A Complete Unknown


 

The story of how Bob Dylan started out as a precocious young folk singer to his breakout success following being called “Judas!” At a concert is the topic of James Mangold’s film, with Timothée Chalamet starring, it’s a charming and occasionally brilliant evocation of specific music in the 60s.

Dylan comes to New York and hears that Woody Guthrie is dying in a hospital. It’s unusual for people to visit, but he goes there and happens to meet Pete Seeger. He plays for Seeger and the mute Guthrie and it goes very well. Dylan gets introduced to Folk music people and soon meets Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he begins a tempestuous professional and occasionally sexual relationship. This is to the disadvantage of Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) who is a version of Dylan’s partner at this time—the partner you can see on the cover art of The Freeweelin’ Bob Dylan.


This is a joyful introduction to the Sixties from the point of view of Dylan’s musical community. There’s an excellent scene of domesticity with Baez and Dylan talking about life and songs which culminates in “Blowin’ In The Wind” being played. Baez takes Dylan’s typescript and says to him “Play this.” And of course the real script has recently been auctioned…


Dylan also meets Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) who is an effusive admirer, and it turns out that the two musicians sent letters to each other, which is where Mangold and his collaborator gathered the dialogue for this impressive performance, one that’s quite different to Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line. I also thought a lot about Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous which is a fictionalised story of the development of musical genius and the reaction to it.


The film takes a swerve when 1965 comes around: the establishment around the folk scene is by turns terrified and furious by the British Invasion. The Beatles are mentioned but The Kinks are directly referenced as being the enemy of the music that Seeger and, everyone assumes, Dylan are exemplars. Someone shouts “Judas!” Which is an incident that took place in Manchester in 1966; and Pete Seeger becomes annoyed and tries to get the sound turned down. The detail of this argument over what seems so trivial are fairly important within the confines of the topic, and you don’t have to be a devotee of Folk to know that this happened.


However this is a quibble: the film is excellent, with the vocals astonishingly good. Elle Fanning’s character is sidelined, left to mourn the affection between Dylan and Baez. Chalamet is very good as the insular genius, forever leaving people out unless he needs them—except for the best part of the story, the beginning. Edward Norton is fantastic as Pete Seeger: a Mr Rogers kind of character who seems to love all music until it turns out that he just doesn’t like electric guitars.

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