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