What 'A Complete Unknown' Gets Right (A Dylan Freak's Review)

When any real Bob Dylan hardcore freak realizes that anyone else is going to talk about Bob Dylan, we instinctively prepare to be embarrassed by how little they know. We’ve spent decades cringing and correcting. The only way to get it is to spend *decades* deep in research. So ‘Hollywood’ on Bob Dylan? Come on…

Most of us first heard about this project at least a year ago, and the vomit immediately started rushing up our throats. Just two questions came to mind: ‘How dare they?’ and ‘Exactly how awful is this thing going to be?’

Then details started to leak: James Mangold and Timothée Chalamet started talking and proved they were both serious and knowledgable and reverent, and it came out that Dylan himself was involved - the community quickly downshifted into ‘wait and see’ mode. Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible?

Well it’s not terrible. It’s actually fantastic.

At a small NYC screening room last night, Jann Wenner and I saw the movie*. Many reviews will come out today, but here’s why I loved it as a hardcore Dylan freak. (That last word is important, this is not coming from a normal point of view.)

NOTE: Spoilers below. I would recommend seeing it without knowing any of this.

How Does It Feel?

Since there are very very few details I don’t know, the film didn’t teach me anything. But Dylan is so much bigger than life that really imaging what it was like for him as a nobody hitching into town, walking into a bar where he is a complete unknown, talking to normal folks in both his strange cadence and with his unusual mind, and most importantly watching his genius emerge in a real world that neither expected nor was prepared for it, was not something I could ever really do. I knew it all happened, I’ve read the words and pondered the events, but I don’t think I could ever really strip everything back.

But the movie takes us to all those places and scenes. Chalamet walks into the Greystone Park State Hospital with his eyes filled with what it must have felt like for a driven yet unproven Dylan to do so. The songs pour out of him on disheveled beds and makeshift desks in small cluttered rooms with those around him just making a cup of coffee and him just focused and scratching stuff on paper - reportedly exactly how it happened. And most importantly, you can feel what it’s like in the room where nobody expects anything from him and hear how those words and that voice don’t just win them over but take them over. Ed Norton’s face and small movements in that scene alone deserve a statue.

I’m most impressed at how they compress this legendary sequence of events into a growth and progression that feels real and natural - it’s like a time laps of a seedling becoming a tree. Despite stripping away tons of details they get the overall arc of the events and the man and his fame and career just right.

All to say, more than anything else, this movie does for us what no book or oral retelling could possibly do; it allows us to be there and experience the emergence of Bob Dylan. At various times I felt it viscerally in my stomach, heart, head, and eyes.

The Truth Was Obscure

This movie wasn’t intended as a documentary, but Dylan fans believe the facts are important. The largest worry many had was that the story would be rounded-off and even worse injected with plot-points or elements added for dramatic effect. Well it’s clear these folks knew that there was no need to insert any additional drama in the story of Bob Dylan.

They had to compress the incredible amount of details we know about these four years to get them into 145 minutes, yet both broadly and in specific with very very few exceptions they got the facts right - at least as I know them. I’m not talking about shoe brands and mic cables but the people and events and words that define the emergence of Bob Dylan. (Of course, I’m only 200,000 hours into my own research, there are things I still don’t know. Someone will make the complete faux pas list.)

Beyond petty inconsistencies there are a few events that are combined or placed slightly out of sequence, and some larger points that are made via re-imagined events or even metaphor. I was fine with these and fully understood why these methods were used for time and simplicity. I’m sure others will not be so understanding.

Here are the large events shown (that I can recall) that I don’t think happened:

1. Pete was in the room when Bob first visits Woody. A simple convenience that allows Pete to shepard Bob into the scene and through the story. Minor and fine.

2. Bob gets punched in the face when going to see Bob Neuwirth play. They use this event as one of a few that show us the impact his fame was having on Dylan and his life. Fine.

3. Bob shows up on the set of a Pete Seeger TV show and plays guitar with (Need to find out who this was). I know Pete had these kinds of shows, but I’m not aware of any Dylan appearances. In the movie it’s part of Dylan’s transition to an appreciation for electric blues. Minor and undoubtedly things like this did happen.

4. Bob fights with Joan onstage at Town Hall (or somewhere) and heckles the audience. I don’t believe anything like this happened, but in the movie it serves to highlight both the growing tension in that relationship and Bob feeling the pressure of his newfound fame. A bit over the top, but fine.

5. Alan Lomax and the Purists / Pete Seeger’s Axe at Newport. The folk purist’s antipathy for Dylan going electric and their reaction to the events is somewhat recast but effectively makes the point. Only to us trainspotters does it matter who said/did what in what order, and let’s face it we don’t really have the fact settled.

6. The Newport ‘65 Audience. The audiences initial dislike for Dylan going electric and the speed with which they shift and embrace it is also exaggerated to make the shift clear. Personally I would have wished instead of 80% negative at first it was more like 30-40% (as from what I’ve read that is closer to the truth) but that would have been far less clear to the average movie goer - they’re telling the story here and a bit of the myth. It’s fine.

7. Judas at Newport. Yes some lines time travelled a bit. Fine

8. Bob visits Woody after Newport ‘65. It’s a beautiful ending to the film that wraps the story of these years as a full circle event, and verifies that Bob’s humanity is fully in tact after a few scenes where that might have been questioned, but as far as I know did not happen. I assume we would know (leave comments if you do). It doesn’t matter and if this is the one big Hollywood warp to get a feel good ending, that’s not so bad.

You and Me We Had It All

The movie is full of songs and all about Bob Dylan, but it’s the other people and their relationships that are perhaps the most interesting and informative to someone who isn’t here to learn the basic story. From Pete to Woody to Suze to Joan to Neuwirth to Cash the supporting characters in Bob Dylan’s world come to life.

These people are often two-dimensional when discussed in relation to Dylan, but here they are not - all are vibrant and whole. Bob interacts with them and is impacted by them. He’s not a one man tsunami (save a few moments) and so we get to know and appreciate each of them. Every one of these actors makes you believe they’re who they’re said to be.

Albert Grossman is a bit of cartoon, and it would have been nice to see him get more nuance. John Hammond is an extra only, Tom Wilson is just behind the glass, Al Kooper gets his organ story and that’s about it. Everything didn’t fit.

I Think I Sat Through It Twice

I know or understand more about Bob Dylan now that I did before I saw the movie. Not facts or anything like that, but a general sense and feeling of what those four years were like for him, and for the world he was doing it to. That’s the best endorsement I can give. I genuinely cannot wait to see it again in IMAX next week.

For those of us who are insatiable on all things Dylan, this is a very worthwhile way to spend a few hours and I bet our group average will exceed 5 viewings sooner than we think. For all those in your life that don’t get it, they will get it a little more soon.

The only hint of cringe for me was when Bob was being unprofessional on-stage, because it was by far the least literal significant thing in the movie - maybe they were portraying some of the loss of control at the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee speech plus the tension with Joan and fame, I don’t know. But this could have been 2.25 hours of cringe and it was otherwise the farthest thing from it.

I look forward to thoughtful and competent critics sharing reviews of the performances, which to me were thoroughly excellent, the costuming and scene decoration, the direction and editing, and the live singing; I’ve only praise for all of it.

*PS: Jann Wenner does not know that I was in the room with him. Other celebrities with personal Dylan histories were present too.

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