not There.q

I love Willy Wonka and Dune and Dylan and I would appreciate it if Chalamet would stop fucking about with things I like. He’ll probably play David Lynch next.

Totally not gonna see this except be accident.

I don't want to watch a biopic of a musician I like because I have my emotional connection set and I don't want someone to try to manipulate it. And I don't want to watch a biopic of a musician I don't like, because, duh. That doesn't leave much in the genre. I remember liking The Glenn Miller Story.

Watching a biopic is almost always like listening to re-records

Some kind of crummy less-than copy of the original, which is still the greatest.

Some kind of crummy less-than copy of the original, which is still the greatest.

Heh. My second post was a re-record itself.

Biopics that focus on a really specific point in time are usually more compelling, if still mostly useless.

especially if it’s a time when their cultural cache is not particularly high

I expect this will be made with a reverence that will appeal to the most avid and tiresome members of his fan club.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, July 24, 2024

This is a film made for people who believe Dylan should never have gone electric and should have married Joan Baez.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Called it.

everything I've seen from this feels exactly like the Joe Keery film in Pavements

Watching a biopic is almost always like listening to re-records

― James Carr Thief (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, December 25, 2024 10:04 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I would say "tribute band."

Please. It’s like listening to rich little do a reagan impression in 2014

would love a Tim Chalomet impression of Reagan

It’s sort of sad that 20 years ago everyone knew that the idea of a straight Dylan biopic would be dumb and corny so we got I GOT THERE or whatever, but I guess 20 years have passed and more layers of historical prestige or whatever have accumulated so I guess it’s to be expected.

lol Jimmy the Mod

No discourse about Tim’s nose modification?

It’s sort of sad that 20 years ago everyone knew that the idea of a straight Dylan biopic would be dumb and corny so we got I GOT THERE or whatever, but I guess 20 years have passed and more layers of historical prestige or whatever have accumulated so I guess it’s to be expected.

I'm assuming this is more of a Hollywood issue than a Dylan issue (cf. Walk the Line/Bohemian Rhapsody, whatever).

haven't seen this movie, not very interested in it, but i don't think you can call it a "straight biopic" given that it only covers a five-year period of his life

Ah okay, yeah sorry, I meant more like that Don Cheadle movie where it was like not Miles at his peak. Not that I would ever watch that but it just seems more interesting than sticking with canonical stuff.

it only covers a five-year period of his life

Hibbing is tired of being ignored for its all-important formative influence.

Would like to see a biopic that covers the important parts of Dylan’s life: Kurtis Blow collab, We Are the World, Soy Bomb, lingerie commercials, Nobel prize, joining Twitter

...talking to Arthur Baker about producing Empire Burlesque.

This shit sucked

Would like to see a biopic that covers the important parts of Dylan’s life: Kurtis Blow collab, We Are the World, Soy Bomb, lingerie commercials, Nobel prize, joining Twitter

Throw in the late '80s Dylan and Brian Wilson collaboration too - you can cast John Cusack and build universe!

*build a universe

"Bob Dylan has to think about his whole life before each music video setup!"--Bob Dylan

Spoiler: he plugs in

Lol

I saw similar viewers in the audience when I went

Hotness strikes again!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/30/dont-look-back-after-decades-of-apathy-a-complete-unknown-has-turned-me-into-a-dylan-nut

That is some cringe. You have linked to cringe.

eh it's fine

Loved how beyond Dylan's hotness being revealed to her via some actor, she then just chooses to waffle and say nothing of interest.

It’s cringe, but knowing, funny cringe.

Loved how beyond Dylan's hotness being revealed to her via some actor, she then just chooses to waffle and say nothing of interest.

^^^
"I was foolishly dismissive of Dylan before, now I have nothing to say."

She got me to listen to "Idiot Wind for the first time in years. No small thing.

Pointing out a musician's hotness IS the point, sailor.

She got me to listen to "Idiot Wind for the first time in years. No small thing.

Laura Snapes is the Guardian’s deputy music editor

Mission Accomplished.

I had a somewhat similar reaction the first time I saw Don't Look Back. I was already a moderate Dylan fan, but seeing that film in college I was like "OH! He was a goddamn star." His charisma, his cool, and sure, his hotness — it made the whole thing make sense to me, how this guy had been The Guy.

is Lex gonna review this?

I hope so!

You know, I haven't done a Dylan deep dive like Snapes has, but the movie made me appreciate him in a way I'm not sure I ever really have. I've also been pretty agnostic about him, since folk music and poetic lyrics have never been my thing. It's easy for me to get bored and tune out. But *watching* the songs being played in that context, I could feel their grip. And I watched Don't Look Back the next day because I wanted to experience the real thing.

that's cool!

i was sorta dylan agnostic until just before the pandemic. i really fell in love with john wesley harding and i was like "i think i need my love for this record to reframe how i feel about the rest of it," which it kind of did! surprising myself (much as it was also in character), i adored the christian period, and wrote a little about it in my pandemic substack https://hologramofthesenses.substack.com/p/the-train-bends-the-track-992

I'm in the same boat as Snapes! I've seen the film twice and gone pretty deep into the catalogue. This film definitely lit something inside me.

All good. I've gotten into someone's music through seeing a doc or a film about them. Just feel if you are gonna write about that experience it should tell a bit more.

ah i love this so much, great stories

^^^
Dylan is fun! Everyone should have a Bob phase.

Also, everybody must get stoned.

it does help

My sister saw this and liked it but there is absolutely no chance of her going through a Dylan phase.

I wonder if Dylan ever went through a Dylan phase.

I went through a thing where I would watch basically every music biopic or documentary, regardless of how I felt about the artist. I also read basically every musician memoir I could get my hands on.

Me, I already had my Thoughts on Bob* figured out before this most recent onslaught of Dylanisme, so I was immune this time. Able to see him from what I think is the appropriate distance (appreciative but not unoriginal or starstruck). Hot or not.

* = tell me all your Thoughts on Bob

Wait no what if Bob was one of us

Unoriginal? Uncritical.

the movie made me appreciate him in a way I'm not sure I ever really have. I've also been pretty agnostic about him, since folk music and poetic lyrics have never been my thing. It's easy for me to get bored and tune out. But *watching* the songs being played in that context, I could feel their grip

This was definitely my wife's words after seeing this with me. I dug out "Highway 61 revis" and she greatly enjoyed it. I could sell the idea of watching "Dont Look Back" (nearly added the apostrophe there) by saying it's the real people in the virtual sequel to "A Complete Unknown", but I'm guessing the nov might wear off.

Timothèe Chalamet is David Essex ‘A Complete Unknown’.

(... according to some people)

finally watched this and performances were good to great but as a movie it kinda blows.

looking forward to Jack Black as Jerry Garcia in Cap'n Tripps

Mom wanted to see this before it left the theatres, which I guess thanks to the Oscar shutout is the coming week (down to one cineplex in Houston!).

Some shocks:

-Movie Dylan <Doesn't Really Do Drugs!>

-Seriously WTF

-No mention of The Byrds? Or Phil Ochs?

-Alot of this film's "1965" was actually "1964"

-Again, NO DRUGS?

Rewatched Ladybird with the kid and I had totally forgotten Chalamet was in that. My hatred of his character may explain my Chalamet resistance.

He's meant to be a snot in Ladybird wtf. He engenders no sympathy.

https://i.imgur.com/WzxhMCO.gif

He’s like if Wally Brando wasn’t funny. That’s Timothy Chalamet.

Chala-may-NOT

He inspires more irrational hate than other actors his age and in his generation. I think he's learned to make the most with that body and voice.

he sounded like an upstate NY teenager in Dune II where everybody else (except Zendaya also who sounded like a teenager) was a thespian or at least had a commanding voice. it was so jarring.

so I'm not so sure about his voice

Dune needs thespians?

i love lil Timmy C … have done since Little Women. I think he’s knocked unfairly for a naturalism that is a feature and not a bug imo

otm

I like him too, I thought he should win the Oscar for Call Me By Your Name over Gary Oldman, but his natural voice is too timid and mumbly for a blockbuster movie like Dune, or even a period film like Little Women (which featured a lot of other bad voices and accents, foremost being Florence Pugh's. She is also featured in Dune II as a would-be empress, pronouncing figure as "figger").

I haven't seen him in A Complete Unknown yet, he's probably great.

I'm just getting too old and jaded

He was the best Laurie in the history of LW -- and I mean going back to the Katherine Hepburn version. He was perfect.

AMEN

Generally love him, also thought he wasn't quite right for Dune 2 (specifically - he didn't work as a doom-fated messiah for me. No issue with him in Dune 1.)

He’s in the LW version that has Laura Dern?

Goddamn it, that’s the next movie on our list. This man will give me no rest.

it’s my favorite version!

Thought this was OK, but after reading Positively 4th Street, what I want is a Bob & Joan & Richard & Mimi hang-out/vibes movie.

Never knew about this till today. Not nearly as famous as the guy who brought out the electric guitar at Newport that year, but wow. As I listened, it felt like Ochs and Eric Andersen were trying to have it both ways--covering the Beatles, but clowning around just enough so they could say "we don't take the song seriously"--but Ochs makes his intentions clear after they finish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv8vJ3f3AoM

(This was also at Newport '65, which may not be clear.)

awesome