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

Now imagining Bradley Cooper's '80s Dylan movie. JOKERMAN.

lol

i thought this was ok. performances are all great. but it's a total standard issue biopic. it doesnt' commit crimes like Bohemian Raphsody; but I prefer these things when they get kind of weird, like Rocketman (or I'm Not There, which I rewatched yesterday).

Perfect timing, I guess, seeing this on the day Jimmy Carter dies.

Much to my surprise--really thought I'd hate it (trailer, genre, impossible expectations)--I liked almost all of this. The '61-'64 half was really strong; parts of '65 dragged a bit--nothing too serious--weighted down by significance and over-familiarity, but good stuff there too (e.g., Seeger's NPR show). I read very little in advance of films I know I'll see, so I had no idea Pete Seeger was played by Edward Norton. Thought he was great--I hope he wins awards. Also liked Monica Barbaro as Baez. I thought at first the actress was Lindsey Broad from the American The Office, not thinking about the timeline there. Baez is always great in documentaries cutting Dylan down to size, but they maybe slightly over-emphasized that part of their relationship, I don't know--she didn't come across that hard-edged in David Hadju's Positively Fourth Street. I liked the character/performance a lot anyway. Timothée Chalamet made almost zero impression on me in a couple of other films, but he's fine here. Emma Stone is always good, though she gets stuck with the same wounded-girlfriend-watching-from-the-wings scene twice. (I liked her spinning-plate analogy.) Recognized Charlie Tahan from Ozark as Al Kooper almost immediately.

Two favourite scenes from many: the Newport performance of "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the camera roaming around for reactions from all the principals (especially the beatific smile on Seeger/Norton). Also one that was so obvious it would have been easy to mess up: playing "Song for Woody" in the hospital. I'm very partial to this scene, and the one in A Complete Unknown was almost as good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlKk9Fg2Eio

Emma Stone's so good, she's even good in films she's not in--sorry, Elle Fanning.

I had no idea Pete Seeger was played by Edward Norton. Thought he was great--I hope he wins awards

He won the Boston Society of Film Critics award for supporting actor and is nominated for Golden Globe and Critics' Choice awards. Oscar-wise, I think he's one of three guys fighting for two spots.

un-uttered nickname for someone at my workplace was "dollar store chalamet."

(xpost) He has Seeger so right--that otherworldly faith in the purity of what he's doing that almost makes him seem like a child at moments (he has a great line about jubilation)--it's uncanny. The film does seem to make a point of rescuing Seeger from the role of villian at the '65 festival, tranferring that over to Alan Lomax.

Seeger later claimed that while yes, he did tell the soundman that if he had an ax he'd cut the power cables, it was only because he felt the overall sound coming from the PA was too loud and distorted, and he wanted to hear Dylan's words--he didn't mind him going electric.

Didn't he always say that his (Seeger's) father was there, and he was worried about how the volume would affect him? I'll have to revisit Festival, which I loved the one time I saw it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_(1967_film)

Xp Joan Baez

Clemenza, I think we have to chalk up her “hard edginess” to music biopic conventions. If Suze/Sylvia is gonna be the innocent one, than Joan has to be tough one. I don’t think anyone has talked about their relationship with Bob Dylan more than Joan Baez and she seems to look at it pretty clear headed, but with fondness. I really liked in the end credits they mention Diamonds and Rust.

Loved the hell out of this read:

https://merrillmarkoe.substack.com/p/a-complete-unknown-the-ballad-of

that was driving me crazy also!

I was nodding along with Ms. Markoe's points. But tbf this was a Bob Dylan biopic, not a Seeger biopic, so Toshi's near-nonexistence in the film was a reflection of her extremely minimal importance to the story they were trying to tell. When you only have about 120 minutes to dramatize several critical years of Dylan's life you have to drastically economize and condense. Pete's direct importance to Dylan's career made it necessary to emphasize his role. Not hers.

Considering Toshi's ubiquity in Pete's life they couldn't eliminate her from those scenes. She was there. But in a Dylan biopic she was never going to be elevated to a major character, like Baez. The result onscreen was just as Markoe described, but I don't see how enlarging Toshi's role would have told Dylan's story more compellingly. From the storyteller's perspective, she really was just incidental and peripheral.

i can never watch movies like this. they are so silly. did they have an old guy in a suit smoking a cigar saying "mark my words, that young man will have no future in the music business!".

Quite the opposite here: faces of people listening to Dylan and trying to process what they immediately recognize as the future (Seeger especially).

#ReleaseTheToshiCut

I think you should leave that comment on Markoe's blog, Aimless. She might have a rethink and delete the post.

I had a bigger problem with the exposition, the LOOK DO YOU SEE episodes, and how the script regards Baez and "Sylvie Russo." They come across, glancingly, as strong women, but I couldn't figure out Mangold's attitude: how I was supposed to feel about them. Nuisances? Victims? Notches on a bedpost? Mangold does include the Newport scene where Bobby suddenly looks stricken at the thought of her departure, but is it ego or love? It comes out of nowhere.

xp Her POV is worthwhile. Hollywood has no scruples about distorting reality to make a better story, but when a real person is distorted its fine to give them a noogie for it.

whenever i see elijah wald's name i think: oh god he had to listen to so much dave van ronk music when he was doing that book with dave van ronk. i couldn't do it. his voice is as sweaty as he was.

in honor of this movie i bought some records from eric von schmidt's widow, helen. and listened to some of them. and i'm keeping one of her dylan records. she knew bob back then. i got some Monk records from her. her brother was Monk's tour manager and he was ALSO one of the early people behind the Newport Folk Festival. i spent a swell afternoon talking to him in his garage once. Bob Jones. his wife gave me some samosas. he had awesome records.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/arts/music/bob-jones-dead.html

As time goes on it seems like the only music biopic that got it right was 24-Hour Party People, partially because it would stop to explain who everybody was, and also that the Howard Devoto cameo is the peak of Cinema.

@ Aimless - surely given Toshi Seeger's central role with the Newport Folk Festival, an event which figures very prominently in the film, she might have been depicted with more of a speaking role. I mean there are like three separate scenes of Newport dudes discussing amongst themselves what's to be done about this Dylan fellow; TS's sole contribution to this debate is to, silently, stop PS from chopping up the cables with a hatchet. And what about the TV broadcast scene that Markoe zooms in on? Plenty of room to have her role sketched in.

I mean, if Alan Lomax can have another character explaining to Bob "here's who he is and why he's important to the folk scene," why not this other person who appears onscreen in wayyy more of the film? The movie (which I enjoyed) has room for outright trivia like the origin story for the organ part in Like a Rolling Stone (which I also enjoyed), so it's not like it's being finely sharpened down to one singular thesis statement on Dylan and his world. The sheer quantity of onscreen Toshi suggest to me that there were probably multiple lines of dialogue, maybe whole scenes with her and Bob, that got shot and then trimmed in the edit.

If Toshi Seeger' character had further lines and a more prominent part that were left on the cutting room floor then you'll have to take that up with the director and editor. Your point seems to be her character could have been handled better. OK. No argument from me there. That was Markoe's point, too. It's a valid point, as I already said.

My basic point was that these films always distort, condense and simplify everything that actually happened. The best way not to be disappointed by this fact is to not watch a biopic where you already know more about the subject before you go into the theater than the film could possibly tell you in two hours that were "based on a true story". As a genre they generally suck and I'd be just as happy if they failed to make money, so they'd go away.

I know it's ILX, but it's...bizarre to me that we're having a, uh, discussion about whether Toshi Seeger deserves more space in a Bob Dylan biopic by James Mangold and Jay Cocks.

if the film had been more inventive, it would've cast Eriko Hatsune as (a) Dylan.

I'm Still Not There

@ Aimless - no disagreement that biopics distort/compress/etc.! goes with the territory! but it's still worth noting when the choices about what to distort and compress are, at best, very weird. often that might be how we discern things about the intent of the filmmakers.

in this case, what's been highlighted is a very weird choice to show this important woman of color onscreen A LOT, all throughout the movie, but keep her almost entirely silent. i think it's fair to suggest that this maybe reflects some patterns or unconscious biases etc. like you'd kinda expect someone involved in making this to say "hey I noticed this character is onscreen all throughout our movie but we never show her saying or doing anything." apparently that didn't happen.

Related to all this (the film in general, not Toshi Seeger): you can watch Murray Lernar's Festival for nothing on the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/festival-1967

I saw it once on TCM a few years ago and loved it.

As time goes on it seems like the only music biopic that got it right was 24-Hour Party People, partially because it would stop to explain who everybody was, and also that the Howard Devoto cameo is the peak of Cinema.

While planning a Zoomcast around A Complete Unknown, a friend just found this:

https://archive.org/details/renaldo-clara-1978_202208

I had no idea...I've been waiting forever to see that (and holding off on the murky bootleg VHS I have). The print looks good.

Also: https://archive.org/details/eat-the-document

pvmic: i really genuinely loved this

i’m not terribly bunged up about the specifics being left out or changed or elided - i agree Toshi could have/should have had a proper speaking role & deserved one but at least she ~exists~ in the movie universe unlike Sara, yknow his actual wife lol
(YES i know he didnt want her in the movie anyway shut up let me just say stuff )

the spine of the movie is the power of his songwriting & music & the effect it has on the people around him. it changes them. it’s like once Frodo has the One-Ring, and every time anyone sees the Ring they transform. All these people suddenly want what he has, or want him to be something more, or even at a minimum just want to feel again the way X song made them feel … and Bob is the travelling magician, beguiling folks with a new trick but he’s not going to stay put performing that one trick over again - he’s already thought up 10 new better ones that he knows they’d enjoy just as much if they’d only stop asking for the old ones.

like, the movie is in many ways less about Bob & more about what everyone around him brought TO him because of the music

anyway the opening scene w Woody made me cry & i thought Timmy’s Zimmy was really good & thoughtful & funny (and kinda hott tbh)

five marlboros out of five
no notes

I'm adding a new "anyway shut up let me just say stuff" shortcut on my keyboard for whenever I post here.

lol yr welcome

Good review

I like your take, veg. David Sims said something similar on Letterboxd:

"less about bob dylan than about the experience of dylan moving through your world, watching him grow as an artist, and constantly struggle to understand who or what is making him so special."

One of Baez's lines is key, the morning after the '65 show (paraphrase): "You got what you wanted--you got rid of us."

xxpost clemenza thx for the Festival link! i’d never seen the whole thing. a nice quirky diversion for my NYE

Glad you liked it. Was surprised to find out a friend doesn't--his main complaint is that the performances are truncated. Love Peter, Paul & Mary doing "If I Had a Hammer."

well, it was a lot more haphazard than i expected, one performance was shot from backstage & all you could see was closeups of the tops of the performers heads!

also mr veg was more distracted by the amount of hair in the gate lol

Toshi did have more lines than the Japanese-American pilot in Top Gun: Maverick who is in the background of at least 6 scenes and doesn’t get a single word in

I think this film really shafted Tom Wilson, whose impact on Dylan and American popular music was enormous.

Producers tend not to be part of artists' narrative. Mark Ronson got one mention in the Amy Winehouse biopic

I honestly don't think that Tom Wilson had much of an impact on Dylan. By all accounts he was a fun guy but i don't hear a lot of value added by his production. Dylan could have kept working with him if he wanted to and he didn't

If anyone got shafted in the movie I would say it was Alan Lomax being cast as the "bad guy." Again i know its just music biopic conventions but Bob absolutely gushes about him interviews.

Wilson is obviously a monumental figure on Highway 61, the first VU album, and Freak Out! alone, and he did lots else besides. One big contribution he made to Highway 61 was keeping Dylan loose in the studio--the two of them clearly had a great rapport when you hear all the outakes. I'd love for someone to make a good documentary on him (maybe that's already been done, not sure). But I don't think this is the film for that.

Yeah, I haven't gotten a sense of Wilson as a "producer," more like an overseer or engineer. I'd love info to the contrary.