Spoilers below.

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Tyler: Norman, we’ve got ourselves a humdinger.  Conceived and released to much ado—not least because of its dreamboat star—A Complete Unknown depicts the rise of Bob Dylan, here played by Timothée Chalamet.  We’ve got Dylan’s arrival in New York, all the way through to the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan “went electric” and royally infuriated the considerable portion of his audience that wanted, well, acoustic folk.

It’s a hell of a story.  As a decently-versed Dylan fan—I own most of his catalogue on vinyl, but can’t quote the history or the analysis chapter and verse—I found myself enraptured.  Does it work as a film, though, beyond satisfying the curiosity of Bob aficionados like myself?  Well, my man, I think that’s what we’re here to discuss.

Norman: I am a Dylan enjoyer, but not a Dylan Devotee. It may pain some readers to hear this, but I’m happy with a greatest hits album or two. I know only the most basic contours of his history, the kind of knowledge someone would get from a general interest of the music at the time and no more.

This movie was, for me, just a movie. I approached it hoping for a decent music biopic. A Complete Unknown, was, after all, directed by James Mangold, the man who gave us the modern music biopic blueprint with his Johnny Cash movie, Walk the Line.

Tyler: Yes, and that was why I was so skeptical about Complete Unknown: Walk The Line is a colossal snooze.  “You can’t walk no line!”  Spare me.

Norman: And, to be honest, after Ray, The Queen Movie, Baz Luhrmann doing Elvis, and an Elton John flick, the genre is tired.

Forgot to mention the 2024 Bob Marley movie! These movies don’t stop!!!!!!

Tyler: I’ve been told that the Elton and the Elvis biopics have merit. The EJ one because it’s not afraid to go deep into its subject’s sexual and substance indulgences.  The Elvis one I heard is just fun.

Oh, man, I forgot about the Bob Marley one!  I thought that one would be a bigger hit with more staying power.

Norman: I will withhold judgement on those movies, but not on the genre.

It’s more than just the films themselves, good or bad. When these movies come out, their subjects suddenly become THE GREATEST MUSICIANS OF THE 20TH CENTURY!

Tyler: So, moment of truth, do you feel that A Complete Unknown falls into line with the unremarkable entries in the genre?  Or does it transcend the tropes and amount to something special?

Norman: A Complete Unknown does one thing I love: it does not attempt to tell Dylan’s whole story. It focuses in on a very specific moment in time and tries to focus on one particular conflict or problem in Dylan’s artistic life. This keeps the movie from trying to do too much, which is helpful. It’s difficult to fit an entire life into 2 hours. Too often biopics try to do just that and fail. Mangold’s movie is modest and that keeps it alive.

Tyler: I agree with every bit of that.  I don’t want, say, the Story Of The Beatles in a movie.  I want the Story of Sgt. Pepper’s, or the White Album, or any finite stretch of the saga that isn’t an attempt to encapsulate the entire career of seminal artists.

Norman: If you want the whole story, there’s a biography to read.

As far as Dylan goes, there are probably any number of points in his career that you could make a movie out of, but Mangold has chosen the most familiar. Not just as a story, but also the music itself is better known than anything he has released since at least the early-mid 70s.

I, for one, wouldn’t mind a movie about Dylan’s surprising turn to Christianity!

Tyler: In my years of casual research, I heard that he was inspired by somebody throwing a cross onstage. And those albums aren’t bad!  I mean, “Slow Train” is an absolute banger.  But we digress.

Your point is well-taken.  I know these tunes so damn well that I forget their place in mainstream listening.

Norman: One more digression. A whole movie about what was happening in Dylan’s head while singing “We Are the World.”

Tyler: Oh, that performance.  I love every second of it.

Norman: Okay, that’s it. No more digressions. The tunes in A Complete Unknown are the timeless ones that will be listened to by kids of the future.

Tyler: I dunno, brother.  My gig on occasion features a clever young turk who has no idea about Dylan.  Can’t name a single song.

Teenagers, am I right?  I weep for the future.

Norman: He’ll be found. He’ll be listened to. Or at the very least, there’ll be a t-shirt with him in Greenwich Village.

Tyler: I hope so.  Anyone who’s ever loved deserves to hear Blood On The Tracks, and Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan should probably be taught in elementary school.

Norman: Every new civil rights movement should probably adopt “The Times They Are A-Changin'” as their theme song.

Tyler: See, we could go on for hours.  These songs are timeless.  In our current political and existential climate, two days before the 2025 inauguration of Donald Trump, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” indeed.

Norman: These songs are great. How about Timothée Chalamet’s imitation cover songs? Are they great? Are they just glorified karaoke? Would you ever listen to the soundtrack to A Complete Unknown instead of putting on one of Dylan’s own records?

Tyler: No.  I think his renditions are totally acceptable, at times excellent, in the context of the narrative.  Unfortunately, though, I stayed through the credits the first time I saw the film, and Mangold whiffs at an opportunity to serenade the audience with actual Dylan recordings, opting instead to stack two or three Chalamet performances, and, boy, do those not play well on their own.  I walked outta the theater feeling improperly rustled.

Norman: Good point. In the context of the movie it might even be a little dissonant if they were to have played Dylan recordings over the actors. So, you need the songs, like the actors, to look and sound something like the original but also not. I enjoyed the songs in the movie greatly. Have not listened to them in isolation.

Tyler: Who knew Edward Norton could croon?  And, my goodness, Monica Barbaro essaying Joan Baez.

Norman: Norton was the unexpected, extremely pleasant surprise of the movie for me. He nearly steals every scene he’s in.

Tyler: He’s so good.  So, so good.

Norman: Do you know if the conflict between Dylan and Seeger depicted here is true to life or juiced up for the screen? I have no clue. I accept everything here is 100% true!

Tyler: Best I recall, Seeger really did consider taking an axe to the cables at Newport while Dylan and his band thrashed on stage.  I don’t know that his wife Toshi, portrayed onscreen in near silence by Eriko Hatsune, was the one to stop him.

Norman: Cinematically, it works. Who cares if it’s true.

Tyler: Talk about acting—Hatsune makes that character vital.

Norman: It’s interesting to me that the women really do stand out here. Barbaro, as previously mentioned, is wonderful as Baez. Elle Fanning is her usual, understated, graceful self. Every time these ladies are on screen they really pop. Timothée had his work cut out for him playing alongside them!

Tyler: How do we feel about Chalamet in the role?

Norman: He’s great! He plays Dylan as a frustrated mystery. It’s the kind of acting that will get him nominated for an Oscar and maybe he’ll win. I don’t see a ton of range here. There aren’t any scenes that really hit me hard, but he’s got the character down and he does exactly what one would hope for from someone tasked with doing a glorified Dylan impersonation.

Tyler: How about the otherworldly moment where Dylan and Baez first sing together?  I hope, I truly hope, that the younger crowd who like A Complete Unknown come to realize how special was that pairing.

Norman: It’s a shame they couldn’t make up in real life and give us more magic.

Tyler: They performed together as part of Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” set of shows in the mid-‘70s.  Martin Scorsese’s oddball documentary about that madcap era includes revelatory footage of Dylan and Baez conversing about their relationship.

Norman: My understanding is that they were supposed to tour together in the 80s but it didn’t work out. Maybe that’s an understatement.

Tyler: One exception to the truth I should note is that Fanning’s character, Sylvie, is a twist on artist and Dylan lover Suze Rotolo, herself immortalized on the cover of Freewheelin’.

Norman: I would have liked to learn more about her character and her life after her relationship with Dylan. But that might just be me wanting to watch Elle Fanning for another couple of hours.

Tyler: I could go for a short film sequel of Barbaro working on “Diamonds and Rust.”

Norman: Let’s talk about the central crisis of the movie.

Dylan bites the hand that fed him.

Tyler: I suppose there’s no way around that. Dylan had to grow, and grow away from that folk scene.  But the ruckus he created at Newport was, however awesome and immortal and scene-shaking, pretty unnecessary.

Norman: It’s the conundrum most artists will face. You get some success in a certain corner, but good artists rarely want to keep making the same kind of work. They want to experiment and stretch out a bit. But when they do that, the audience and financers don’t like it and get nervous.

Imagine Martin Scorsese ONLY making gangster movies!

Tyler: Dylan eventually took to calling those early protest anthems “finger-pointing songs.”  Not quite derisive, but not exactly complimentary.

Norman: But without them, he never gets to make “Highway 61 Revisited.” And maybe the Beatles don’t smoke pot! And the entire history of 20th Century pop music is rerouted.

Tyler: What a strangely delicate balance the story holds.

Norman: But in all seriousness, I enjoyed how the movie depicted the tension between an artist’s commercial success and his ambitions beyond that success.

I like to imagine Hendrix doing more soul-influenced music. Or Nirvana fully embracing jangle-pop.

Tyler: I wonder what Lennon would’ve explored in the eighties.  Hell, the nineties.  Rock fantasies are melancholy.

Norman: A Complete Unknown managed to capture a sense of melancholy around Dylan’s move to electric music. To embrace this new direction, he would have to leave some things behind. And some of those things were good, but they couldn’t be kept.

Tyler: Seeger’s parable about the teaspoons, and Norton’s delivery of it, are bits that break the heart.

Dylan’s career would become a series of reinventions, from pioneering rock titan to reclusive country-folk family man, from tortured wandering divorcee to devout Christian troubadour.  He even had a phase as an interpreter of the Great American Songbook, wherein he blew Rod Stewart, God love him, outta the water.

Norman: And thus Dylan’s choice to go electric is justified. Had he stuck with folk music, it’s likely that he would have ended up with a career more like Baez’s or Peter (RIP), Paul, and Mary. Those aren’t bad careers, but they don’t rise to the level of Dylan’s influence over modern music.

Tyler: I really like this movie, Norman.  I think it has it.

Norman: Yeah, me too. It’s a good comfort movie. A solid movie for a great artist.

Tyler: James Mangold, for Walk The Line you are forgiven!

Norman: I’m willing to forgive Walk The Line, but not Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Tyler: Dear God, that was him?

Norman: Yessir!

Tyler: I guess when Spielberg and Lucas call, ya say yes.

Norman: True. His filmography is an odd assortment. A Complete Unknown is a winner!

Tyler: Play it loud.

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