Review: A Complete Unknown
My thoughts on the Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold.
I’m a pretty big Bob Dylan fan. I’ve written about him here multiple times:
But Dylan is someone I’ve spent pretty much all of my conscious life listening to and thinking about. I’ve gone through all the phases of his career and spent time being singularly focused on them all. When he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, I celebrated. He is someone whom I see in a lineage with Shakespeare and Milton and, more pressingly, Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot.
It was with all that baggage and perspective that I went into a showing of James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, the biopic on Dylan starring Timothée Chalamet and featuring Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, and Boyd Holbrook. The film, based on Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric, tracks the legendary musician’s life from his arrival in New York City through his controversial choice to “go electric” and leave behind the folk music scene.
Chalamet’s performance as Dylan was excellent—he certainly picked up on the mannerisms and tics of Dylan without it ever feeling like outright imitation. There was a great deal of anxiety felt by those of us who love Dylan about him being given the feature film treatment (well, treatment again after Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There), but Chalamet did an admirable job. One thing Chalamet captured about Dylan, particularly in that moment at the beginning of his career, is his playfulness or to put it another way his smart ass-ery. Chalamet also deftly captured Dylan’s nervous energy. There was, at that time, both this profound confidence and nervousness in Dylan, which made him a live wire. Chalamet brings all that into his performance. I have to imagine he’s the favorite now for the Best Actor Oscar, particularly given the track record of actors winning for playing famous musicians.
Fanning was strong in a somewhat thankless role as the Suze Rotolo figure (she just doesn’t have much to work with and it turns into a somewhat cliché part)), while Barbaro smoldered and stunned as Joan Baez. The interplay between Chalamet and Barbaro was some of the more interesting moments of the film, and brought that Baez/Dylan entanglement alive on screen.
The two standout supporting roles, in my mind, were Norton’s performance as Pete Seeger and Holbrook’s portrayal of the Man in Black, Johnny Cash. While Chalamet will get all the Oscar acting buzz coming out of this film (and rightfully so), Norton needs to be a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. I would never have in a million years thought Norton could play the part of Seeger, but he does it quite well. Holbrook’s portrayal of Cash isn’t quite as good as Norton’s work, but it’s still one of the better performances in the film.
Perhaps not surprising coming from the director of a Johnny Cash biopic, but I thought it was interesting how the film emphasized the connection between Cash and Dylan. Though I knew the two were friends (I mean, I’ve listened to “Girl from the North Country” on Nashville Skyline), I did not quite grasp how Cash was such an influence on Dylan. But both men came up within a musical tradition that had a certain set of practices that they wanted to buck in one way or another; therefore, it makes perfect sense that Cash would be that kind of a North Star as someone like Seeger fades from his view. I thought bringing that out was a good decision by Mangold. I also enjoyed that they included Al Kooper finding his way onto the “Like a Rolling Stone” recording by sitting in on the organ (and giving that song, perhaps the greatest song ever, the thing that sonically makes it so distinctive).
Though the acting in the film is exemplary and the musical performances are good (though I’m not going to skip the actual Dylan recordings of these songs, everyone in the film does a pretty good job with the musical material), I don’t think that A Complete Unknown quite reaches the level of very good or great.
Some of that might just be because I know the history surrounding Dylan, thus when certain things are elided for the sake of narrative it bothers me more than most. However, there were times where the elisions felt over-the-top and that it still would’ve been possible to tell the story in a direct way without having to make these omissions and fabrications. You also very much felt the trappings and cliches of the great figure/great musician biopic throughout the film, which perhaps cannot be avoided but still do take away. There are some of those eye-rolling, groan-inducing moments in the film, and you would’ve hoped for more in a work about a figure like Dylan.A Complete Unknown did not change how I think about or see Dylan. It didn’t add anything mind-blowing.
I commend Mangold for his eye for design, particularly production design. The details, the sets, they all feel appropriate for this film set in the early-to-mid 1960s. This is something Mangold’s film generally all feature (I’m thinking of Ford v Ferrari here). But beyond that, the film feels a little too workmanlike, a little too straight forward. Mangold lets his actors work and be the focus, but that’s not going to be enough. A Complete Unknown felt closer to Ford v Ferrari and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in that it’s solid, it’s well-made, it’s entertaining, but it doesn’t feel distinctive (as opposed to Mangold’s best work, Logan).
A Complete Unknown is an enjoyable film that tells the story of the evolution of one of our greatest creative forces, even if it’s doing so in a straight forward and occasionally obvious way. I’m certainly glad I saw it, and I’m glad that the subject matter was treated in a respectful way. There are some stellar acting performances in the film (Chalamet and Norton in particular), but I don’t think the film itself can be seen as great. It’s solid, it’s workmanlike, it’s entertaining, but that’s kind of the limit. People should see A Complete Unknown (as I said, I’m glad I did), and it’s perfect for people looking for an entryway into the world of Dylan or who want to know/understand more about him, but it’s a film with limitations. To use some baseball terminology, Mangold didn’t hit a home run, but he hit a stand-up double. That’s certainly admirable and makes it worth watching. But for a film tackling one of America’s greatest voices, it still feels like not enough.
Good review and I have my own coming out tonight.
I call out the overuse of Sylvie Russo / Suze Rotolo. Other than that, I don't find any major flaws in the film. Rolling Stone has a list of the inaccuracies, if anyone's interested. They missed exactly HOW Kooper's organ got on the record (he added it when they were out to lunch, and everyone wanted to delete it, but Dylan said, "No, leave it in."). That doesn't really matter, though: they got that Kooper inserted himself, and that's the important thing.
Loved it https://open.substack.com/pub/johnnogowski/p/dylan-destroyed-one-world-started?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios