For director James Mangold, A Complete Unknown is a return to some very familiar and safe ground. It not only crosses paths with a similar music scene through about the same time period as his previous music biopic -the Oscar-winning Walk the Line- but it even features that film’s subject, Johnny Cash in a supporting role. And there’s a danger in it feeling repetitive, not least because Walk the Line has become something of a model for the generic Oscar-baity musician biopic of the modern era, but because in presenting a straight account of the early career of one Bob Dylan, it risks stylistically boxing in an artist known for being spontaneous and innovative. A man with so many distinctions and dimensions, Todd Haynes made his own fictitious biopic, I’m Not There about each one -arguably a film far more authentically representative of his art. What can be the function then of an artist-approved generic version of his story?
But perhaps that terminology implies something the movie is not. While it is structured in very conventional terms, it is a story that covers only four years of Dylan’s career and doesn’t touch at all on his “origin” if you will. He is centred by the film, but also an anomaly to the film -which doesn’t endeavour to understand his musical process, the specifities of his motivations or politics, or even where he comes from. And he is played by Timothée Chalamet, a like enigma of the modern movie scene -a role he didn’t seem particularly meant for, but throws himself into exponentially regardless.
Arriving on the scene -how else- via the back of a pick-up truck that leaves him with nothing but his clothes and guitar in 1961 New York City, Chalamet’s Bob Dylan is fully-formed from the get, and even has several of his songs already written when he sets out to visit the hospital where his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) is interred with paralyzing Huntington’s Disease. There he plays his “Song to Woody” for its namesake and fellow folk icon Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and while the voice to this point felt like mere impression, here Chalamet shows off the full commitment of his transformation in a performance that vividly channels the distinct sound of Bob Dylan and the effect of his music. From there on he fades more and more into the part.
Mangold’s script -co-written with frequent Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks- follows the standard rise of its star interspersed with various needle-drop touchstones that cement his status as one of the musical icons of his time. We see his parallel romances with a non-musical artist Sylvie (Elle Fanning) -based on Suze Rotolo- and fellow up-and-comer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), as well as his relationship to the sometimes constricting folk music industry at a time of a renaissance in that genre. But as this is all explored, Dylan remains somewhat distant as a protagonist -we learn next to nothing about his background, same as the people in his life. Sylvie even calls him out at one point, well into their relationship, noting that she doesn’t really know anything about him, while he characteristically counters with philosophic diatribe about people making up their own pasts, and continues to evade such questions for the duration of the film.
It’s a good choice on the part of Mangold and Cocks, that both avoids any mediocre backstory material and keeps the character inscrutable in a way that gels well with the subject. It’s a bit more of a double-edged sword applying the same approach to his music as, yes it gets around any spontaneous inspiration tropes, but also leaves a very political musician highly apolitical beyond some generic statements about the state of the world. It is the artist Bob Dylan that the movie is more concerned with than the person, for better or worse. The central conflict is not about vice or exploitation or even the pressures of fame, it is about artistic evolution.
The movie is just as interested in those caught in the periphery of Dylan’s rise to fame as Dylan himself. Through love interests Sylvie and Joan, we see his flakiness; get a sense of how he depends on these women in his life whom he can’t fundamentally empathize with. He comes back to Sylvie twice after they’ve broken up -on one of these occasions she intuits his affair with Joan and it is the most devastating moment of the movie. Joan too, despite their occasional chemistry, has to contend with a lack of respect he has for her as a peer -and the resentment that her biggest hits were written by him.
But it isn’t just the ladies -the folk industry too is in focus, especially in the later parts of the film where its figureheads brush against his “going electric”. And I respect Mangold for the way he frames this, particularly as represented by Seeger, here a bastion of the old guard of folk music. Norton plays him with a folksy geniality that is offset by a curiously radical streak, and you can feel his veneration for this kind of music and movement, even as he also encourages Dylan's innovations. There was an episode at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where the climax of this film is set, when Seeger tried to cut the sound from Dylan's electric act -which has framed him in the Bob Dylan Story as symbolic of the out-of-touch traditionalists trying to fend off Dylan's revolution. Mangold and Norton while depicting this, ostensibly mellow that image, with Seeger ultimately being one of the most likeable figures in the movie, hesitance towards change notwithstanding.
The movie doesn't ever veer too far afield of formula, and Mangold's direction -though perfectly solid and at times quite visually satisfying- is nowhere as dynamic as his subject. It is still a relatively safe, traditional interpretation of Dylan's rise to fame, and though critical of his personality in some respects, still venerates him wholeheartedly. You've got the typical scenes of people reacting to his cutting-edge sound and other notable figures, namely Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) coming into his orbit and validating him. And even one scene where Chalamet is awkwardly inserted into footage of the March on Washington in his character's place. But these things are easier to take in light of Chalamet's performance, and especially the precision of his imitation singing. Of course several of Dylan's greatest hits appear, including "Mr. Tambourine Man", "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and "Blowin' in the Wind" -which it doesn't take long for Dylan to get tired of at the expense of Baez. "Like a Rolling Stone" is shrewdly teased in the latter parts of the film, as a couple scenes play out a few lines of it before fading out or cutting away, until it finally comes out in full at the end, framed in triumph even as the in-movie reception is mixed.
The title A Complete Unknown comes from this song of course, and reflects very well the mystery of Bob Dylan that the movie leans into even as it charts the dramatic trajectory of his career. It also perhaps refers to the nebulous nature of his ambitions and identification -he says right at the start he doesn't think of himself as a folk singer. As this image is encapsulated, the movie is a charming look at the folk scene of the early 1960s, and though there is nothing particularly inventive about its narrative approach or aesthetics, I think Mangold rendered his document engagingly.
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