At Complete Unknown, Timothee Chalamet is a perfect young Bob Dylan
Timothee Chalamet acts, sings, plays, gets angry and insists just the right amount, and in the end he dresses Bob Dylan’s shoes well. It is precisely the Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter in the turbulent years of his rise to stardom, the character that the actor plays in the new film by James Mangold coming out in Italian cinemas on Thursday 23 January “A complete unknown”. Alongside him in the cast are: Edward Norton in the role of Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning in the role of Silvye-Suze, and the very talented Monica Barbaro who plays Joan Baez, also acting, playing and singing.
A Complete Unknown, the plot
It’s 1961 and a boy arrives in New York with his guitar and with the hope of meeting his idol, Woody Guthrie, the famous folk singer. She finds him now seriously ill in hospital. At his bedside there is also another well-known folk hero, Pete Seeger. The boy takes up the guitar and sings to Guthrie the song he composed in his honor, “song to Woody”, striking both his idol and Seeger, who immediately takes him under his wing and introduces him to the Village, the clubs and festivals.
The rise of the young Bobbie is rapid, also because he writes in an uncommon way and crosses paths with all the elite of his environment, starting with the magnetic and already very well-established Joan Baez with whom he intertwines a profitable sentimental and artistic partnership, while churning out his best-known masterpieces and is overwhelmed by fame. The film covers the period of Dylan’s life which goes from 1961 to the fateful 1964, the year in which he leaves for London and returns with his heart and ears full of the sounds of the groups that in America will be defined as the British Invasion, the Beatles in the lead but also many others, including the Kinks, explicitly mentioned in the film.
The change of stylistic direction, however, does not go down well with the record companies who have clearly defined the characteristics of the Dylan “product”, and even less with the folk scene which views with suspicion, not to say disgust, a guitar plugged into the socket. Dylan goes his own way, faces the “betrayed” crowd on the Festival stage, and in the end, as we know, he is right because the electric Like a Rolling Stone is still today one of his most successful, most loved songs, most sung and most covered of his endless repertoire.
A Complete Unknown, an engaging biopic about Bob Dylan and the duty of artists to “make a mess”
A biopic with a classic structure but capable of involving the viewer from the first to the last minute and in which Timothee Chalamet immerses himself perfectly in the shoes and torments of the young Bob Dylan, conveying his intuitions, his gray areas, the many intolerance and obsession with music. A linear story that tells of a boy struck by the passion for music and writing who, once he has achieved success, decides to challenge conventions and shuffle the cards by running after his genius, inevitably misunderstood by those who are used to other.
A Complete Unknown, which is a line from the song of Dylan’s “outrageous” for folk fans, electric breakthrough, “Like a Rolling Stone”, in the director’s intentions partly refers to the enigmatic nature of a character who has always held to hide the true essence of the person Robert Zimmerman. Bob Dylan in a certain sense is partly an alter ego with an adventurous life built, especially at the beginning, on the sound of sensational lies, such as the one revealing a great fantasy, which sees him spending his adolescence working in a circus. A rather widespread custom in the world of entertainment and music of those and previous years, so much so that many biographies of those we now consider great stars mix abundant doses of fantasy with reality.
But Mangold’s story focuses not only on Dylan who does not reveal himself even in the domestic intimacy built with his partner and muse Silvye, but on his art. The film is in fact a musical film, dotted with a large number of Dylan’s best-known songs, appropriately translated into Italian, given that we are not only talking about a singer-songwriter, but also about a future Nobel Prize winner for Literature. The greatest mystery, in this story of Dylan’s life, is precisely that of the obsession that arises in those who decide to follow their talent, their genius, their daimon. The ancients already supported it: we all have one, but few people decide to embrace it, nourish it and follow it, because once this decision is made, life changes in the direction of total fullness, which always costs a lot. The young Dylan recognizes his talent, embraces it and makes it his obsession and his prison.
And when his talent requires him to go in a stubborn and contrary direction, he does it, because he has to. It is no coincidence that, in the environment that openly challenges, the one who understands and indeed supports his risky turn is another unfortunate artist chained to his talent, Johnny Cash. And also, in the end, Joan Baez, friend, colleague, lover, rival but still also lit by the same fire. A Complete Unknown is the story of a young man who follows his genius and what is urgent for his time and, in doing so, faces criticism, insults and criticism from the same people who applaud the first time they hear “The times they Are a-changin.” People who evidently hope that times will change, but only if they change according to their rules, in the direction they intend.
The young Dylan instead chooses it himself and, as Johnny Cash tells him at a certain point, “makes a mess”, taking risks and taking the path that is ahead of his time and illuminating it for everyone else, as is the duty of every inspired artist, whether young or old. And it is also in this message that the heart of this beautiful film beats.
Rating: 8