A Complete Unknown Left Me Wanting More

 

When Christmas Day comes around, I usually don't have much to do except perhaps go for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a ritual I completed a short time ago.

But this Christmas was unlike other Christmas passed with the premiere of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet and directed by James Mangold. I took in a screening at the Kendall Square Cinema.

Bob Dylan has been part of my musical consciousness since very early childhood. When I first heard Dylan's voice, I would liken it to drinking Coca-Cola for the very first time. It was both hard and sweet. 

Three of Dylan's albums in particular Nashville Skyline, Blood on the Tracks and Desire were frequently played in our household during my formative years in Thunder Bay. While Dylan has long been maligned for his singing, I have long been fascinated by his voice. The contrast between the relaxed country croon of Nashville Skyline and the hard gravel in sand vocals on Blood on the Tracks and Desire leaves me in wonder to this very day.

In August 1992, Dylan paid a visit to my hometown to play a show at the Fort William Gardens which I attended with a date. I would not see him again in concert for more than two decades when Dad and I saw him perform at the Beacon Theater in December 2014, less than two months after Dad had undergone lifesaving triple bypass. 

While I know that Chalamet, who turns 29 the day after tomorrow, is one of Hollywood's most acclaimed actors, it would be the first time I have ever seen any of his work. But even in the sneak previews, I could see and hear that he captured the essence of Dylan. Indeed, it is Chalamet who is actually singing all of Dylan's material in the movie. Ditto for Edward Norton, Monica Barbaro and Boyd Holbrook in their portrayals as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Johnny Cash, respectively. Norton completely imbues Seeger's spirit in both form and substance and anything short of an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor would be a travesty. 

A Complete Unknown covers Dylan's life from his arrival in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York in January 1961 to going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965. As one might expect, there is a certain amount of dramatic license deployed. A Complete Unknown focuses a great deal on Dylan's romantic involvement with Joan Baez and Sylvie Russo (as played by Elle Fanning). In reality, there is no Sylvie Russo. She is intended to represent Suze Rotolo (who appears on the cover of Dylan's second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan). Dylan personally requested that Rotolo's name not be used in the film. Dylan would also meet his future wife Sara Lowndes during this period, but she is not depicted in the film at all.

Another example of dramatic license in the film is Dylan meeting Bob Neuwrith at the height of his fame at a New York cocktail party in 1965. In reality, the two had met at the inaugural Indian Neck Folk Festival in Branford, Connecticut in 1961.

In A Complete Unknown, the commotion over Dylan going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival more closely resembled the Rolling Stones 1969 Altamont concert. While there were those in the audience who didn't like Dylan going electric, he was not pelted with foreign objects, nor did Pete Seeger try to sabotage his set by attempting to cut the cable. Seeger was miffed regarding the sound quality and being unable to hear Dylan's lyrics to "Maggie's Farm". However, Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and Newport Folk Festival organizer Alan Lomax did get into a physical altercation as depicted in the film.

I did enjoy the inclusion of Al Kooper (played by Charlie Tahan) in A Complete Unknown finding his way to play organ on "Like a Rolling Stone". Kooper, who later founded The Blues Project and Blood, Sweat and Tears, is a longtime resident of Somerville and I remember seeing him perform at the House of Blues when it was in its original Harvard Square location.

A Complete Unknown left me wanting more. This was driven a great deal by the prominence of Johnny Cash in the film. As mentioned earlier, Nashville Skyline was regularly played in our house. That album opens with a duet between Dylan and Cash on a re-recording and rearrangement of "Girl from the North Country" which Dylan originally recorded on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and is featured early on in A Complete Unknown. While Cash is identified with songs such as "Ring of Fire" and "A Boy Named Sue", I shall always and forever associate him with the second verse of "Girl from the North Country":

See for me that her hair's hangin' down

It curls and falls all down her breast

See for me that her hair's hangin' down

That's the way I remember her best

That's the way I remember Johnny Cash best. 

Bob Dylan was truly only just beginning n 1965. He continued his electric play with The Band picking up where the Paul Butterfield Blues Band left off. From there, he would have his motorcycle accident, settle in Woodstock, make amends with Pete Seeger, dig into country music (which brings Cash back into the picture), his return to political activism (i.e. Chile and Reuben "Hurricane" Carter) and the Rolling Thunder Revue. I could easily envision a sequel or two additional films to cover Dylan's life between 1965 and 1976. A working title for such a film could be Keep on Keeping On (or perhaps Positively 4th Street and Tangled Up in Blue if two more films were in order).

The question is whether Chalamet would be prepared to reprise his role as Dylan even at a different stage of his life. The same could be said of several of his co-stars. After all, Dylan is depicted as not wanting to play "Blowin' in the Wind" forever. I'm sure Chalamet wants to move on to other projects. Then again if Chalamet can play Paul Atreides in Dune more than once it is entirely possible that he could play Robert Zimmerman once more.

Should this come to pass, I would likely need to wait a few years. Until then, I will probably end up seeing A Complete Unknown again before it leaves theatres.