The film follows a youthful 20 year-old Dylan discovering the Greenwich Village folk scene, as well as following him through his first love until the famous 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But the most compelling story-line was the focus of Dylan trying to grapple with his new fame. He went from being a couch crashing 20 year old to an international superstar within just a few years, even playing at the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. Chalamet was able to play the versatile character, the “misunderstood”, and at times pretentious, Dylan, with little imperfections. His performance highlighted the most formative years of Dylan’s career, going from being scruffy dirt covered boy with a guitar in hand, to the clean cut sunglasses all black wearing Dylan we know.
Clearly Chalamet, Boyd Holbrook, who played the heroic Johnny Cash, Edward Norton, who portrayed folk troubadour Pete Seegar, and Monica Barbaro, who played the folk legend Joan Baez, all dedicated himself preparing for their roles as musicians as they all got their character’s voices dead on. According to the film’s production team, all of the music was recorded live on set- an extremely difficult accomplishment to record historically accurate songs live. Chalamet and Barbaro’s duet of the fan favorite,“It Ain’t Me, Babe”, during the 1964 Newport Folk Festival was a direct recreation of the permanence Dylan and Baez gave to the excited audience. With the exception of “Girl From The North Country”, a song that at times Chalamet’s voice sounds forced and mimic-y of Dylan’s deep nasally voice, the soundtrack is spot on.
But this performance could not have been as successful as it was without the complement of his co-stars including: Elle Fanning who played Dylan’s first girlfriend in New York City, Sylvie Russo, based off of Suze Rotolo who appears on the arm of Dylan on one of his most iconic albums, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Fanning was able to give a character in the life of Dylan a new perspective than just the boyfriend of a literary genius. She exemplified her artistry, through not just her art shows held in her Greenwich village apartment, but in her spirit when choosing to break her relationship off with Dylan towards the end of the movie. It takes a strong person to resist the life of glamour, as being Dylan’s boyfriend at the time would have been, to recognize when you are not being treated right. The most remarkable part of Fanning’s performance was the lack of words she used to show how unhappy Russo was in the relationship- just her glossy eyes looking up at Dylan on stage when singing with Baez. Her voice was never raised, even in the tear-jerking chain link fence goodbye between Russo and Dylan.
As I can imagine, trying to accurately portray someone who has tried incredibly hard for more than six decades to remain a mystery would have been a seemingly nearly impossible task, but Mangold was able to do it. “A Complete Unknown” was able to capture the young snarky Dylan with the signature big black curls matched with an all black outfit, with black sunglasses, regardless of the time of day. In interviews, Chalamet stated that in 1961 there was only one short video of him not talking, making his research process that much harder considering the first third of the film occurred in this era. Since Dylan came on the music scene in the early 60s, he had worked to stay as mystifying as possible. At one point in the film, Dylan’s girlfriend of months asks Dylan “Who are you?” pressing Dylan to open up to her after months of them dating- he never let people get too close. Just by watching a thirty second clip from the 1965 San Francisco Press Conference, a source Chalamet said he viewed continuously to understand his attitude towards the world, you can understand how witty yet elusive Dylan was. He has stayed elusive even in his early 80s, now barely interacting with any form of press.
As both a Baez fan, and a Bob Dylan fan, I believe that the film could have climbed into the relationship between the two adored folk masterminds further. The relationship portrayed in the film made Baez to be the person that broke Dylan and Russo apart, when in reality it was the scope of his indescribable fame that split the two, or Dylan’s distant personality. Although Dylan and Baez’s friendship continued past their relationship in the 60s, the film could have gone further into Baez’s perspective rather than showing the short snarky actions or remarks she made to Dylan when she was upset with him. From a fan’s perspective, Baez was not shown incorrectly, but misrepresented.
Towards the end of the film, as Dylan broke out “Maggie’s Farm” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Dylan turned “electric”, it is clear that this was amped up for dramatic effect. Chalamet in interviews has stated that a major mountain for this film to climb was trying to make it exciting for viewers. Considering Dylan’s life, especially in the early years of his career was slow paced, at some point in the movie there needed to be excitement- and that came in the form of punches thrown and Pete Seegar looking at a row of axes, thinking to cut the power from Dylan’s set on stage. Prior to Seegar’s death in 2014, he had said that he wished he could have cut the power to the set, meaning that the axes thrown into the movie for dramatic effect were not accurate.
In November of 2018, around the time when Chalamet said he was handed the script for “A Complete Unknown”, my Dad brought me to see Dylan play at the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium. Almost 60 years after Dylan had initially played in Hill Auditorium in 1963, Dylan pulled off an alright performance, just alright. His voice was inarticulate, and at some points it was unclear what words he was saying, leaving the audience to guess what song he was singing. I would later see him again at Pine Knob Music Theater this past September, where again, he was just alright- not that Dylan would care what I thought of it. Both times he played my favorite Dylan song, “Simple Twist of Fate” which left me to forget the gravely inarticulate songs.
As a newer Dylan fan in the grand scheme of his career, this movie was able to show me who the old, somewhat grumpy man, on stage once was- still grumpy, but someone who was not afraid of other’s thoughts. Someone who just did what they loved.
Back six years ago when I told my friends who I was going to see, they not only had no idea who he was, but insulted me when I showed them his music. Now those same friends are blasting “Like a Rolling Stone” when driving by my house. This movie was able to bring a whole generation of purposeful experimental, rock, folk and whatever other genres Dylan has attempted to the young minds of America.
