At the recent London premiere of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, the star of the film Timothée Chalamet arrived for the event on a Lime bike, one of the capital’s omnipresent rental bicycles. He later disclosed that after riding the vehicle down the red carpet he was fined £65 for having then parked it illegally. The hire company did not confirm this claim – after all, any publicity is good publicity – but their largest fine is £20, and that is for repeated offences; first offenders aren’t fined.
As in life, questions surrounding fact and fable, myth, and legend surface throughout A Complete Unknown. Directed by James Mangold – who can list Cop Land, Walk the Line, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny amongst his earlier credits – and jointly scripted by him and Jay Cocks, the movie is based upon Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties. And that book, after all, does reference the often-conflicting accounts of what happened on the evening of July 25, 1965, when Bob Dylan took to the stage at the Newport Folk Festival.
A Complete Unknown focuses on a specific chapter of Bob Dylan’s life, one that dates from his arrival in New York in 1961 as a peak-capped folkie to the electrification of his appearance at Newport Folk Festival four years later. This filmic journey is undoubtedly about the metamorphosis of Dylan’s music and creative aspirations during this period but it is also an exploration of the relationships he has with others, including fellow musicians Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), Pete Seeger (an astonishing performance from Edward Norton), and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) plus Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) – a part based on the real-life artist and Dylan’s former girlfriend, Suze Rotolo whose name was changed in the film at his request – and his manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler).
A Complete Unknown often plays fast and loose with the truth – for example, the cry of “Judas” from a member of the crowd did not take place until May of the following year at Manchester Free Trade Hall in England – but these instances merely add to the dramatic tension of the film. As Dylan and his band tear into ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ at Newport, it is a genuinely spine-tingling moment.
Timothée Chalamet – whose previous films have included Call Me by Your Name, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor, Dune: Part One and Part Two, and Wonka – is a revelation as Bob Dylan. Not only does he bear a striking resemblance to Dylan, most notably when in profile, but he also perfectly captures the sneering, insolent, brittle egocentricity of the man’s unquestionable genius. Furthermore, here he performs all of Dylan’s songs himself, creating a very reasonable impersonation of that unmistakable nasal whine in the process.
Does A Complete Unknown shed any further light on Bob Dylan? No, is probably the short answer to the question. He still remains a mystery, an endless enigma, and quite possibly “kind of an asshole” as Joan Baez points out in one of the film’s earlier scenes, an accusation to which Dylan readily accedes. He is also a man who just continues to go his own way as seeing the film on the very day that the 83-year-old musician has set up an official account on TikTok just ahead of a US ban for this social media platform will surely attest.
