As I can't reasonably comment on a movie I haven't seen (well, ok, I surely have, stupidly) I can note that the most human and humane President of my lifetime called Dylan "an authentic American Voice ".
I have a lingering affection for "Blood on the Tracks".
I do not believe for one second that Bob made himself a Hibbing High School scrapbook ("property of Bobby Zimmerman"), let alone brought it with him to NY. Guessing that one was for the kids who aren't hep to the Complete Dylan Lore. But I think the script avoided a lot of that biopic cheese, as you call it. Which ain't easy. I thought Chalamet was really good, but the script done Fanning dirty. Surely Suze did more than walk around with tears in her eyes. Edward Norton was great, if a bit too saintly. I liked the bookending with Guthrie, even if it was no doubt 99% myth. I liked that it was heavy on the music, which of course is some prime Bob. My husband, who is something of a Dylanologist, liked it less, and is still griping about the inaccuracies. Whaddya want, it's a movie.
"10 inaccuracies in the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’" -- the internet's full of fun stuff like that for your husband now! Something for everyone!
Oh it's gonna be a good year for the Dylanologists, as well as for Bob himself. Very canny on his part (and he's nothing if not canny) to give the thumbs up to this project. He's gonna sell a lot of...downloads?
After Prince died and they sold his catalog for somewhere a little north of a billion dollars I remember thinking Bob's catalog must be worth 5 or 6 billion.
Somebody I know had a fling with Bob a long time ago. She hadn't seen or spoken to him in years when out of the blue he stopped by her business a couple of years ago (the people working the front desk, all in their twenties, called her in her office and said "There's a dirty, homeless-looking guy here asking for you."). She asked him why he continues to tour all the time, and he said "Do you have any idea how many people I support?"
There's whoever he needs to support and playing relatively small venues...
But whatever the reason, good for him.
Then again there's the only intelligent thing Jerry Hall said for the record: re the Stones' 50th tour, she was asked WTF is it with these old guys going on tour, she they're musicians and touring and performing is what musicians do.
I'm sure that's it too. He must enjoy it on some level. It's likely the life he's used to. Also, touring for him is not riding around in the back of a rusty 30-year-old van.
Since we're sharing stories of how we are x degrees close... The first lot my parents bought on Pt. Dume back in 1971 or 1972 on Blue Water, within weeks, an agent offered them twice or more what they paid for it. They took the money without knowing on whose behalf the agent was working. It turned out it was Bob Dylan.
He built his home and mini-compound on a cluster of lots. His daughter Maria went to the public schools with me and my sisters. No big deal; lots of industry folks, movie and music, were out in Malibu.
But the real estate story was good. My mom related it to us when she found out. My dad was unimpressed and happy to use the money to buy a lot with a better view facing the bay.
As I get older, I do find I drop things more often, including names of the famous and infamous people I've known and met.
I remember reading that Jimmy said he wanted to live long enough to see the death of the last Guinea worm, don't know if he made it, but I think he came close. Fuckin' Guinea worms.
Well, thank you Jimmy, and all the other people in West Africa who worked so hard on this over the years. I think it might be that the Guinea worm has no animal host, making this like smallpox: Eliminate all human cases and you really have caused its extinction.
I was thinking pretty much the same thing. Both tried to live their ideals and people mostly found them to be sanctimonious pricks. Loomis at LGM damns Carter as believing himself above the messy fray of politics. I say he was just in the wrong job.
So guy who never got elected President says the guy who got himself elected President after serving just one term as Governor or Georgia (the only person in history from that state ever elected President) didn't know how to do politics? The guy must have had some skills in messy, real-world politics to get where he did.
Yeah this. Carter replaced Lester Fucking Maddox as the state's first all-people-in-Georgia-can-vote-regardless-of-race governor. If that ain't involved in "messy, real-world politics" I don't know what *is*.
Loomis tends to be sloppy with language in his posts because its a side-hustle for him. He called Carter a "micromanager" who couldn't focus on the big picture, prioritize his battles, or avoid antagonizing people he needed to placate. That's really governing, not "politics". The unspoken knock on Carter is that his self-righteous morality trumped his need to engage in the sleazy hurly-burly of democracy, a Capra-like idealist/sucker chewed up by the corrupt system. This gets boiled down by Loomis and others to "Carter was incompetent".
Two decisions by Carter that are being deliberately left out of the Capra-esque version of his life: Taking Zbigniew's advice to arm the Mujaheddin and his deregulation of trucking and the airlines, which did as much to gut-punch organized labor as anything Reagan did. Carter was the first neoliberal Democrat, a label not generally associated with too much morality.
As a Southern Christian, he was wished to be more of a liberal than he actually was. A lot like Obama that way. According to Loomis, ol' Zbiggy also pushed for the hostage rescue clusterfuck in Iran. Also according to Loomis, Carter deregulated microbrews, so the unemployed truckers and air traffic controllers at least got good beer.
I had a friend who went to high school with Dylan and she told me the last time she saw him was at their 45th or maybe 50th reunion. So maybe the yearbook bit isn't so far off base.
"Imagine how unlikable he’d be if he were not a genius, and you get what’s really great about the performance." Not really being much of a Dylan fan, Chalamet's performance and the way he and the script don't shy away from that reality was the most interesting and enjoyable part of the film for me. And I agree, for a biopic it's well done and does try to skip as many of the cliches as it can while still being, well, a biopic.
I'm looking forward to your annual Oscar nominee round-up, Roy. Always fun and a high point of the REBID year!
Unlikeable, shape-shifting, blatantly stealing (or borrowing heavily anyway) from his heroes, more ambitious than he wants people to think. I like that they put all of that in there. It's probably true of most young artists.
Absolutely. In any other field other than entertainment or sports, this kind of behavior would get a young man so much pushback he would have to straighten up and fly right by the time he was 30 or become a pariah.
Not if you deliver (a lawyer who becomes a rainmaker, a hedge fund partner reliably closing the big deals). The people who matter (to you) won't care unless you make them uncomfortable. A swing for the fences gamble, which is the basic model for being sucessful in entertainment and sports.
We had an engineering prof at the UW who was so abusive he drove one of his grad students to commit suicide. OTOH, he did bring in a shitload of grant money, and today's University Administrators must weigh these complicated factors carefully, let's not rush to judgement, etc.
I attribute a lot of the folky stage to being ambitious but limited to having just a guitar and harmonica to perform with. It made having a band possible and going electric an imminent development thereafter.
Bob's memoir Chronicals, Vol. 1, was described by a friend of mine as "an instruction manual for how to be an artist" which intrigued me enough to buy it, and it pretty much is. He hoovered up everything and everyone he thought might be useful to that end, and moved on.
Nice write up, Roy. I saw this yesterday and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I found it to be less a biopic and more of a Dylan’s greatest hits jukebox musical. Which I guess is no surprise, Mangold is the master of these things and he knows why the audience is there. Which of course is ironic on a meta level since one of the films big themes is Dylan not wanting to be boxed in playing the same old stuff. Definite recommend from me.
Nosferatu is also worth a watch on a big screen. Like all of Robert Eggers’ films it’s a visual work of art.
My grandkids love that movie. Evidently all their friends do too. They were all like, tweens when it was released. I could not figure that out. I couldn't sit through 20 minutes of it.
The first time ever really got in trouble with the outside world (apart from trouble I got into at school) was in the 7th grade when I tried to substitute my exceptionally well worn copy of Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Volume 1 for the second disc in the County Library's copy of Bob Dylan's Greatest hits Volume 2. My mom was waiting at the door for me when I got home from school one day, shaking Volume 2 disc 2 at me the minute I walked in the door. I knew right away what was up. She dragged me right out to the car and drove me right down to the library. I plead " It was an accident!" all the way to the library and I continued to plead it when we stood before the head librarian. Mom was barely convinced and the library lady looked like she heard it all and wasn't buying it. They threatened to disable my library card for a year ( a fate worse than anything) but I stuck to my story. We are in the library lady's office for 5 minutes I bet but it felt like I was brow beaten for hours.
I liked "I'm Not There" I don't know if I really liked the movie or if I just appreciated the fact it was one long strange conceit and that they were mostly able to pull it off. Todd Haynes is a badass.
On your word, I may see it in the theater. I kind of prefer streaming for something I'm not sure of- you can bail with no hard feelings. I really like Dune ( I & Ii) - mostly for TC's performance and I've always liked Ed Norton.
I liked I'm Not There too. It's one of the only biopics that I think solves the biopic problem. Mainly by avoiding it altogether. Vibes instead of episodes.
Someday I'll get new hips either before or after I get new knees. I've been working at a stand-up desk for 6 years now, sleeping on a futon on the floor. Sitting still for 2 hours is something I feel two days later. I miss going to the movies.
Well, as we might remember, I actually saw this and noted that the more I saw about it, the more I was confused whether I liked it. And, reader, I've just been getting more confused by the day.
So staying on brand, I'm going to demur a bit from Roy's POV.
At this point, I still liked the movie. Can't deny it was well done. Well, a couple chronological inconsistencies notwithstanding. Like every shot with 26 Federal Plaza in it was a stab in the eye (more so without the Serra sculpture). Street signs wrong. Really old cars. As the dotards here might recall, cars back then were pieces of shit. Like, get caught in one downpour too many and they rust into nothing. My recollection going back then is having approximately never older than ten years old. The movie had way too many older. Which all's a problem for us elderly people who aren't too decrepit to remember the times. Now that I say that, I would have liked one good establishing shot of Folk City because it was that important a venue.
So much for surface stuff.
But we have a biopic which means, were one to have a preference, more than he did this, then that, then another thing then other things too. Mangold's claim that the movie was somewhat less of an explanation of Dylan than a show of how he affected those around him which, at least in the case Baez and fake Rotolo are problems because specially in the former's case if you know nothing about Baez, at the end of the movie one still knows nothing other than she has the voice of an angel and, at least, in her performance with Dylan, the scenes are very sexy (Mangold more or less agrees.). Barbaro just rocked those scenes. In fake Rotolo's case, dunno if there was anything to add that would have mattered. That said, I agree with Roy about the pointlessness of her presence at the second Newport festival. FWIW, I hardcore ship Elle Fanning. Then again, I enjoyed "The Great" (of course I did) so YMMV.
So, biopic.
The heart of the movie is a black box. Dylan is, at the end of the day, a black box. We may think we know something about the real Dylan here in the real world but do we really? That we don't get an answer is fine. Specially with Dylan's involvement, who'd expect it? My problem is Chamelet's performance. Strictly a Me problem, but when he took the shades off, the spell was broken. I was watching a good impersonation but just as shallow as that, sorry. It was clearly an impersonator at work. OTOH, I loved Norton's Seeger. And I'm with Markoe; Toshi was done poor, mostly handled as some sort of mute presence with all the bullshit movie nobility.
But to clarify, there was one insight biography-wise: that Dylan is less a folksinger al a Seeger and more with, well, the broad, eclectic tastes he had and has was, in classic Hollywood tradition, was telegraphed at the beginning of the movie. To avoid spoilers, let's leave it that in a scene with Guthrie* and Seeger, Dylan notes musicians he likes and, well, it should be taken as classic fore-setting. (*I of course blame Guthrie's health towards the end of his life as the result of living on a Trump property.)
So: the movie could only do what it could given that Dylan's a black box (as is his right; he owes us nothing re revealing his personal life). Baez was hugely mis-served. The movie within its four corners is well done and probably covered all it could. I certainly enjoyed it; it's the with a bunch of qualifications thing that still makes be dizzy. Or maybe the dizziness is from a touch of the flu, dunno.
But there's good news. I haven't seen anything else Oscar worthy so no more comments like this will be coming.
I wondered. Have also wondered how Hoboken’s changed since the couple of times I was there ages ago. At least it could be dressed to look like the 60s Village…
There's a rule that somebody has to be left on the cutting room floor in a biopic, otherwise you've got yourself a documemtary, and nobody remembers who won an Oscar for Best Documetary. And you need at least 1 long-suffering woman, sounds like this one has 2 or 3 at least. Most biopics get dissected over "accuracy", and given this one is Dylan, its almost an obligation.
The line being walked here is that Dylan is a closed book.
Not sure Mangold was wrong when he said the movie was actually about the people around him he affected, on the other hand they’re pretty much all ciphers as well, Pete Seeger excepted. In a way, it’s more of a history here than a biography. Still liked it enough anyway. Just disappointed by the low enlightenment quotient.
I'm gathering that's the common take on the movie, almost surely intentional on the dirctor's part. Hammering on the biopic angle is more than a little glib on my part, I assume there's no childhood flashbacks forshadowing Bob's future, for example. To put a stake in the ground saying this is who Bob really is or what he really means is to beg for a wave of criticism, starting from His Bobness on down. His whole career has been one long what the hell is he doing that for, ending so far with why did he bother to insist on changing his girlfriend's name in the movie? Seriously, what was the point other than to ensure people would notice?
Apparently he wants his privacy and the freedom that goes with it. By and by, we’re entitled to nothing more from him than what he creates and shares. Yeah, so, a biopic is nigh-impossible.
OTOH, if it’s actually about those he affects, then why nothing about Baez’s background other than she’s a reasonably successful singer and just a name change and CV for “Sylvie”?
And there was, all in all, no good reason for allowing Dylan any say in the movie. Of course, it’s not like there was all that much to say with or without his participation.
Sure, all the adoring public is entitled to is his product, but this is America we're talkin' 'bout, which is probably why one of the few consistent themes in his life has been a violent rejection of celebrity. One of the few interesting things in that recent We Are The World rockumentary was seeing how very clearly uncomfortable Bob was simply being there, like a shy kid dragged by his mother to a grade school dance. If you haven't seen it it's worth sitting through just to see Stevie Wonder coach Bob on how to sing his lines in the song.
Yeah, well, way most of them over-sharing have nothing worth the effort. And really, as an old fart, I’m beyond unimpressed by it and by all the manic behavior in, say, tv acting or news shows or whatever. Watch the crap without sound and all looks like crazy people out of control.
I know next to nothing about Dylan other than the occasional tabloid crap. But I have no reason to believe that there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be allowed his privacy. As a rule, the only that matters is the et.
I am with you on Chalamet, only having seen the ads. Dylan is too clear in my mind's eye. I mean, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, reading the cans, his down-turned frowning eyes.
Chalmet has smiling open features. His eyes are wrong.
Another excellent column. Still haven’t seen it for reasons Kael alluded to in her review of Lady Sings the Blues: this kind of film tends to replace your memories. (Karl had seen Billie Holiday live more than a few times.) if this had been about Basement Tapes Bob, I probably would have seen it twice already, but I just cannot thrill to Times They Are a Changing anymore. Plus Inside Llewyn Davis, originally based on Van Ronk’s bio, is a masterpiece of miserableness. Thanks so much for linking piece about Toshi Seeger which is damning stuff.
Seeger may have been corny, and Christopher Guest had his private phone number, but he was an admirable man in a way Dylan isn’t. (This excellent New Yorker profile from about fifteen years ago described Seeger protesting the Iraq war by the roadside in the rain at age 85.)
PS, the excellent accusation of I’m Not There being like Allah: Dylanologists have been writing a Haddith for decades, and age will cease their labors. I’m glad Joni Mitchell, a more interesting artist than Dylan IMO, is at last getting her due.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I was at Newport in 1965 (and 1964 - it’s amazing what my parents let a 15 and 16 year old do with his friends without adult supervision) and the audience was ecstatic over Dylan’s electric debut. He was backed by Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band, which everyone loved (white guys bringing Chicago blues to Rhode Island; kinda cringey today). This was the summer of Satisfaction and most people had no problem accepting folk and rock. Again, maybe the movie doesn’t make the same mistake some historians do and portray the concert as angering the folkies. BTW, the biggest difference between Dylan and every other performer at Newport was his inaccessibility. You could walk up to van Ronk or Dock Boggs and chat, but Dylan was nowhere to be seen offstage. Hell, it was easier to talk with Jimi Hendrix a few years later. I think Dylan’s just very, very shy (and a bit of a narcissist).
First, jealous. I was minus one year old in 65 so no opportunity! Second, yeah as Roy alludes to, the movie portrays the 65 concert as just short of a riot, with angry fans screaming traitor and throwing things at Dylan and the band on stage, and fistfights breaking out, etc. There’s even a scene where Seeger is about to grab an ax to cut the sound cables, but is stopped by his wife.
Somewhere on the web is a post or article attempting to untangle the myth of that performance. Memory about big events in retrospect being what it is, many people there have told many versions of the story, including St. Seeger himself. After crunching what info was available, the author agreed with your obsevation, and concluded the Pete with an axe story was a classic print the legend story too good to not be true. As The Boss here said, biopics need a dramatic arc, and I'll be stunned if the filmaker passes up on that fat slow pitch over the plate.
Meh, I'll pass. Dylan is one thing I've been content to let others admire for me. When he comes up in conversation, I, usually filled with comments, just smile sphinx-like & say, "No opinion." And if the person is favored by me, then I'll say: "I love hearing you say it that way."
But, boss. Yo, come on, boss —— "hagiopic." BOSSSSSSS!
Sometimes you need 1200 pretty serviceable, even natty words to set up a game-changing term like that...
And the Coen brothers already made The Dave Van Ronk Story, which might be my favorite move of theirs. "I don't hear any money" is the perfect epitath for what Martin Mull called The Great Folk Scare.
My memory of the early '70s is that they kept trying to shove folk (and country) down our collective throats. Didn't work thanks to Muddy, Wolf And Company.
Early 70's? That was the start of the Singer/Songwriter Plauge, which had superficial similarities (acoustic instruments, tasteful drums/bass, mello vocals). The Great Folk Scare was early 60's, obliterated along with the rest of the old music business by the Beatles in 63.
For the same reason the early 90s had a New Wave revival, a Disco revival (in clubs at least), & then grunge -- to try to keep hip hop & house from taking over.
"But help me out, Dylanologists: Neuwirth had to go to England to get Bob a Strat?"
Not quite, Roy. I believe the Neuwirth character said Bob *purchased* the Strat while on tour in England, which was the film's device for getting the events D.A. Pennebaker depicted in *Don't Look Back* outta the way. (And no, *DLB* didn't show Bob dropping in on Denmark Street for a little instrument shopping.) "Neuwirth" was just bringing the guitar into the studio in his function as Dylan’s road manager. I don't recall him saying he flew to England to fetch it.
Anyway, great piece, Roy. Our views of the film dovetail nicely. I hope I clarified that Strat scene. Not sure I did, considering I haven't had coffee yet.
Another music critic review I read made the same comment. Bob Dylan doesn't really exist, its a label Zimmerman slapped on himself that everyone around him wrote on. He went to great lengths to avoid boxing himself in, refusing the poisoned chalice of The Voice Of A Generation and all.
As usual a great read from you, and an interesting and nuanced take on a movie I haven't yet seen (though I didn't watch Don't Look Back yesterday, in prep for seeing this one).
While I can't say I'm a Dylan fan, I appreciate that he is a true artist. These creatures are so rare that I'm always interested in their stories. And the fact that people across the board are praising both Chalamet (my former neighbor!) and Norton's performances also make seeing it seem worthwhile.
I have to admit the Merrill Markoe piece pissed me off and I may have given the movie a pass had these other factors not been present. So thanks for adding encouragement to see it with your fine analysis!
I guess I'll watch this when it makes it to streaming, just on the off chance it proves my assumptions about it wrong. Bob is at a minimum a massively talented guy, even if his claim his career-defining songs "just came to him" is true (which it probably is) those kind of songs don't just come to everybody. My guess is he was also sharp enough to realize being "the voice of a generation" was a cage he had no desire to live in. He didn't want to be Pete Seeger, let alone Phil Ochs (did he make it into the movie?), and might have been smart enough to see that "folk music will save the world" was as much a pipe dream as "don't trust anyone over 30" would be later, no matter how sincere Seeger's intentions. He famously said in some press conference (remember when folk/rock stars gave press conferences? Did you know the Byrds gave a press conference to announce the birth of "raga-rock" after 8 Miles High became a hit?) he considered himself a song-and-dance man, basically, which might be the most honest thing he ever said about himself.
I have trouble with the casting. Chalamet as Dylan is a stretch for me. Isn't that Muad-Dib?
But seriously, Bob is/was kind of a weaselly unattractive guy but charismatic when he performs/performed. If that's how it is in film,, cool..
Pete Seeger was a member at the Friends Meeting my family also attended. I was too young to have much recollection. What I do recall is likely tainted by later impressions. He was just such a plain guy wearing work boots to church and sitting quiet like everyone else, waiting on the light.
I listened to Seeger all the time as kid, however, and know his songs and performances. Norton seems closer than Chalamet, and I'll take a look at the opening of this biopic. If it doesn't turn me off in the first ten minutes, I'll give it a try.
I guess I'm just not as interested in fictionalizations of real people as I used to be. I would be more interested if this were a piece of fiction and not an attempt to portray the actual events and persons.
By the way, I’d like to heartily recommend Jesse Jarnow’s book about the Weavers: “Wasn’t That a Time.” I grew up thinking that they were hopelessly square (like most of my parents’ record collection) but this book turned my head around.
As I can't reasonably comment on a movie I haven't seen (well, ok, I surely have, stupidly) I can note that the most human and humane President of my lifetime called Dylan "an authentic American Voice ".
I have a lingering affection for "Blood on the Tracks".
"Even you, yesterday
You had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these years
You didn't know me better than that
Sweeeeeeeet lady...."
I do not believe for one second that Bob made himself a Hibbing High School scrapbook ("property of Bobby Zimmerman"), let alone brought it with him to NY. Guessing that one was for the kids who aren't hep to the Complete Dylan Lore. But I think the script avoided a lot of that biopic cheese, as you call it. Which ain't easy. I thought Chalamet was really good, but the script done Fanning dirty. Surely Suze did more than walk around with tears in her eyes. Edward Norton was great, if a bit too saintly. I liked the bookending with Guthrie, even if it was no doubt 99% myth. I liked that it was heavy on the music, which of course is some prime Bob. My husband, who is something of a Dylanologist, liked it less, and is still griping about the inaccuracies. Whaddya want, it's a movie.
RIP Jimmy Carter
"10 inaccuracies in the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’" -- the internet's full of fun stuff like that for your husband now! Something for everyone!
Oh it's gonna be a good year for the Dylanologists, as well as for Bob himself. Very canny on his part (and he's nothing if not canny) to give the thumbs up to this project. He's gonna sell a lot of...downloads?
After Prince died and they sold his catalog for somewhere a little north of a billion dollars I remember thinking Bob's catalog must be worth 5 or 6 billion.
Somebody I know had a fling with Bob a long time ago. She hadn't seen or spoken to him in years when out of the blue he stopped by her business a couple of years ago (the people working the front desk, all in their twenties, called her in her office and said "There's a dirty, homeless-looking guy here asking for you."). She asked him why he continues to tour all the time, and he said "Do you have any idea how many people I support?"
There's whoever he needs to support and playing relatively small venues...
But whatever the reason, good for him.
Then again there's the only intelligent thing Jerry Hall said for the record: re the Stones' 50th tour, she was asked WTF is it with these old guys going on tour, she they're musicians and touring and performing is what musicians do.
I'm sure that's it too. He must enjoy it on some level. It's likely the life he's used to. Also, touring for him is not riding around in the back of a rusty 30-year-old van.
Since we're sharing stories of how we are x degrees close... The first lot my parents bought on Pt. Dume back in 1971 or 1972 on Blue Water, within weeks, an agent offered them twice or more what they paid for it. They took the money without knowing on whose behalf the agent was working. It turned out it was Bob Dylan.
He built his home and mini-compound on a cluster of lots. His daughter Maria went to the public schools with me and my sisters. No big deal; lots of industry folks, movie and music, were out in Malibu.
But the real estate story was good. My mom related it to us when she found out. My dad was unimpressed and happy to use the money to buy a lot with a better view facing the bay.
As I get older, I do find I drop things more often, including names of the famous and infamous people I've known and met.
But he didn't have to give it any thumbs up; a public figure, based on a book and all that.
"10 inaccuracies in the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’" —
Well, first of all, people know about Bob Dylan...
Washington Post fact-checker gives new Dylan biopic 5 Pinocchios:
"Simply googling Mr. Dylan's name confirms that he is, in fact, quite well known."
Which reminds me of one of my favorite Onion headlines: "Clinton Googles Self."
Pete Seeger and Jimmy Carter were as close to saints as we’ll get in our lifetimes.
I remember reading that Jimmy said he wanted to live long enough to see the death of the last Guinea worm, don't know if he made it, but I think he came close. Fuckin' Guinea worms.
The afflicted have dropped to dozens, per news report yesterday.
Well, thank you Jimmy, and all the other people in West Africa who worked so hard on this over the years. I think it might be that the Guinea worm has no animal host, making this like smallpox: Eliminate all human cases and you really have caused its extinction.
I was thinking pretty much the same thing. Both tried to live their ideals and people mostly found them to be sanctimonious pricks. Loomis at LGM damns Carter as believing himself above the messy fray of politics. I say he was just in the wrong job.
So guy who never got elected President says the guy who got himself elected President after serving just one term as Governor or Georgia (the only person in history from that state ever elected President) didn't know how to do politics? The guy must have had some skills in messy, real-world politics to get where he did.
Yeah this. Carter replaced Lester Fucking Maddox as the state's first all-people-in-Georgia-can-vote-regardless-of-race governor. If that ain't involved in "messy, real-world politics" I don't know what *is*.
From Lester Maddox to Jimmy Carter? The g-forces involved in that turn must have caused whiplash all over the state.
Loomis tends to be sloppy with language in his posts because its a side-hustle for him. He called Carter a "micromanager" who couldn't focus on the big picture, prioritize his battles, or avoid antagonizing people he needed to placate. That's really governing, not "politics". The unspoken knock on Carter is that his self-righteous morality trumped his need to engage in the sleazy hurly-burly of democracy, a Capra-like idealist/sucker chewed up by the corrupt system. This gets boiled down by Loomis and others to "Carter was incompetent".
Two decisions by Carter that are being deliberately left out of the Capra-esque version of his life: Taking Zbigniew's advice to arm the Mujaheddin and his deregulation of trucking and the airlines, which did as much to gut-punch organized labor as anything Reagan did. Carter was the first neoliberal Democrat, a label not generally associated with too much morality.
As a Southern Christian, he was wished to be more of a liberal than he actually was. A lot like Obama that way. According to Loomis, ol' Zbiggy also pushed for the hostage rescue clusterfuck in Iran. Also according to Loomis, Carter deregulated microbrews, so the unemployed truckers and air traffic controllers at least got good beer.
"I say he was just in the wrong job."
Carter, or Loomis?
Re Biopic Cheese: If some oldster doesn't say "You'll never make it, kid!" it's not up to the standard.
I had a friend who went to high school with Dylan and she told me the last time she saw him was at their 45th or maybe 50th reunion. So maybe the yearbook bit isn't so far off base.
"Imagine how unlikable he’d be if he were not a genius, and you get what’s really great about the performance." Not really being much of a Dylan fan, Chalamet's performance and the way he and the script don't shy away from that reality was the most interesting and enjoyable part of the film for me. And I agree, for a biopic it's well done and does try to skip as many of the cliches as it can while still being, well, a biopic.
I'm looking forward to your annual Oscar nominee round-up, Roy. Always fun and a high point of the REBID year!
Unlikeable, shape-shifting, blatantly stealing (or borrowing heavily anyway) from his heroes, more ambitious than he wants people to think. I like that they put all of that in there. It's probably true of most young artists.
Absolutely. In any other field other than entertainment or sports, this kind of behavior would get a young man so much pushback he would have to straighten up and fly right by the time he was 30 or become a pariah.
I see a lot of parallels with the young Elon Musk. (KIDDING, people, KIDDING.)
Now THAT'S a biopic I will NOT be going to see.
Not if you deliver (a lawyer who becomes a rainmaker, a hedge fund partner reliably closing the big deals). The people who matter (to you) won't care unless you make them uncomfortable. A swing for the fences gamble, which is the basic model for being sucessful in entertainment and sports.
We had an engineering prof at the UW who was so abusive he drove one of his grad students to commit suicide. OTOH, he did bring in a shitload of grant money, and today's University Administrators must weigh these complicated factors carefully, let's not rush to judgement, etc.
I attribute a lot of the folky stage to being ambitious but limited to having just a guitar and harmonica to perform with. It made having a band possible and going electric an imminent development thereafter.
Like how "singer-songwriter" comes out of sheer necessity: "I can't get anyone else to perform my stuff!"
Yup
Bob's memoir Chronicals, Vol. 1, was described by a friend of mine as "an instruction manual for how to be an artist" which intrigued me enough to buy it, and it pretty much is. He hoovered up everything and everyone he thought might be useful to that end, and moved on.
Nice write up, Roy. I saw this yesterday and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I found it to be less a biopic and more of a Dylan’s greatest hits jukebox musical. Which I guess is no surprise, Mangold is the master of these things and he knows why the audience is there. Which of course is ironic on a meta level since one of the films big themes is Dylan not wanting to be boxed in playing the same old stuff. Definite recommend from me.
Nosferatu is also worth a watch on a big screen. Like all of Robert Eggers’ films it’s a visual work of art.
I'll probably have to see that, too.
Mangold is a great technician -- he saved "The Greatest Showman", a movie he had noting to do in making, in post-production.
"Saving" The Greatest Showman was hardly laudatory.
It was a master job in saving a movie in the editing room. And TBC, only saw it because we were taking the kid.
My grandkids love that movie. Evidently all their friends do too. They were all like, tweens when it was released. I could not figure that out. I couldn't sit through 20 minutes of it.
The first time ever really got in trouble with the outside world (apart from trouble I got into at school) was in the 7th grade when I tried to substitute my exceptionally well worn copy of Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Volume 1 for the second disc in the County Library's copy of Bob Dylan's Greatest hits Volume 2. My mom was waiting at the door for me when I got home from school one day, shaking Volume 2 disc 2 at me the minute I walked in the door. I knew right away what was up. She dragged me right out to the car and drove me right down to the library. I plead " It was an accident!" all the way to the library and I continued to plead it when we stood before the head librarian. Mom was barely convinced and the library lady looked like she heard it all and wasn't buying it. They threatened to disable my library card for a year ( a fate worse than anything) but I stuck to my story. We are in the library lady's office for 5 minutes I bet but it felt like I was brow beaten for hours.
I liked "I'm Not There" I don't know if I really liked the movie or if I just appreciated the fact it was one long strange conceit and that they were mostly able to pull it off. Todd Haynes is a badass.
On your word, I may see it in the theater. I kind of prefer streaming for something I'm not sure of- you can bail with no hard feelings. I really like Dune ( I & Ii) - mostly for TC's performance and I've always liked Ed Norton.
I liked I'm Not There too. It's one of the only biopics that I think solves the biopic problem. Mainly by avoiding it altogether. Vibes instead of episodes.
It's fun to go to the theater and see a new movie -- for me, anyway
Someday I'll get new hips either before or after I get new knees. I've been working at a stand-up desk for 6 years now, sleeping on a futon on the floor. Sitting still for 2 hours is something I feel two days later. I miss going to the movies.
Love that story, and when we finally get around to making the Worriedman Biopic, let's make sure to include it.
Chariots of Yappy Dogs!
Well, as we might remember, I actually saw this and noted that the more I saw about it, the more I was confused whether I liked it. And, reader, I've just been getting more confused by the day.
So staying on brand, I'm going to demur a bit from Roy's POV.
At this point, I still liked the movie. Can't deny it was well done. Well, a couple chronological inconsistencies notwithstanding. Like every shot with 26 Federal Plaza in it was a stab in the eye (more so without the Serra sculpture). Street signs wrong. Really old cars. As the dotards here might recall, cars back then were pieces of shit. Like, get caught in one downpour too many and they rust into nothing. My recollection going back then is having approximately never older than ten years old. The movie had way too many older. Which all's a problem for us elderly people who aren't too decrepit to remember the times. Now that I say that, I would have liked one good establishing shot of Folk City because it was that important a venue.
So much for surface stuff.
But we have a biopic which means, were one to have a preference, more than he did this, then that, then another thing then other things too. Mangold's claim that the movie was somewhat less of an explanation of Dylan than a show of how he affected those around him which, at least in the case Baez and fake Rotolo are problems because specially in the former's case if you know nothing about Baez, at the end of the movie one still knows nothing other than she has the voice of an angel and, at least, in her performance with Dylan, the scenes are very sexy (Mangold more or less agrees.). Barbaro just rocked those scenes. In fake Rotolo's case, dunno if there was anything to add that would have mattered. That said, I agree with Roy about the pointlessness of her presence at the second Newport festival. FWIW, I hardcore ship Elle Fanning. Then again, I enjoyed "The Great" (of course I did) so YMMV.
So, biopic.
The heart of the movie is a black box. Dylan is, at the end of the day, a black box. We may think we know something about the real Dylan here in the real world but do we really? That we don't get an answer is fine. Specially with Dylan's involvement, who'd expect it? My problem is Chamelet's performance. Strictly a Me problem, but when he took the shades off, the spell was broken. I was watching a good impersonation but just as shallow as that, sorry. It was clearly an impersonator at work. OTOH, I loved Norton's Seeger. And I'm with Markoe; Toshi was done poor, mostly handled as some sort of mute presence with all the bullshit movie nobility.
But to clarify, there was one insight biography-wise: that Dylan is less a folksinger al a Seeger and more with, well, the broad, eclectic tastes he had and has was, in classic Hollywood tradition, was telegraphed at the beginning of the movie. To avoid spoilers, let's leave it that in a scene with Guthrie* and Seeger, Dylan notes musicians he likes and, well, it should be taken as classic fore-setting. (*I of course blame Guthrie's health towards the end of his life as the result of living on a Trump property.)
So: the movie could only do what it could given that Dylan's a black box (as is his right; he owes us nothing re revealing his personal life). Baez was hugely mis-served. The movie within its four corners is well done and probably covered all it could. I certainly enjoyed it; it's the with a bunch of qualifications thing that still makes be dizzy. Or maybe the dizziness is from a touch of the flu, dunno.
But there's good news. I haven't seen anything else Oscar worthy so no more comments like this will be coming.
Apparently they used Hoboken to stand in for the Village, because the Village has been so completely NYU-ized.
I wondered. Have also wondered how Hoboken’s changed since the couple of times I was there ages ago. At least it could be dressed to look like the 60s Village…
Ha ha oh man
I have a niece who lives in Hoboken, I'll have to let her know!
And will they use it again when we get the Sinatra biopic?
Feel better!
Thanks, Roy!!
There's a rule that somebody has to be left on the cutting room floor in a biopic, otherwise you've got yourself a documemtary, and nobody remembers who won an Oscar for Best Documetary. And you need at least 1 long-suffering woman, sounds like this one has 2 or 3 at least. Most biopics get dissected over "accuracy", and given this one is Dylan, its almost an obligation.
The line being walked here is that Dylan is a closed book.
Not sure Mangold was wrong when he said the movie was actually about the people around him he affected, on the other hand they’re pretty much all ciphers as well, Pete Seeger excepted. In a way, it’s more of a history here than a biography. Still liked it enough anyway. Just disappointed by the low enlightenment quotient.
I'm gathering that's the common take on the movie, almost surely intentional on the dirctor's part. Hammering on the biopic angle is more than a little glib on my part, I assume there's no childhood flashbacks forshadowing Bob's future, for example. To put a stake in the ground saying this is who Bob really is or what he really means is to beg for a wave of criticism, starting from His Bobness on down. His whole career has been one long what the hell is he doing that for, ending so far with why did he bother to insist on changing his girlfriend's name in the movie? Seriously, what was the point other than to ensure people would notice?
Apparently he wants his privacy and the freedom that goes with it. By and by, we’re entitled to nothing more from him than what he creates and shares. Yeah, so, a biopic is nigh-impossible.
OTOH, if it’s actually about those he affects, then why nothing about Baez’s background other than she’s a reasonably successful singer and just a name change and CV for “Sylvie”?
And there was, all in all, no good reason for allowing Dylan any say in the movie. Of course, it’s not like there was all that much to say with or without his participation.
Sure, all the adoring public is entitled to is his product, but this is America we're talkin' 'bout, which is probably why one of the few consistent themes in his life has been a violent rejection of celebrity. One of the few interesting things in that recent We Are The World rockumentary was seeing how very clearly uncomfortable Bob was simply being there, like a shy kid dragged by his mother to a grade school dance. If you haven't seen it it's worth sitting through just to see Stevie Wonder coach Bob on how to sing his lines in the song.
Yeah, well, way most of them over-sharing have nothing worth the effort. And really, as an old fart, I’m beyond unimpressed by it and by all the manic behavior in, say, tv acting or news shows or whatever. Watch the crap without sound and all looks like crazy people out of control.
I know next to nothing about Dylan other than the occasional tabloid crap. But I have no reason to believe that there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be allowed his privacy. As a rule, the only that matters is the et.
"no childhood flashbacks forshadowing Bob's future" oh man that could be funny!
Speaking of which, for the obsessive, which I may be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWf-sBNoTdw
Three-handed Mother of Gott what is that? Man, there are some early tapes of me that the Universe have thankfully swallowed whole...
Forgot to mention add a childhood flashback and you're halfway to Walk Harder: The Bob Zimmerman Story.
Well, enlightenment's a lot of ask.
It’s not for the little people…
I am with you on Chalamet, only having seen the ads. Dylan is too clear in my mind's eye. I mean, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, reading the cans, his down-turned frowning eyes.
Chalmet has smiling open features. His eyes are wrong.
Another excellent column. Still haven’t seen it for reasons Kael alluded to in her review of Lady Sings the Blues: this kind of film tends to replace your memories. (Karl had seen Billie Holiday live more than a few times.) if this had been about Basement Tapes Bob, I probably would have seen it twice already, but I just cannot thrill to Times They Are a Changing anymore. Plus Inside Llewyn Davis, originally based on Van Ronk’s bio, is a masterpiece of miserableness. Thanks so much for linking piece about Toshi Seeger which is damning stuff.
Seeger may have been corny, and Christopher Guest had his private phone number, but he was an admirable man in a way Dylan isn’t. (This excellent New Yorker profile from about fifteen years ago described Seeger protesting the Iraq war by the roadside in the rain at age 85.)
PS, the excellent accusation of I’m Not There being like Allah: Dylanologists have been writing a Haddith for decades, and age will cease their labors. I’m glad Joni Mitchell, a more interesting artist than Dylan IMO, is at last getting her due.
"age will cease their labors" well, ours too!
Well, no one is delving through my trash can for clues, that’s the good thing
Fret not, unless they start mining yer compost...
I may have need of this reassuring phrase over the next four years.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I was at Newport in 1965 (and 1964 - it’s amazing what my parents let a 15 and 16 year old do with his friends without adult supervision) and the audience was ecstatic over Dylan’s electric debut. He was backed by Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band, which everyone loved (white guys bringing Chicago blues to Rhode Island; kinda cringey today). This was the summer of Satisfaction and most people had no problem accepting folk and rock. Again, maybe the movie doesn’t make the same mistake some historians do and portray the concert as angering the folkies. BTW, the biggest difference between Dylan and every other performer at Newport was his inaccessibility. You could walk up to van Ronk or Dock Boggs and chat, but Dylan was nowhere to be seen offstage. Hell, it was easier to talk with Jimi Hendrix a few years later. I think Dylan’s just very, very shy (and a bit of a narcissist).
First, jealous. I was minus one year old in 65 so no opportunity! Second, yeah as Roy alludes to, the movie portrays the 65 concert as just short of a riot, with angry fans screaming traitor and throwing things at Dylan and the band on stage, and fistfights breaking out, etc. There’s even a scene where Seeger is about to grab an ax to cut the sound cables, but is stopped by his wife.
Thought so.
Nothing cringe about Butterfield Blues Band.
The fuck? You were AT these concerts? And I thought I was old and traveled!
Somewhere on the web is a post or article attempting to untangle the myth of that performance. Memory about big events in retrospect being what it is, many people there have told many versions of the story, including St. Seeger himself. After crunching what info was available, the author agreed with your obsevation, and concluded the Pete with an axe story was a classic print the legend story too good to not be true. As The Boss here said, biopics need a dramatic arc, and I'll be stunned if the filmaker passes up on that fat slow pitch over the plate.
Would an axe be handy in a situation like that? Or did Pete carry one around for all occasions?
Back in those days they cut down trees to buiid the stage. Sustainable.
"If I had an axe..."
Dude.
2 marks.
G'night folks.
Meh, I'll pass. Dylan is one thing I've been content to let others admire for me. When he comes up in conversation, I, usually filled with comments, just smile sphinx-like & say, "No opinion." And if the person is favored by me, then I'll say: "I love hearing you say it that way."
But, boss. Yo, come on, boss —— "hagiopic." BOSSSSSSS!
Sometimes you need 1200 pretty serviceable, even natty words to set up a game-changing term like that...
Same here. I have no opinion because the music I grew up with was Motown and Muscle Shoals and Aretha and James Brown. Dylan literally did not exist.
Normally I'd say see it anyway, but in this case, no. Without the intrinsic Dylan interest it's all mostly 60s window dressing (but good!).
And the Coen brothers already made The Dave Van Ronk Story, which might be my favorite move of theirs. "I don't hear any money" is the perfect epitath for what Martin Mull called The Great Folk Scare.
My memory of the early '70s is that they kept trying to shove folk (and country) down our collective throats. Didn't work thanks to Muddy, Wolf And Company.
Early 70's? That was the start of the Singer/Songwriter Plauge, which had superficial similarities (acoustic instruments, tasteful drums/bass, mello vocals). The Great Folk Scare was early 60's, obliterated along with the rest of the old music business by the Beatles in 63.
For the same reason the early 90s had a New Wave revival, a Disco revival (in clubs at least), & then grunge -- to try to keep hip hop & house from taking over.
Sure this was mentioned before but it's also why Disco Demolition Night wasn't just about disco: https://interactive.wttw.com/chicago-stories/house-music/house-music-is-discos-revenge
Nice review, thanks.
"But help me out, Dylanologists: Neuwirth had to go to England to get Bob a Strat?"
Not quite, Roy. I believe the Neuwirth character said Bob *purchased* the Strat while on tour in England, which was the film's device for getting the events D.A. Pennebaker depicted in *Don't Look Back* outta the way. (And no, *DLB* didn't show Bob dropping in on Denmark Street for a little instrument shopping.) "Neuwirth" was just bringing the guitar into the studio in his function as Dylan’s road manager. I don't recall him saying he flew to England to fetch it.
Anyway, great piece, Roy. Our views of the film dovetail nicely. I hope I clarified that Strat scene. Not sure I did, considering I haven't had coffee yet.
I'd like to think this movie will birth a million A Complete Unknown-ologists.
And every University will create a Department of Dylan Studies to replace all the gender-studies programs they're shutting down.
Thanks, Tim! Yes, that's clear -- as is your sterling review, which people should read: https://timnapalmstegall.substack.com/p/cinematic-addict-a-headful-of-ideas
(The gtr business reminds me of I Shall Be Free #10: "It's nothin'/Just somethin' I picked up over t'England.")
BTW I agree that Chalamet's Dylan is "practically a blank canvas" -- and I think the "blankness" is Bob's trick. But YMMV.
Another music critic review I read made the same comment. Bob Dylan doesn't really exist, its a label Zimmerman slapped on himself that everyone around him wrote on. He went to great lengths to avoid boxing himself in, refusing the poisoned chalice of The Voice Of A Generation and all.
That is one GARBLED generation...
As usual a great read from you, and an interesting and nuanced take on a movie I haven't yet seen (though I didn't watch Don't Look Back yesterday, in prep for seeing this one).
While I can't say I'm a Dylan fan, I appreciate that he is a true artist. These creatures are so rare that I'm always interested in their stories. And the fact that people across the board are praising both Chalamet (my former neighbor!) and Norton's performances also make seeing it seem worthwhile.
I have to admit the Merrill Markoe piece pissed me off and I may have given the movie a pass had these other factors not been present. So thanks for adding encouragement to see it with your fine analysis!
Thank you!
Elijah Wald is a a treasure.
I guess I'll watch this when it makes it to streaming, just on the off chance it proves my assumptions about it wrong. Bob is at a minimum a massively talented guy, even if his claim his career-defining songs "just came to him" is true (which it probably is) those kind of songs don't just come to everybody. My guess is he was also sharp enough to realize being "the voice of a generation" was a cage he had no desire to live in. He didn't want to be Pete Seeger, let alone Phil Ochs (did he make it into the movie?), and might have been smart enough to see that "folk music will save the world" was as much a pipe dream as "don't trust anyone over 30" would be later, no matter how sincere Seeger's intentions. He famously said in some press conference (remember when folk/rock stars gave press conferences? Did you know the Byrds gave a press conference to announce the birth of "raga-rock" after 8 Miles High became a hit?) he considered himself a song-and-dance man, basically, which might be the most honest thing he ever said about himself.
Phil Ochs needs his own movie.
Boy, that would make Inside Llewyn Davis look like Singing In The Rain.
I have trouble with the casting. Chalamet as Dylan is a stretch for me. Isn't that Muad-Dib?
But seriously, Bob is/was kind of a weaselly unattractive guy but charismatic when he performs/performed. If that's how it is in film,, cool..
Pete Seeger was a member at the Friends Meeting my family also attended. I was too young to have much recollection. What I do recall is likely tainted by later impressions. He was just such a plain guy wearing work boots to church and sitting quiet like everyone else, waiting on the light.
I listened to Seeger all the time as kid, however, and know his songs and performances. Norton seems closer than Chalamet, and I'll take a look at the opening of this biopic. If it doesn't turn me off in the first ten minutes, I'll give it a try.
I guess I'm just not as interested in fictionalizations of real people as I used to be. I would be more interested if this were a piece of fiction and not an attempt to portray the actual events and persons.
What the heck is wrong with me?
You're asking me?
By the way, I’d like to heartily recommend Jesse Jarnow’s book about the Weavers: “Wasn’t That a Time.” I grew up thinking that they were hopelessly square (like most of my parents’ record collection) but this book turned my head around.
https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/jesse-jarnow/wasnt-that-a-time/9780306902079/
The 50's had hidden depths that are mostly being forgotten.