Director James Mangold is no stranger to the prestige biopic. Cutting his teeth on Girl, Interrupted (about author Susanna Kaysen’s extended stay in a psychiatric hospital) and Walk the Line (his acclaimed exploration of the lives of legendary country superstars Johnny and June Carter Cash), the famed director brings a great depth of experience to his latest look at the early years of Bob Dylan’s astronomically successful career. Sadly, despite benefiting from a subject who chafed at convention and pushed boundaries throughout his artistic career, Mangold has simply churned out yet another meticulously realized but ultimately uninspiring musical biopic.
The film covers only a very small portion of Dylan’s life and career, though admittedly a significant one, opening when he first meets Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in 1961, and wrapping up with his infamous performance at the Newport Folk Music Festival in 1965. Charting his meteoric rise from talented but unknown folk singer to irreverent international superstar, the film is clearly aimed at Dylan true believers, never missing an opportunity for its supporting characters to express their awe at his preternatural musical genius.
Reverent hero worship is characteristic of so many musical biopics, and this one is no different. Sure, the film gestures at Dylan’s philandering, his arrogance, and his perhaps selfish abandonment of those who helped him rise to the top, but shoves down the audience’s throat – time and time again – just what an unparalleled genius he’s meant to be. While this may be true, and Dylan is undoubtedly an unparalleled talent, it makes for uninspired viewing, and at times I felt like I was listening to a sermon in the Church of Bob Dylan, entreating me to bow down at the altar of his artistic genius.
Luckily, the film is gorgeous to look at, and even more beautiful to listen to. I could pontificate at length about the accomplished work of François Audouy and Regina Graves in recreating the Greenwich Village as Dylan would have experienced it in the 1960s, but the musical performances in the film are absolutely astonishing, eclipsing nearly any other element of the film. Timothée Chalamet, unsurprisingly, does fine work channeling Dylan, and is especially impressive at expressing his moments of musical inspiration, casually tinkering at creating now legendary songs like The Times They Are a’ Changin’ and Blowin’ in the Wind. Less expectedly, Monica Barbaro is magnetic as folk music icon Joan Baez, skillfully embodying her unique voice and performance style despite lacking any previous musical experience.
Indeed, the film is full of great supporting performances, led by a warm and paternal Ed Norton as folk music purist Pete Seeger. Scoot McNairy is similarly affecting as the ailing Woody Guthrie, projecting a great complexity of emotion despite having lost the ability to speak thank to advanced stage Huntington’s disease. The weak link among the supporting cast is Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, who feels here more like a caricature or plot device than a fully realized character, in disappointing contrast to the fully inhabited performance of Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line.
One of the most interesting elements of the film is that its central conflict is an artistic one. Despite spending ample time on the dramas of Dylan’s personal relationships, particularly with Baez and his girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning), Mangold is far more interested in Dylan’s musical journey, and his abandonment of folk music in favour of unhindered musical experimentation. As Dylan, much to the chagrin of the purists who helped drive him to the top, begins to experiment with electric guitar and unconventional instrumentation, the same audience that once revered him turns, enraged by the audacity of his musical evolution. The battle comes to a head at the aforementioned Newport Folk Music Festival, and I had to chuckle at the absurdity of a folk music riot, but it really did happen.
There is a more interesting version of this film, and perhaps it’s already been made. Todd Haynes’ experimental biography I’m Not There goes so much further in matching the complexity of its subject, featuring performances from six different actors as Dylan. Perhaps it’s time for a rewatch.
A Complete Unknown is currently screening in cinemas across North America.
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