A Complete Unknown

Plot

In 1961, young music aficionado Bobby Dylan travels to New York to meet a musical idol of his, Woody Guthrie who is battling Huntington’s Disease..

There he meets Pete Seeger, a folk singer, who takes a shine to the young man, and notices a talent for folk music too.

Dylan soon becomes a sensation, and one of the most popular singers of his generation, which leads to a pairing with fellow folk singer Joan Baez. But can he keep his private life, with girlfriend Sylvia, separate to his professional one?

Direction

Directed by James Mangold who also directed Walk the Line (with characters like Johnny Cash who appear in both films).

He gives a realistic look of the early to mid 1960’s New York, from the look and feel of the surrounding neighbourhoods, to the hair/makeup etc.

The film was nominated for 8 Oscars, including two for Mangold (director, picture) and for costumes as well.

Cast/Characters

Timothee Chalamet plays Bob Dylan, and clearly read the assignment in the way to portray the real Dylan’s talent behind a guitar, harmonica and microphone (all of which Chalamet learned to do for the film). He earned his Oscar nomination for this.

Also getting an Oscar nod is Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, who befriends Dylan. I had not heard of Seeger before this film (being Australian and born in the early 80’s), but he seemingly portrays the calm mannered, and the body language mannerisms of the late folk singer.

Another Oscar Nominee is Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez. She too did all the singing for the film, and her voice is sensational!

Elle Fanning plays the ‘fictional’ character of Sylvie, who was an alternate version of Suze Rotolo, a real life companion of Dylan.

Other real life pop culture figures that appear, and who play them; are Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy).

Breakdown

Made with the real Bob Dylan’s permission, and who apparently enjoyed the final product, this starts in 1961, when a very young Bob Dylan heads to NYC to meet one of his musical heroes Woody Guthry, played by the always delivers Scoot McNairy. McNairy gets the “and” title in the credits, finally inserting his presence in Hollywood. As Guthrie was sick with Huntington’s Disease in the last years of his life – all of his scenes are in his hospital bed, and practically dialogue free.

Throughout the five years that we see on screen it shows Dylan’s meteoric rise to fame, and popularity. He becomes a leading voice in pop culture with the folk music industry, so much so he becomes a headline in the folk music festivals.

As I don’t have a passion for music, I felt the themes were lost on me, and the passion that some of the people we meet on screen had. Norton’s Pete Seeger wants the world to love folk music, and through Dylan he found that. Music appreciation is something I wish I had, and respect those who do.

Even though this was a biography, and most of the characters we meet are based on real people, others are ‘made for the screen’ such as Sylvia – who was based on Dylan’s real life girlfriend Suze Rotolo.

Many real life world events are included, to either help let the audience know when the scene is taking place (JFK assassination, Cuban Missile Crisis), or to help relay the reasons why Dylan did what he did. Because the people needed something at such a difficult time.

A few gripes I had was the jumpy timeline in the first part of the film. Certain moments seem like they jump very quickly; Dylan’s time with Seeger is mentioned as being over a month with less than a minute of screen time, His friendship and being managed by Albert (brilliantly played by Dan Fogler), and then his relationship with Sylvie – who he is seemingly living with without it really shown to starting a relationship with.

The relationship between them is strained due him “not telling her about himself” such as his real last name. I just found they tried to rush too much, where they should have given more attention to the “love triangle” of Bob/Sylvie and Joan.

Dylan eventually wanting to go away from folk music and then focusing on Rock (which caused an stir at the 1965 folk music festival) is given plenty of attention, with the build up to the event (Dylan getting new band members, and the practicing etc, along with the meeting of the festival board worried about Dylan performing Rock instead of Folk).

Overall

I can understand why this got so much attention at the Oscars that year with EIGHT nominations!

With fantastic performances by Chalamet, Norton and Barbaro clearly deserving their nods.

Once again, I think this is another movie that I just didn’t appreciate how good it was, so for me it doesn’t get a higher mark.

If you appreciate music then this will be a sure pleasure to watch.

4/5