A Complete Unknown film: A story of Bob Dylan (The Grinch) for Christmas Day

Blonde on Blonde is food for speculation. As usual, Dylan’s explanation doesn’t get you any wiser: “I have no idea where that came from, but I’m sure it was with the best of intentions … No idea who came up with it. I certainly didn’t.” This was also the case with Brecht On Brecht, a play that Dylan attended in the autumn of 1961, on the advice of Suze Rotolo. The piece about Bertold Brecht made a great impression on him. Another possibility is a reference to Warhol's actress Edie Sedgwick – reportedly an inspiration for many of the songs on the record – who had her hair bleached. After her return from Italy, Dylan and Suze Rotolo did reunite, but Dylan seems to be stuck in the role of the abandoned, wounded lover. Moreover, Joan Baez was now in the picture. It could be argued that the song, at least in its original design, was written with his first great love Suze Rotolo in mind. The subtitle in that sketching stage is “Fourth Street Affair” and that is not very cryptic – it refers to the apartment in which he and Suze lived until August ’63, 161 West 4th Street. The reverie in the autobiography Chronicles, that Suze might have been his spiritual soul mate (“I still believe she was my twin”) and he records his memory of the end of the relationship with Rotolo: “Eventually fate flagged it down and it came to a full stop”. 

Many testimonies of intimates from the mid-sixties make a point of Dylan’s nasty side, his habit of verbally insulting less gifted guests to the bone, surrounded by a few loyal disciples such as Phil Ochs and especially Bob Neuwirth. Suze Rotolo: "When he was on his “telling it like it is” truth mission, he could be cruel. Though I was never on the receiving end of one of his tirades, I did witness a few. The power he was given and the changes it entailed made him lash out unreasonably, but I believe he was trying to find a balance within himself when everything was off-kilter." Although, according to Marianne Faithfull, Dylan's friend Bobby Neuwirth was the worst: “Dylan had a reputation for demolishing people, but when people told these stories it was really Neuwirth they meant. Neuwirth and Dylan did such a swift verbal pas de deux that people tended to confuse them. But the most biting commentary and crushing put-downs came from Neuwirth. I never saw Dylan’s malicious side, nor the lethal wit that has often been ascribed to him. I never thought of him as amusingly cruel the way I thought of John Lennon. Dylan was simply the mercurial, bemused center of the storm, vulnerable and almost waiflike.”

“Visions Of Johanna”: The discussion focuses on the questions about who Louise is, and who Johanna could be. Joan Baez and Sara Lownds? Suze Rotolo and Edie Sedgwick? In any case, Dylan sketches a contrast between a sensuous, present Louise and an unattainable, idealized Johanna, and lards the sketch with dream images, beautiful rhyme play and impressionistic atmospheres. Who are these ladies? Louise: Joan Baez, friend and former lover, a great folk singer. Suze Rotolo, an idealistic fighter for human rights and women liberation. The electricity howls in her face. Mona Lisa: Maybe Edie Sedgwick. She was the muse of the famous artist and painter Andy Warhol. Her lifestyle was shocking. Maybe she is smiling because she has got a fix of heroin. Sedgwick was subject of speculation as having caused the motorcyle accident and Dylan hiding her temporarily at his house while he recovered to avoid further gossip. Dylan and Sedgwick had a strong argument and she left him for Bob Neuwirth, whom she left later to be admitted to a physchiatric hospital in Santa Barbara.

In A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, Suze Rotolo talks about her grandparents who had immigrated from Sicily. Her parents were blue collar but also imbued with culture, affiliated to the American Communist Party. Rotolo recalls with affection his romance with Bob Dylan, then a young up and coming artist recently arrived to New York and she introduces to the bohemian Greenwich Village. He proposes marriage to her, but Rotolo's family didn't like his cynical persona and she leaves him after aborting a child of his. Rotolo thinks she contributed to the awakening of Dylan about the civil social causes in the Kennedy era but she doesn't want to exaggerate her role in the inspiration he took for his songs. Rotolo surmises that Dylan juggled three romantic relationships at once with her, Sara Lownds and Edie Sedgwick, and that Sedgwick rebutting Dylan inspired the folk-rock milestone Like a Rolling Stone.

This idea of self-mythologizing, but as the theme is underexplored, it can’t help but come across as indicative of A Complete Unknown’s unwillingness to fully realize Dylan, or make him enough of a rounded character is his own biography. This is further apparent in Chalamet’s performance, which isn’t “bad” only to say that eventually it goes from being distracting and strange to just something that you’re suddenly used to. Chalamet sounds a bit like Dylan if Dylan spoke mostly through clenched teeth, keeping his lips very close together, recreating Dylan’s distinct, nasally cadence. But his interpretation manages to draw out the adenoidal qualities of Dylan’s voice beyond reality, and the effort to match Chalamet’s vocal recreation to the original owner wades into caricature. At the end of the day, Chalamet is a competent actor. But he isn’t Dylan. He never once truly feels like him, no matter how well his hair is coiffed or the cigarette hangs off his lips. 

This isn’t realloy a chameleonic triumph where the actor disappears into their subject. Mangold’s characterization is admirably non-obsequious, portraying Bob Dylan as an aloof genius prone to selfishness and bitterness, navigating tumultuous relationships with his mentor Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and his romantic partners: artist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) and folk contemporary Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Strangely, Edie Sedgwick and maligned Phil Ochs are conspicuously absent from his story. In the end, A Complete Unknown neither meaningfully conveys Dylan’s mythology nor exposes him as a complete human being. Source: https://awardswatch.com

Like A Rolling Stone - Edie Sedgwick

Jeff Tweedy: I had a girlfriend in high school who dragged me to big arena rock shows. I went to see Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar, and the Who’s first “farewell” tour at the Ralston Purina Checkerdome in St. Louis. It all sounded so bad to me. I wasn’t just bored, I hated those shows. Nothing about the experience was exciting to me. Something always seemed overly macho about how bands postured themselves on those enormous stages. I’m not sure why the macho-ness bothered me. I loved Black Flag, and there was nothing more macho than Henry Rollins at that time. Actually, that was my least favorite part of Black Flag, but it was a different type of macho. For some reason I’ve always been stupid or arrogant enough to walk away from negotiations when they start to feel gross or insulting. It looks like it’d take a lot of confidence, but I don’t feel like an exceedingly confident person. I think I’m just stubborn. And I hate feeling greedy. “No record deal? Okay, it’s back to small budget for me.” And I’m stubborn because there’s only so much I’m willing to compromise artistically. I met Bob Dylan when Wilco played a College Media Journal showcase in New York City in 2006. “Hey, Jeff, how’s it going, man? Good to see you!” Bob had spoken to me! And I was left in his wake trying to play it cool, but I could feel all of the other folks around us looking at me. It was impossible to play it cool. “Dylan talked to me. Did you guys see that?!”

The alternative rock scene has been in a constant loop of stagnancy. Nothing explosively innovative or inventive has really burst onto the scene in years, in my opinion. I may just be too harsh a critic, but even the bands I admire like the National Post, Beach House, Animal Collective, Paramore, Tame Impala, or the '90s acts still going like Mercury Rev, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Kim Deal and such seem a bit pessimistic about the future. Rock isn't where it's at in terms of mainstream appeal any longer – I think Arcade Fire's The Suburbs was the last time a rock-oriented record did massive success. I do not count ear bleeder monotony like Imagine Dragons. The 2020s is the decade of the singer-songwriter pop star (usually with half a dozen or more co-writers), Reggaeton beats, EDM, and generic hip hop. Underground rock artists are the ones with substance, but they haven't a prayer of a chance of hitting it big. Even quality groups like the Last Dinner Party or the Warning just don't have the appeal of, say, nepo babies who have become pop stars. One thing I appreciate about Rick Beato's chart review videos is how he demonstrates many things are regurgitated endlessly by producers and force-fed to the public. Most of mainstream acts play it safe on new records with little divergence or variety – they stay within a comfort zone. Whatever has certain substance or innovation is more or less pushed to the fringes on the outskirts of the Internet, booked in some clubs or as opening acts, and you just have to become familiar with them via name recognition. It's lamentable but I don't anticipate another big indie era or alternative rock era. That ship has sadly sailed. Source: pitchfork.com

Was Bob Dylan The Mystery Man in Like a Rolling Stone? Edie Sedgwick, Joan Baez, Marianne Faithfull and Bob Neuwirth have been suggested as possible targets of Dylan's famous song. Dylan's biographer Howard Sounes warned against reducing the song to the biography of one person, and suggested "it is more likely that the song was aimed generally at those Dylan perceived as being clueless". Sounes adds, "There is some irony in the fact that one of the most famous songs of the folk-rock era—an era associated primarily with ideals of peace and harmony—is one of scorn." Mike Marqusee has also written at length on the conflicts in Dylan's life during this time, with its deepening alienation from his old folk-revival audience and clear-cut leftist causes. He suggests that Like A Rolling Stone is probably self-referential: "The song only attains full poignancy when one realises it is sung, at least in part, to the singer himself: he's the one 'with no direction home.'" Dylan himself has noted that, after his motorcycle accident in 1966, he realized that "when I used words like 'he' and 'it' and 'they,' and talking about other people, I was really talking about nobody but me." Edie Sedgwick inspired Bob Dylan ​​to produce Blonde on Blonde, one of the best records he ever produced. “Just Like a Woman” — “with your fog, your amphetamines and your pearls” — was clearly written directly to her; “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” — “You know it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine” ​— ​was written directly about her too. Source: popmatters.com

Edie Sedgwick was the “heroine of Blonde on Blonde,” as Patti Smith stated. From my memory, I thought that we learned that they did have a love affair and that’s why she was the “heroine” of that album, and also indirectly referenced in Like a Rolling Stone. However, in 1985 Dylan pretty much affirmed he never had a relationship with her but knew Bob Neuwirth did. Andy Warhol commented: “I liked Dylan, the way he created a new style… I even gave him one of my silver Elvis paintings in the days when he was first around. Later on, though, I got paranoid when I heard rumors that he had used the Elvis as a dart board up in the country. When I’d ask, ‘Why did he do that?’ I’d invariably get hearsay answers like ‘I hear he feels you destroyed Edie [Sedgwick],’ or ‘Listen to Like a Rolling Stone — I think you’re the ‘diplomat on the chrome horse, man.’ I didn’t know exactly what they meant by that, but I got the tenor of what people were saying — that Dylan didn’t like me, that he blamed me for Edie’s drugs.” Warhol took to satirizing Dylan in films like “More Milk Yvette” (which included a harmonica-playing Dylan lookalike); a spoof called the “Bob Dylan Story”; and the repeated playing of a Dylan song at the wrong speed in “Imitation of Christ”. In reality, Dylan hadn’t damaged the Elvis painting, but he had gotten rid of it. All accounts — including from Dylan himself — have him trading the Elvis to his manager Albert Grossman for a sofa, a decision he’d come to regret. Grossman’s widow, Sally, later sold the painting at auction for a reported $750,000.

There are those who maintain (notably Michael Gray) that Edie Sedgwick probably had no relationship with Dylan at all. She had an affair with Dylan's sideman Bob Neuwirth, however. One theory is that "She's Your Lover Now" is directed to Neuwirth and that Sedgwick is the "she," with Jack Elliot as "your friend in the cowboy hat." Sedgwick was quite a significant part of Dylan's life in the mid-60s so it wouldn’t make sense to not include her in A Complete Unknown but I don’t imagine Dylan gave his approval. I can imagine Like A Rolling Stone being shown in the movie as being his hit song rather than what the song is actually about. In Like A Rolling Stone, besides the Edie Sedgwick subtext, I've always felt like he's singing to himself. As if to say, "now that you got everything you ever wanted, how does it feel?" I think this song illustrates what Dylan mentions in Blood on the Tracks, that "you find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottom." 

Dylan may have barely known her but multiple sources from the Warhol/Factory camp thought they were dating. As far as Nico she was gifted I’ll keep it with mine and she had an intimate relationship with Dylan, so if they weren't not intimate, that would explain why Dylan ended up so burned out by Edie's volatility. “You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns. When they all come down and did tricks for you.” This could refer to the many suitors that Sedgwick had. Dylan refers to them as “jugglers and clowns”, as in, men trying to entertain her, trying to catch her attention. Dylan thought of them quite literally as desperate clowns. He comments that she had little care for their feelings, and probably refers to himself as one of these “clowns”, as he was well known to have pursued her vigorously. Dylan's first wife Sara Lownds accused him of 'accidental' violence domestic and received near 40 million dollars. Since 2000 Dylan is rumored to have a common law marriage with Susan Pullen. —The Double Life of Bob Dylan (2024) by Clinton Heylin