Bob Dylan – never a man to dish out praise with much abandon – has officially given his endorsement to actor Timothée Chalamet, the man tasked with bringing him to life in an upcoming biopic.
“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,” Dylan wrote on X (formerly Twitter) before explaining the movie’s origins.
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…December 4, 2024
“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.”
The movie is being directed by The Wolverine, Ford v Ferrari and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold. In it we’ll see Dylan arriving as a young folk guitarist arriving in New York in 1961 and his subsequent rise to fame.
It’s worth noting that Mangold directed 2005’s well-received Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, and his recreation of period New York in his (disappointing) Indiana Jones movie was jaw-dropping, so he’s got form in both fields.
Electric dreams
Wald’s book focuses on Dylan’s surprising and radical (at the time) decision to play an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965, the first time he publicly did so.
At the time the electric guitar was a divisive instrument with credible folk artists using it to denote a clear line in the sand as to what was and could be ‘folk’. Acoustic… Folk… Electric… Rock. Easy.
But, as we all know, music is never as simple as that and genre-mashing and the adoption of new technology are key to what keeps music so vibrant, entertaining and challenging while keeping us all coming back for more.
At the time, however, the very notion of ‘going electric’ was off-limits and a potentially career-ending faux pas. Bob Dylan had to power on through the brickbats for his use of the electric guitar on his subsequent Bringing It All Back Home album upset and confounded his stick-in-the-mud fans.
Or course, the 1965 album has since become an all time classic, with countless other artists soon taking his lead (literally), following suit and embracing the new sonic landscapes made possible by emerging studio tech and – gasp – solid body guitars requiring pick ups and amplification.
The movie therefore has plenty of musical meat upon which to feast.
The only question thus far has been the credibility of a Dylan portrayed by Chalamet but judging by the trailer Chalamet looks like he’s nailed it.
There’s the hair… And the posture… But at 5’10” Chalamet is – frankly – taller… Though – despite being 5’6”-and-a-half – Dylan has claimed 5'10” in interviews while his passport has him at 5'11”.
So he’s not complaining.
And Chalamet is similarly enthusiastic about the role. Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 he described how all the playing and singing as the young Dylan is entirely his own performance.
“My first was Song to Woody, which is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs ever,” said Chalamet. “It was the first one we shot in the movie. You couldn’t do it to a playback because it’s such an intimate scene. It’s in a hospital room with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. And I did it live.”
“I’m making mistakes in the guitar a little bit here and there, but you can kind of fill those in after. But I went home and I wept that night, not to be dramatic, but it’s a song I’d been living with for years and something I could relate to deeply. And I also felt, I come back to this word a lot, I felt like it was the most dignified work I’d ever done.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how Chalamet’s impersonation works out. The ever distinctive Dylan famously being a character that’s impossible to copy without playing for laughs.
