Bob Dylan
Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 Born: 24 May 1941, Duluth, MN, USA. Prize motivation: “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” Prize share: 1/1 Nobel Prize website
While shaking my head in admiration, I lapped up every great Bob Dylan lyric presented in A Complete Unknown (2025), a biopic by James Mangold.
Never quite sure if Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature was entirely appropriate, it took less than an hour of Mangold’s film to convince me how wrong I had been.
The impact was profound as lyric after lyric, song after song, great writing after great writing was presented as though I was hearing it for the first time.
This movie traced the famous singer-songwriter’s career from its beginning in 1961 to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. All the great songs presented were written in less than four years.
Most songwriters don’t write even one song that good in 40-year careers. Perhaps think Rock ’n’ Roll I Gave You All The Best Years Of My life by Kevin Johnson to emphasise both sides of that statement?
Mangold’s resume includes Walk The Line (2005), his celebrated Johnny Cash biography, which includes the love affair and musical influence of June Carter.
Joaquin Phoenix and Reece Witherspoon played the two singer-songwriters in that pic. Was Mangold lucky or does he have a good casting director because to present history you’ve lived through as well as this you need good people in front of camera.
All credit to Lisa Beach and Sarah Katzman on the first and Yezi Ramirez on the second.
Timothee Chalamet (Dylan), Elle Fanning (Sylvie Russo) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) light up the screen. Chalamet and Barbaro invade our ears and our minds with their vocal renditions of Dylan songs and Baez standards. It is glorious and superbly portrayed.
Fanning provides the stabilising acting influence. She has to play a mere mortal. She does it well.
While these players are superb and deserving of any accolade bestowed, it was Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, who really captured this reviewer’s attention.
The man who wrote or co-wrote Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had A Hammer, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine and Turn, Turn, Turn, is beautifully captured by Norton as a patient, gentle man. As an older celebrity, his fame is being quickly overwhelmed by changing music tastes and the kind of unbridled fandom the 1960s took to another level.
Chalamet has a brilliant CV yet playing Dylan is his career peak. He convinces the viewer he is the early Dylan, his vocal renditions are hard for the lay ear to fault. He actually learned to play the guitar and harmonica to perform the songs.
Barbaro doesn’t look as beautiful as Baez but her voice imitates one of the great instruments in modern American music.
What else can you say?
The authenticity has been lauded by much-more experienced viewers; the story deals with Dylan from a devoted “complete unknown” fan visiting Woody Guthrie in hospital to a success story who cannot even sit in the corner of a small bar and watch a gig without being pestered by fans; from not having anywhere to stay to having worldwide success.
Does he go from innocent to a bit of a bastard? Probably. But name me one star who is still unspoilt and I’ll show you a hundred who became tossers. Unfortunately, it’s a flaw of human nature for many in any walk of life.
This is a superb film.
4.5
I WRIGHT 