Biographer says ‘A Complete Unknown’ is fiction but pure Bob Dylan
Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Timothèe Chalamet as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” - Photo Searchlight Pictures
The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” following a flood of social media and press, opened Christmas Day to favorable reviews. Timothèe Chalamet (Dylan), Edward Norton (Pete Seeger) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) have already been nominated for awards.
Chalamet, because of Covid and the writer’s strike, has had five and a half years to prepare. That pays off. He is being heralded as not so much as imitating Dylan, but by embodying his persona, mannerisms and speech. And in particular his singing voice, performing 40 of the songs live. The music is pure Dylan.
In early December, I had the good fortune to interview Elijah Wald, author of “Dylan Goes Electric!” (2015) upon which “A Complete Unknown” is based. It’s one of my favorite Dylan books. This is an edited glimpse of the response of the writer who knows this story, these events, and its music intimately. And my reflections regarding the book, the film, and a lifetime of having been inspired by Dylan since 1963.
THE WRITER:
For 30 years, the Grammy Award winning writer Wald has been recognized as one of our preeminent critics, writers and historians of music, with 15 books and over a thousand articles. He is also the coauthor with Dave Van Ronk of his memoir “The Mayor of MacDougal Street” (2005), the Greenwich Village legend, on which the Coen Brothers film “Inside Llewelyn Davis” is based.
THE BOOK:
The book “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split The Sixties” and the movie “A Complete Unknown” cover the period from 1961, when Dylan first arrived in New York, to when Bob Dylan shocked the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, breaking with folk music traditions by going electric.
Having recruited members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band as a backup band, Dylan blasted out “Maggie’s Farm,” “Like A Rolling Stone” and an early version of “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.”
Dylan, who most of the audience had come to see, played only these three electric songs and shouted “Let’s split” to the band, and was gone. It turns out the sound system was awful and most of the audience couldn’t hear. And the audience wanted to hear their Dylan. Peter Yarrow tried to calm down the audience and begged Dylan to return to the stage with an acoustic guitar. Dylan then performed two songs on acoustic guitar for the audience: "Mr. Tambourine Man" followed by "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The audience exploded with applause, calling for more.
He did not return to the Newport festival for 37 years. It is one of the iconic moments in popular music history. Like Dylan himself, “Newport ‘65” is shrouded in myth and legend.
This includes the story of Pete Seeger attempting to cut the electric cable with an axe (he didn’t). The reactions of the audience. The shock, the boos, and the cheers. It reshaped popular music. It is a complex story of a complex man, and his relationship with folk music and one of his early mentors, Pete Seeger.
THE BOMBSHELL:
Wald reveals a bombshell, telling us that Jeff Rosen of the Dylan office called him and then his agent personally, acting on Dylan’s behalf, optioning the film rights to “Dylan Goes Electric!” in 2016. Dylan’s office then gave the filmmakers the rights to develop a movie based on his story, essentially giving their approval to the project.
THE INTERVIEW AND MY REFLECTIONS:
What were your thoughts on the Dylan office optioning the film rights, and shopping it around?
“I was surprised. I mean, why do Dylan’s people need my book to tell Dylan’s story? But I am pleased. And now that I have seen the film, there is some logic to it. What I did in the book was new. Rather than have it be Dylan against the world, I did it as a story of the evolving relationship between Dylan and Pete Seeger. And that’s what they made into a movie. What they did in the movie was take the basic idea and write a whole bunch of scenes in which the relationship was much more personal than in real life. But I think they authentically conveyed who those people were and how they related to each other and the scene. They first brought Timothèe Chalamet on board, and later James Mangold, the director.”
When I asked if Dylan had approved Chalamet, Wald tells us, “I presume so.”
Jeff Rosen is Dylan’s general manager and is credited as a producer on the film. Although he didn’t have final cut on the film, Dylan met with the director, James Marigold, multiple times. They even read the entire script out loud, with Mangold reading every part and stage direction, and Dylan only reading lines of dialogue of himself.
As if there wasn’t enough fiction in the script, the ever mysterious Dylan requested that a “secret” purely fictitious scene be added. Marigold will not disclose what that scene is. Then Dylan annotated, approved the script, and signed it for him.
Dylan requested that Johnny Cash be included in the film. Cash championed him early on, and they had a special bond. Cash gave Dylan his guitar at Newport 1964 as a sign of respect and admiration. Boyd Holbrook is striking as Cash in the film.
Dylan also requested that the name of his Greenwich Village girlfriend and muse, the late Sue Rotolo, be changed. That character becomes Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), an artist and political activist, who helps bring Dylan’s story to life. Russo watching Dylan and Baez singing together from the stage wings is one of the film’s most emotional moments. In the film, Fanning’s character appears on the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, the same cover that Suze Rotolo appeared on back in 1963.
Rotolo’s own book, “A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties” is very good. She passed away in 2011. She was a very private person. Do you think he was trying to protect her?
“That’s the way everyone is framing it. And it wouldn’t surprise me. They remained close until the end of her life. I never heard her say a bad word about him.”
DYLAN’S RESPONSE:
On Dec. 4, 2024, Bob Dylan posted the following:
“There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”
Wald said he was surprised and welcomed Dylan’s recommendation to read the book. Dylan’s people had told him, “Bob doesn’t read Dylan books.”
THE FILM:
Adapting a book to film is a challenge. They are different artistic mediums. Film needs action and dialogue.
“The film is a dramatization. It makes no attempt to be a documentary. It is a dramatic narrative about the people and the incidents. You have to approach it as not a documentary. I did not find it difficult. The very first important scene is where Dylan shows up to visit Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) at Graystone Hospital and meets Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). Everything about that is an invention, but not a crazy invention. Dylan did not meet Guthrie at the hospital. Pete Seeger was not there. Dylan had not yet written “A Song To Woody”. But all those things could have happened. And everyone in the film acts the way they would have acted as far as I know in that situation. It’s an accurate novelization you could say. Based on the actual facts. It is not supposed to be a historical document.”
“Let’s keep in mind that Dylan was 20 years old, 21 years old. I don’t know how any of us would react if the world turned us into a star, and a voice of a generation when we were 20 years old. It’s a situation that would drive anyone… just how the hell do you act in that situation? The whole experience. It’s a bizarre situation to put a 20 year old in, and I, and all the people who were close to him that I know, understood it in those terms. They understood him as a complicated person in an impossible situation.”
“There was so much going on around Dylan. He was intersecting with so many different scenes. My book tries to convey all of that complexity. Marigold has made a film two hours and twenty minutes long and it feels like an hour and a half. It’s a very compelling and fast moving film. I want it to be a film that people will enjoy. And it does right by the music. The thing that drives me crazy about people that are critical of this and that in any number of other films is that this film puts Dylan’s music first. Absolutely front and center. Played very expertly in a setting that will engage a lot of people who are not familiar with Dylan’s music.”
HOW I DISCOVERED DYLAN:
In 1963, I was a teenager listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary’s album “In The Wind”. Especially this song “Blowin’ In The Wind.” In a lifelong habit, I looked to see who had written it. I discovered it was a guy named Bob Dylan and he had written three songs on the album. I flipped it over to discover Dylan had written the liner notes in Beat poetry. I went right out and got the “Freewheelin’” album and all those great songs. It was a gateway for me on an ongoing musical journey with Dylan over the decades. “A Complete Unknown” appears destined to be a gateway for new generations to Dylan.
“Exactly. Peter, Paul and Mary basically don’t exist in this story. As in your story, Peter, Paul and Mary are how the world discovered Bob Dylan. In the movie, it’s Joan Baez who does “Blowin’ In The Wind.”
Baez was a civil rights activist, and the Queen of Folk Music. She was also instrumental in introducing Dylan’s songs, and Dylan himself to massive audiences. Together they became the King and Queen of Folk Music.
THE MUSIC IS PURE DYLAN:
“The part that I am qualified to judge is his musical performance. His guitar playing and harmonica playing. He really has mastered the subtleties of Dylan’s playing, which I had not expected him to do. I didn’t expect anyone to that much attention because people tend to underrate Dylan’s instrumental skills. The fact that he took so much time and trouble to really master that. I was really impressed. He conveys the lyrics very, very well. He also, I think, does an excellent job of acting the evolution of the singer. I mean, the first couple of songs you’re hearing this kid who’s singing in this halting voice and hasn’t got it all down. And by the end you’ve got this guy who can do “Like A Rolling Stone”.
I was impressed that he’s singing all through the movie. The singer he is at the beginning is not someone who could have written “Like A Rolling Stone.” But by the end we see that he can. I’m interested in Dylan for the music and the movie conveys that very well.”
I’ve heard that Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, didn’t sing before the film.
“No she didn’t. In musical terms, what Monica Barbaro does with her voice is the most impressive accomplishment in the film. Everybody’s talking about Chalamet. But acting Joan Baez’s voice? That’s not an acting job. With Baez it’s the instrument itself that was extraordinary. The fact that Barbaro can get as close as she does to that sound is astonishing. She does a great job as Joan Baez.”
And Edward Norton is very impressive as Pete Seeger.
“I’ve sat in rooms with Pete Seeger. Ed Norton does a really, really good job.”
I have the impression that Dylan could have been very cruel with many people, for example, Joan Baez.
“The breakup between Dylan and Baez as a romantic figure is not as prominent as the Suze Rotolo character. But you know, the film is really about Dylan. The women are strong characters. I was pleased that Hollywood made them as strong. As far as the romantic relationships go, I would say he’s always putting his music and career ahead of romantic relationships. I don’t think anyone would disagree that that is real. The film shows him as someone you would not want to be involved with because he is completely engaged in his own thing. As I said, the film is not historically accurate like a documentary. But it captures the reality of the situation very well. I enjoyed it. I like movies.”
I’ll join Bob Dylan and Elijah Wald and recommend you see the movie. It’s a compelling story with powerful performances. And the music is pure Bob Dylan. See the movie. Read the book.