It is not the story of a hurricane or a rolling stone. Nor that of a man who saw the times change, but rather that of the man who changed them. The wind that blew. The harmonica that sounded. The Toc Toc on the doors … From heaven … is Bob Dylan and his story is that of a little man, played in ‘A Complete Unknown’ by Timothée Chalamet, who was tiny the labels of his time. Song protest, yes, but just because marginal causes rhyme well; counterculture, to one point … from minorities, yes, yours and unique. On the way they called him a traitor and pesetero, but he simply played in another league.
The film, which opens this Friday and is nominated for eight Oscar, farm in the beginning of one of the greatest music geniuses, in the first steps in New York of a singer who would end up winning the Nobel Prize, in the macuto of an author who changed his name and moved to the great apple with a guitar, a few dollars and many dreams. «It is a kind of fable about a 19 -year -old who arrives in the city, leaves behind his past and, with only his instrument and a notebook, locates his hero, Woody Guthrie (Scott McNairy), to face him. It is the way in which many great stories begin and It is the real beginning of Bob Dylan. Until that day was Robert Zimmerman and arrives in New York and becomes this type of man with a new name instead of someone without a name, ”he says in an interview with ABC James Mangold, director of ‘A Complete Unknown’.
To deconstruct the origins of the myth, Chalamet Anchea his nose and uproar, even more, his hair; Sing and even speak like Dylan. The heartbreaking was already brought from home. The actor, candidate for the statuette, dedicated five years of his life to preparing the role of the composer, “an American hero”, with an enthusiasm he had never put in another character. Because it was, for the moment he is of his career and his projection, who could better understand and interpret those beginnings of the singer. “The idea of merging one’s life and personality with the character to which you give life is very important for me and I think that Timothée’s own stardom helped him understand many of Dylan’s feelings,” Mangold praised about an interpreter who confessed, after receiving the SAG award, aspire to greatness and want to become “one of the greats.”
Mangold is not small either. Able to give the Oscar to Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon, to reimagine the twilight of a mutant like a western and act in the cult comedy ‘The sweetest thing’, rejoins her passion for music and cinema twenty years after walking through the Johnny Cash line of Joaquin Phoenix. «I have made films of the western, horror, superheroes, Indiana Jones, racing cars. Why not return to a known land with a new character and a new strategy? The opportunity arose to tell this part of the history of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. I do not think there has been a movie really about the time and the theme and the world of Folk and Bob Dylan music like the one we have done. The Coen brothers made a movie [‘Inside Llewyn Davis’] that treated tangentially about Bob Dylan in a small role, or almost, a symbol, and that took place in the world of folk. And Todd Haynes’s movie [‘I’m not there’] It’s wonderful, But it is rather an intellectual meditation about Bob Dylan», Justifies the director.
The dream of a genius
This, he insists, is “just a story about people, their dreams, music and a genius.” «The film is about something bigger than Bob Dylan, is about the idea of talent and how it affects us, how Dylan himself affects that capacity that gives him success and renown but also makes him feel alone. It is such a prodigy of music that others see it as a source from which songs sprout. They worship it, envy it, want to possess and control it; Turn it into a merchandise, use it according to your own interests. It is a unique and extraordinary talent, but all its relationships become transactional. And that led him to have a band, to find friends again, to have camaraderie with people who wanted nothing more to know the chords and touch the rhythm, ”says the director about one of the most criticized moments of his career, turning point in turn of what would end up being.
Cash, by the way, also makes a ‘cameo’ in this movie on the skin of Boyd Holbrook. It is not the only one. Through the screen are large names of the song such as Guthrie himself, in the rales of his Huntington disease, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), emblem of the American folk that became persecuted by the Committee of Anti -American Affairs or Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), an activist who sang, fought … and more things with Bob Dylan. Special importance charges the scenario of the Newport Festival, where Dylan went from great promise of American music to being accused of traitoring for flirting with electrical instruments. «Bob Dylan always liked all kinds of music. He started playing the electric guitar and dreaming of being Buddy Holly or Little Richard, so it is absurd to think that he had committed to folk music when he arrived in New York. He enjoyed writing songs and singing them. How can someone who, with 23 years old just want to grow? It is difficult to conceive because we now know the great figure of Bob Dylan, but my film follows it mainly from the age of 19 to 23, when that young man is beginning to discover his talent, ”says James Mangold.
His first great love
‘A Complete Unknown’, pure biopic of origins of a myth, does not remain alone in the historical exploits of the American bard. Urga in the intimacy of the study he shared with Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s first love and one of his great influences in the singer -songwriter’s first years. Disc cover ‘A Freewheelin’ Time ‘and played by Elle Fanning, is the only character in the film for which the real name is not used. Bob asked me. Joan was a star, Seger was a star, as was Bob himself, but she was not famous and he felt it was incorrect to call her by her real name because she was someone who never looked for that kind of attention, ”explains the filmmaker. Only perhaps, too, he still is part of that person who arrived in New York and ended up engulfed by his own legend.
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