Dylan still elusive in Oscar-nominated biopic
Twenty years ago, filmmaker James Mangold made “Walk the Line,” a prestige musician biopic that told the tale of Johnny (and June) Cash, which won Reese Witherspoon her Oscar. The movie helped usher in a wave of similar films, even serving as the main inspiration for the parodic classic “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.”
Now Mangold’s back with another prestige musician biopic, this time of the inscrutable Bob Dylan, which even intersects somewhat with “Walk the Line” (Cash is one of the figures Dylan meets).
But “A Complete Unknown” isn’t what you expect. For starters, it’s not even fully a biopic, covering only a very specific period in Dylan’s life (effectively, the first few years of his career). A dramatic adaptation of a nonfiction book, Elijah Wald’s “Dylan Goes Electric!” it tells of how Dylan (née Robert Zimmerman, portrayed here by Timothée Chalamet) first arrived in New York as a young man, the titular complete unknown, to visit his hero, the musician Woody Guthrie (played by Scoot McNairy). He finds himself under the wing of another singer/songwriter, Pete Seeger (Ed Norton), who, impressed by the young man’s skill and talent, shows him around town and introduces him to the people he needs to know. Soon enough, Dylan begins his speedy rise to fame and recognition in the burgeoning folk scene.
Excellent performances
Mangold and crew do a good job of bringing the ’60s to life, with production design, costumes, and cinematography (and of course, the soundtrack) working in concert to really immerse the characters and audience in that particular milieu. There’s a surprisingly effective scene depicting the paranoia and anxiety of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when people on the East Coast were scrambling to get out of harm’s way, thinking that might spare them should something nuclear actually go off.
The actors’ performances are uniformly excellent, and it’s no shock that Chalamet, Norton, and Monica Barbaro (playing Joan Baez) are all nominated for this weekend’s Academy Awards. They do all their own singing and playing in the film, for one. Elle Fanning is great, too, playing an amalgam of Dylan’s sweethearts named Sylvie.
It’s also a fairly convincing introduction to folk music for those unfamiliar.
When the film switches to 1965, and Dylan is a bona fide star, it can’t be ignored that some of the story’s beats echo “Walk Hard,” which is ironic since Mangold’s own “Walk the Line” inspired that film. It’s a bit of a full-circle moment. It might prove difficult not to find oneself smirking, especially when the climax is about whether Dylan will go against the grain and embrace electric music at the Newport Folk Festival. It was a big deal at the time, that evening in 1965, but plays as something quaint in 2025.
Mystique
What might be a negative for some is that it doesn’t demystify Dylan. He remains obscure in his thoughts, his intentions, and motivations. His mystique remains intact; Mangold and company aren’t interested in clearing any obfuscation or dispelling any of the myths that Dylan himself spun. He made a cloak of his public persona in the harsh light of his fame, and used it to remain unknown.
This isn’t bad; the film thus becomes more about the time he lived in, and the people he encountered, and how they found themselves reacting to him. What we do know is that he was a contrarian who chafed at being told what to do and refused to be labeled. That, and his supreme, unflappable dedication to his music.
