A Complete Unknown

Film based on Elijah Wald's book Dylan Goes Electric, directed by James Mangold.

Photo from the cover of Bob Dylan Live 1962-1966 | Legacy (2018)

In a long life, one thing I've learned about aspirations is that most of them fail. By July 1965, we had witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the spread of the War in Viet Nam, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, of Medgar Evers, of James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, and Malcolm X, the blossoming popularity of folk music and its marriage to the civil rights and anti- war movements, Bloody Sunday of the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march - all in the space of 3 years.

So when Bob Dylan, an idolized singer-songwriter of the folk music, antiwar, civil rights movement, broke the folk music tradition at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and performed a kickass rock set, with a band of monster musicians, a lot of the folky audience were shocked, disappointed, and brokenhearted. Another leader lost, another hope for a bright future dashed.

Or so the story goes. (People who were at Newport `65 have said that sound quality was poor throughout the festival, a lot of performers were given a hard time by the crowd, and that the audience felt ripped off because Dylan played a 15-minute set instead of a 45-minute set; and that some people did in fact Rejoice and Rock.) This film culminates in the Electric Dylan Destroys Folk Festival Expectations and Rocks You moment. The movie also tells the story of a young man with coruscating talent and ambition becoming more and more aware of the demands of relationships, of fame, of the down side of being a successful product. Dylan, between 1961 and 1965, did live the fight for self-determination, even when we were all too young to know clearly who and how we wanted to be, except by how we felt about the expectations of others.

The movie begins and ends with Dylan sitting with his musical inspiration Woody Guthrie, who was dying of Huntington's disease in a New Jersey hospital. I found this the touchstone of authenticity in the whirlwind of emotions, of posing, of performing.

There were moments in the film that made me cry. I am an idealistic old hippy patriot, and seeing these images again brought them back to life. One was the grungy interior of Gerde's Folk City. One was the March on Washington, August 28,1963. One was a TV news reporter telling us that the Cuban missile crisis was over, there was not going to be a nuclear war. And one was Walter Cronkite telling us "From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time."

So this film is a recap of a significant part of 20th century American cultural history, told by the vehicle of a life we hold dear. (Sorry, Bob. You matter to us. Your influence is bigger than your self.)

There are characterizations and anachronisms in the film that made me uncomfortable. For one, no young woman in a club in 1963 would shout "That's fucking Bob Dylan." Shouting the F word in a public venue was not in the province of young women at that time.

I was uncomfortable with the characterizations of Suze Rotolo and Bobby Neuwirth, both more complex and influential than portrayed, and I was uncomfortable with the absence of Dave Van Ronk, a major influence on Dylan in that time period. I was uncomfortable with the fiction that Dylan thrilled audiences from jump street. From personal experience, nah, not the case. I wasn't clear about why we need to have Johnny Cash at Newport 65 when he wasn't there. I felt for Monica Barbaro, because she has a fine and lovely voice and a hell of a tough job, but if you heard Joan Baez in 1963, Ms. Barbaro is not there. And I wondered what the film would have been like if it had dropped some of the fictitious inserts and stayed a little closer to reality. I'm thinking of the Dylan and Rotolo breakup.

On the other hand, I flat loved the way Al Kooper is shown coming into the studio, learning that the band doesn't need another guitar player (they've got Michael Bloomfield!) and sitting to the organ for the killer licks on "Like A Rolling Stone." And I love Ed Norton as Pete Seeger, because Pete did, as my dear old friend Leda Schubert wrote, teach us all to sing. And because Pete Seeger was a standup guy for ethics and for the earth. We need more Pete Seegers, and more leaders who care about ethics and the earth.

And I'm glad I saw the film because, in the end, it restored to my mind, and hopefully yours, an emotional atmosphere of creativity and grittiness that we need. ("Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear," is that what you're saying, Ture? Pretty much, yup.) For people who weren't even born then, enjoy the film, let us know how it struck you.

A Complete Unknown, film by James Mangold. Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvia Russo, Will Harrison as Bobby Neuwirth.