-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email James Mangold ’s excellent biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” chronicles Bob Dylan’ s (Timothée Chalamet) arrival in New York in 1961 and his burgeoning success to his electrifying performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 . The film, adapted by from Elijah Wald’s book, “Dylan Goes Electric!” by Mangold and Jay Cocks, is full of musicians and musical performances. “A Complete Unknown” captures the heady days of the folk scene with affection but also a clear-eyed look at how the times, they are a-changin’.
"He is not trying to meet fashion in the moment, he is trying to chase a feather out in front of him somewhere." Dylan first meets Pete Seeger ( Edward Norton ) when he visits an ailing Woody Guthrie ( Scoot McNairy ) in the hospital. Seeing Dylan’s promise, Seeger takes the 20-year-old singer-songwriter in and helps him with his career, getting him gigs at open mic nights and introducing him to Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and producer Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz).
Dylan also gets romantically involved with Sylvie Russo ( Elle Fanning ), before his career starts to take off. When fame hits, Dylan retreats. How he navigates commerce and art as well as doing what is expected versus what he wants creates the film’s dramatic tension.
Dylan, the film suggests, is a contrarian and a disrupter; it is not just that he boosted the appeal of folk music as its heyday was ending, but that he took the music, with its roo.
