When Bob Dylan arrived in New York City in 1961 he was 19 years old and a complete unknown.
That’s the start of the movie A Complete Unknown. I was too young then, not even five years old, so I didn’t witness that epoch of music. I didn’t really get into Bob Dylan music until I was about 14, around 1970. But ever since then, I would call Dylan my favorite musician, and I do it to this day. Many years ago I painted a Dylan portrait, as I liked to do with some of the iconic artists I admired (Beethoven, Henry Miller, Nietzsche). Dylan belonged in that collection.
Over the years, I accumulated pretty much all of Dylan’s vinyl records, and lost them in later years during one of my moves.
When we entered the Regal movie theater on the afternoon on Christmas day, opening day for A Complete Unknown, all seats were full, and the average age of the moviegoers was probably around 75. We were on the younger side. And there it was quite obvious: Dylan had a momentous impact on not only the music of his generation, and many other musicians that followed him, but also on the emotional lives of his followers. When you search this blog for “Bob Dylan” you get dozens of entries returned, referring to movie and book reviews, and many other references to Dylan, and how he influenced my critical thinking, my artistic endeavors, and how his style affected my own poetry writing. I have to admit that I am not much of a musician; the only instrument I ever used was a harmonica – and fittingly, the first song I ever learned on the harmonica as a 16-year-old was Blowing in the Wind.
A Complete Unknown follows Dylan’s early career through his initial quest toward electric music during the iconic performance at the Newport folk music festival of 1965.
Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan, and he does an amazing job. During the movie, he has to play and sing 13 Dylan songs. He practiced for over five years preparing for this so he could sing and play his own guitar as well as the harmonica. Dylan’s style on the harmonica is unique and unpredictable, and even that Chalamet mastered, along with the voice and the guitar. Noteworthy is also that Monica Barbaro, who played Joan Baez, also did her own singing and brought a convincing performance imitating the iconic singer’s unique voice.
How do you cram four extraordinary and foundational years of an iconic artist into a two hour movie without shaving off many details, like the massive influence of the Beatles on American music during the same period, and how that affected Dylan? You have to pick your battles and focus on the most poignant episodes and illustrative events. Those of us who are really interested in Dylan, the artist, have read numerous biographies for all the detail we need.
A Complete Unknown is just one more adventure to have when experiencing Dylan, the icon, and for me, this made a 4-star movie.
