Director James Mangold’s unexpectedly fine and powerful Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, is a prime contender, on various fronts, in the forthcoming awards sweepstakes. One unofficial award it deserves is that of “Most Fitting Film Title of the Year.” Dylan is a literal complete unknown in the first scene, heading over the bridge into Manhattan, a ragtag young wannabe from Hibbing, Minnesota, who changed his name from Bob Zimmerman to the loftier Dylan, in search of Woody Guthrie and folk music authenticity in Greenwich Village in 1961.
He is, on different levels, unknown — or known only in selective pieces — as his powers of song push him into mythic degrees of fame and likewise at film’s end, as we hear the title’s earwormy line in song. The young drifter and globally known troubadour belts out the refrain from his then newly penned anthem: “How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home / Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?”
A Complete Unknown dares to demonstrate how that does feel for the evolving legend. Of course, the film is just one more piece of fleeting evidence, as gathered through his song lyrics, the DA Pennebaker doc Don’t Look Back, the Rolling Thunder films (including the fascinating 2019 film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese), Todd Haynes’s deliciously quirky I’m Not There (with Cate Blanchett as the Hibbing bard), and Dylan’s own teasing autobiography Chronicles, Volume 1, also full of cagey unknowns and artful dodging.
Part of the cohesive charm and sense of focus in A Complete Unknown stems from its narrowed dramatic sites and historical purview. Rather than attempt to address the sprawling topic of Dylan’s long, multi-chaptered, and still-evolving career, the eye is on his meteoric rise to fame in the early ’60s, up through the powder-keg moment of his infamous and controversial “going electric” show at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! provided the framework, upon which the filmmakers got busy, mightily, and artfully.
Biopics, especially regarding artists and musicians, can be problematic enterprises, facing challenges of what to pack into a life story, which sensational angles to zoom in on, how to capture the fragile essence of a well-known subject’s artistic “voice,” and generally contending with the question of “What’s the point of this project?” Nitpickers will inevitably weigh in on historical and logistical gaffes in the biopic game, as has already become a side hustle phenom with A Complete Unknown, although God is in the spirit and the historical zeitgeist here, not the details.
Among the sparkling jewels of the genre, in recent years, are Ray, directed by the Santa Barbara–raised Taylor Hackford, and Mangold’s earlier, stellar music legend saga, Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix applying his special, fragile juju in the shoes of Johnny Cash. Likewise, Mangold has another master playing the master in the spotlight in A Complete Unknown, as Timothée Chalamet sinks into the role of young Dylan with an astonishing depth and nuance.
Chalamet, who learned to play guitar (granted, Dylan’s folk and rock guitar work are fairly simple) and sing in sync with Dylan’s faux folky sing-speak style, has delivered the performance of his still-tender artist life to date. Yes, he is a peachy and strong actor, seizing our attention with Call Me by Your Name and showing up in the lucrative Dune franchise and the Woody Allen film A Rainy Day in New York and in Greta Gerwig films.
But Tim’s Bob is something else to behold, and something suitably enigmatic, charismatic and frustrating by turns. The magnetic draw of the portrayal is greatly enhanced by the power of his dramatic foils — a neatly appointed Edward Norton at Pete Seeger, as affable and peace-seeking as Bob is aloof and mumble-mouthedly pugnacious, and the stunning Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Dylan’s sometime lover, fame enabler, and sparring partner in the line of art. Not to be overlooked is the sheer, timeless power of Dylan’s early songbook, the deepest scene-stealer of this film.
In the end, a central source of the resounding impact of A Complete Unknown is Dylan’s unparalleled early song catalog, which is given liberal screen time and affectionate attention by the filmmakers. As if we needed reminding, Dylan was on fire in the initial stage of his self-directed artistic mission, busy being born, again and again. Whether or not he deserved a Nobel Prize for Literature is a matter for another film. Miss this one at your own peril.
