Pisaries Creator

There are not major spoilers in this review!

The State of Bob Dylan

If you know anything about Minnesota, it should include being the birthplace of Judy Garland (Frances Ethel Gumm), Prince (Robert Nelson), and Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman). Thus begins the journey of Bob Zimmerman growing up in a small town called Hibbing and turning into the musician he eventually became past and present. Bob Dylan would come to be recognized for his great lyrics, unruly hair, and blowing into harmonicas with vigor. His influence has filtered deep and wide across the U.S. and the globe. A Complete Unknown focuses on a short span of time in Bob Dylan’s music career, namely his transition from playing strictly folk music on acoustic guitars to more grittier tunes including his use of the electric guitar. Dylan’s unwillingness to be pigeonholed by those who controlled a major part of the folk scene on the East coast including Pete Seeger was one of the major conflicts in this movie. Every song sung by Timothée Chalamet is basically a nice tribute to Dylan’s enigmatic existence to which Chalamet was applauded for by critics. I was given a nostalgic trip down memory lane (even those of us who were born years after Bob Dylan) because I still remember how he influenced me way back when. A man of a few words that liked his privacy but was able to pierce through human skin into the human soul. This is what a great musician is capable of and luckily for us, Dylan’s lyrical and vocal talents were such strong forces. He is what I call a once in a lifetime artist that surfaces on rare occasions. A Complete Unknown is a biopic adaptation of Elijah Wald’s book called Dylan Goes Electric! that is directed by James Mangold. The running time is two hours and 20 minutes with an R rating.

The Streets of NYC and Beyond

NYC is the place to live despite how it could chew you up and spit you out whether you had talent or not. NYC is not a haven for naive young men and women wanting to prove something to themselves. Those who wanted to be authentic and just live their lives without much resistance was the epitome of Bob Dylan’s time in NYC. Sure, he had dreams because everyone does, but the main reason for Dylan to be in NYC in the early 1960s was to meet Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). It is during this visit, he meets Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), another folk musician. He makes a good impression on both singers and soon meets Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), a musician closer in values to Seeger than Dylan on the surface. While there isn’t much depth into Dylan’s life besides his dislike of singing cover songs early in the film, you get a sense there’s a kind of selfishness within him. I refer to it as being a jerk unaware although not deliberate. In a scene between Baez and himself in her hotel room where it is clear he has adopted the diet of cigarettes and coffee with a few bites of a sandwich here and there, this is the authentic Dylan that operates different enough from most of us to be considered an original. Sure, he cares about others but more his authenticity to himself. His relationship with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) is another good example of being a jerk unaware. As Dylan’s popularity grows and continues to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island along with Baez, Seeger, and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), his manager, Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler), understands the need to protect Dylan at all costs. Thus, begins another turning point in Dylan’s life in 1965 and serves as the definite closing curtain to the “old” Bob Dylan that was an unknown to most everyone and the new Bob Dylan that would be admired by many.

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Overall View of A Complete Unknown

If you are looking for a biopic starting in northern Minnesota and ending in sunny California, this isn’t the Bob Dylan movie for you. A Complete Unknown is a snippet into Dylan’s early life. Yes, there is much that happened after 1965 to Dylan including two marriages and six children (most recognizable because of his looks and career is Jakob Dylan from The Wallflowers). The highlight besides Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro’s singing is the acting by both as well as Dan Fogler and Elle Fanning. The ending was solid in that it wasn’t overdone and while I would’ve liked a little more depth into the actual personalities of the real-life musicians especially Baez and Dylan, a part of me can see why this never happened. There wasn’t really a need because the movie’s purpose wasn’t to psychoanalyze Bob Dylan although it led to me to seeing it more as a concert where I followed the major hits on the playlist than a movie even though I sat in a movie theater eating popcorn. I liked that there was no actual footage of Bob Dylan when the screen went black. It can either help or hinder a movie and in this case, it would’ve been redundant. We know what Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash looks like. We should know what Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie look like. So yes, I liked this biopic from opening scene to the ending with the credits rolling.

I rate A Complete Unknown FOUR FINGERS and ONE THUMB at 97%.