A Complete Unknown’

Everyman Cinema, Edinburgh, 27/1/25  - widely available

 A Complete Unknown’ (2024, UK release 17/1/2025) – director, James Mangold, with Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez.

I first saw Bob Dylan at Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger’s folk club in London in 1962. To be truthful we weren’t too impressed and didn’t think he was a very good singer. Now more than 60 years later, I have just seen the biopic about the early years of Dylan, ‘A Complete Unknown’, and I have to say it’s very good at capturing those times, including eventually Dylan’s move from traditional acoustic folk music into the electric folk rock music of his later period. Of course it does take the occasional liberty with history, for example the shout of “Judas” made against Dylan for going electric didn’t happen at the Newport Folk Festival as the film has it but in the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966. Dylan’s response, “I don’t believe you,“ was authentic. 

 However the film is largely faithful in telling the story of Dylan from 1961, when he first came to New York from Minnesota to make his name in the folk music scene in Greenwich village, and of how he was picked up by the record labels.

Timothée Chalamet does a first-rate job of portraying both Dylan as a performer and his character. As Joan Baez (well played by Monica Barbaro) says to him, “Bob you are a bit of an arsehole, aren’t you?” Edward Norton is excellent as Pete Seeger, showing how he nurtured and supported the early Dylan. Again there is another historical inaccuracy in the film, as it suggests that Seeger tried to stop Dylan’s electric debut at the Newport Folk Festival by cutting the cable. As Pete himself said he was only trying to improve the sound as it was very distorted.

The film succeeds not least because it lets the music speak, giving us a number of Dylan’s greatest early songs and letting us hear them as a whole, not just as clips. The truth is that Dylan was never a great singer, but he was a great poet and songwriter and of course he got the Nobel Prize for Literature for his songs. His latest album ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ (2020) is one of my favourite Dylan recordings. By now he growls his way through the songs, but again it’s the poetry and the imagery that stand out for me. The film is a great success. It’s widely available now and has been well reviewed. Go and enjoy!