from the series Movie Corner…

4.5/5 STARS

DRAMA

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

By HOWARD MCQUITTER II

To emulate a famous (or infamous) person on screen or stage is no easy task. When it works it’s a beautiful thing and if it doesn’t work, it’s a waste of time. Many a thespian has done a biopic: Martin Luther King, Julius Oppenheimer, Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Adolf Hitler, Queen Elizabeth I and II, and Pope John Paul II, among many others, have been portrayed.

Timothee Chalamet takes on the huge task playing a young Bob Dylan (1961-1965). It is a marvel in itself capturing the man before anybody knew who he was and when he first made national headlines. For the effort, Chalamet spent months learning and performing up to 40 of Dylan’s folk songs. This alone is amazing to say the least. I’m appreciative of the actor playing Mr. Dylan, formerly known as Robert Zimmerman. Dylan hailed from Hibbing, Minnesota, and was a complete unknown when he arrived in New York City to see his idol Woody Guthrie seriously ill in a hospital. Timothee Chalamet will certainly get an Oscar nomination in a leading role. But I’m also appreciative that Dylan and I are native Minnesotans.

During Dylan’s visit to the hospital to see Guthrie there was Pete Seeger, a banjo player engrossed in folk music who took a liking to the young Dylan.

Dylan started out in local nightclubs building up a fan base. At one nightclub where Seeger and Dylan were playing, Dylan met the already accomplished musician and folk singer, Joan Baez. A friendship ensued that would become more erotic over time. However, his first girlfriend in the Big Apple was Sylvie Russo. Her real name was Suze Rotolo and at Dylan’s request, was left out. She happened to love a man who would soon become a national sensation. As he seemed to be more interested in Baez, Sylvie painfully backed away.

However, the big surprise came on Sunday night, July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival. Dylan came on stage with a Fender electric guitar, backed up by an amplified rock n’ roll band. Not everybody in the crowd appreciated this newfangled look and within minutes boos followed, then objects were thrown at the stage. That bit of acrimony from the crowd did not deter him from being the legend he would become.

It’s not like Bob Dylan hasn’t been portrayed in movies before, mostly documentaries from D.A. Pennbaker’s Don’t Look Back (1967) to Martin Scorses’ No Direction Home (2005) to Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007).

What’s (strangely) missing from James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is a character playing his first real wife Sara Lownds. Dylan’s rise to fame simultaneously with the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, the second wave of the Women’s movement, assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and the Stonewall riots is reflected in his songs. Chalamet sings some of Dylan’s songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1962), “Masters of War” (1963), “Like A Rolling Stone” (1965), and “Positively 4th Street” (1965).

Howard McQuitter II is a longtime movie critic. He has been reviewing movies for the alley since 2002.

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