‘A Complete Unknown’: James Mangold’s Enigmatically Engrossing Portrait of a Young Bob Dylan

Alci Rengifo

Bob Dylan has always been a mystery. So much has been written about the American music giant whose songs are a catalog of classics and who made history as the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, an acknowledgment that went unacknowledged by Dylan for weeks after it was announced. Despite such accolades, the work has always overshadowed the details of his life. Maybe it is because Dylan has always preferred the songs to define him, as opposed to being known for any particular antics or even stances. James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” wisely focuses on a particular slice of Dylan’s early days, framing him as a figure that emerged out of a crossroads between folk and the counterculture of the late 1960s. It is also a lot of fun, told with the style of classic American rebellion. By the end of the movie, you almost want to copy Timothée Chalamet’s strut.

This being an origin story, the film really begins with Dylan’s musical forebears. Folk giant Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) sits in a New York hospital bed in 1961, having lost the ability to speak from a brain aneurysm. Next to him sits another folk hero, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), keeping his fellow legend company. Out of the cold and into Greenwich Village appears a young Bob Dylan (Chalamet) with nothing but his guitar. He sings a song he wrote for the ailing Guthrie, “Song to Woody,” and it instantly endears him to Seeger, who recognizes great talent. Dylan stays with Seeger and watches him defend himself in court when still facing remnants of the Red Scare. He begins performing as well with the folk legend, then meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a young activist and teacher who is taken in by his enigmatic demeanor. As Dylan clinches an early recording deal, he also crosses paths with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), who is already established as a folk artist to the point where she can reject offers from Columbia. All these personalities contribute to Dylan’s own formation as he gains prominence and threatens to alienate and inspire at the same time.

“A Complete Unknown” is Mangold’s first music biopic since 2005’s “Walk the Line,” the highly entertaining film about Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) spiraling into addiction while pining for eventual wife June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). That movie was really about the love story. This one is about everything that orbits around Bob Dylan, from love interests to the evolution of modern music. Mangold and writer Jay Cocks, inspired by the book “Dylan Goes Electric” by Elijah Wald, make a smart choice in not attempting to encompass all of Dylan’s life. Their focus is on the artist’s earliest years, right up to the point where he rattled the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 by performing for the first time with a band and electric instruments. It seems curious today, but there was a real split in fans and heated opinions. The Dylan of the albums “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” undisputed classics of the American folk canon, had been evolving with the albums “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited” towards the rock sounds changing the era. 

As the story progresses towards that fateful show, Mangold makes another engaging choice in focusing on Dylan as a rebel writer. He has an instant kinship with Seeger, but he is also a young man influenced by the Beats and the bohemian surroundings of Greenwich Village. The politics of the early 1960s are inescapable, yet one also senses Dylan is intoxicated by language and general nonconformity. Sylvie, who is a character inspired by the real Suze Rotolo, who you can see next to Dylan on the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” contributes to his consciousness by being the one tapped into U.S. foreign policy and the Civil Rights movement. Like many women who become momentary muses, she also has to play mom to the scattered genius. Dylan doesn’t even know how to make coffee. What he does know how to do is channel his experiences into sweeping songs as prose. When the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to engulf the world in nuclear war, Joan Baez walks down a windy, tense street and stops when she hears Dylan crooning “Masters of War,” one of the great antiwar songs, from the famous The Gaslight Cafe. Their subsequent affair isn’t really about passionate romance, but raw talent being drawn to each other. He can’t help but react sarcastically to Baez’s quite lavish home when he visits while on tour. She has very subtle envy one morning when she hears him sing “Blowin’ in the Wind,” before joining in.

By letting the music and situations paint an idea of Bob Dylan, Mangold does a better job with drama saying something about the artist than if he attempted some grand birth to the present biopic. Dylan has always been a tricky subject for film. Todd Haynes’ 2007 “I’m Not There” presented various imaginary scenarios with different actors playing Dylan (the best of which is Cate Blanchett). Martin Scorsese’s nearly five hour “No Direction Home” documentary is highly informative, though Dylan himself gives fantastic insights into his attitude and a bit of his past, but not all. Mangold explores little of his Minneapolis roots. Even Sylvie gets frustrated over knowing little about her boyfriend except that he once performed in carnivals before trekking to New York and that his real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman. Everything Dylan wants to convey is in the songs. When he records his first album it is all covers to get him known. When the world hears what he’s been writing, it brings instant stardom.

“A Complete Unknown” then turns into a story about creative independence. Chalamet’s Dylan by the mid-60s becomes the more sarcastic, enigmatic singer behind sunglasses from D. A. Pennebaker’s classic documentary “Don’t Look Back.” He flinches when people recognize him in public and has to be kindly coerced by Seeger to sing at a fundraiser. Decked in black attire and leather boots, he is turning into a lonely kind of “cool.” Sylvie feels heartbreak when she realizes he has something going on with Baez but really because she realizes she is not the center of his world. When it is time to go electric, Dylan has the backing of his manager, Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler), but threatens to alienate Seeger, played with warm wisdom by Edward Norton, who captures the cadence of the real man so well. Dylan doesn’t wish to be responsible for anyone’s cause, as if following the advice of Octavio Paz that poets should never become spokesmen for flags or parties. While on tour with Baez he angers a crowd by refusing to sing “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Only Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) seems to get the younger talent, encouraging him to play what he wants. 

The performances in this movie are all full of life. Timothée Chalamet fits the role well because he knows how to understate it. He and the other cast all sing their parts, including during live concert scenes. Imitating Dylan’s tone may not seem so difficult at first, but Chalamet sings with real personality. He also finds great poses and walks that evoke the real artist and an idea of cool rebellion similar to James Dean or Jack Kerouac. The way he poses with a cigarette while waiting to hit the stage or lounges in a bar to hear someone else sing defines a style of rebellion that impacted so much of a generation. If he receives an Academy Award nomination it would be well-deserved. Chalamet goes farther here than he ever has before, even in major blockbusters like “Dune.” Elle Fanning is a big heart with plenty of maturity, deeply caring for Dylan despite seeing all the warning signs that this can’t possibly last. Monica Barbaro has the immense task of channeling one of folk music’s great voices while finding a convincing angle for Joan Baez. We don’t get the famously sweet, earthy artist. Her Baez is a strong talent who recognizes Dylan’s brilliance and is capable of seeing through him as well.

Mangold brings down the curtain with great exhilaration when Dylan steps up to the mic in Newport and begins a rock-tinged “Maggie’s Farm” that causes cheers and boos from the crowd. Seeger gets tempted to grab an axe and aim for the power cables. Did that happen? The folk legend admitted later on that he did consider it. Such pop cultural moments define what will follow afterwards, like The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. “A Complete Unknown” does not attempt to explain Bob Dylan, because that’s probably impossible. Mangold has instead made an electric portrait of a moment in the artist’s career that encompasses much about him. He is a mass of contradictions and behaviors, powered by a unique talent that has produced songs that are forever part of the American musical landscape. This movie makes you want to relive Dylan’s albums while encouraging the very idea of finding your voice however possible.

“A Complete Unknown” releases Dec. 25 in theaters nationwide.