“A Complete Unknown” is arguably the best feature ever made about a ’60s’ music icon. Earning Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, plus for an unrecognizable Timothée Chalamet’s compelling portrait of Bob Dylan and Ed Norton’s depiction of Pete Seeger, with a cast singing their own songs, two-time Oscar nominee James Mangold’s Unknown is in the same artistic league as Arthur Penn’s 1969 Arlo Guthrie biopic “Alice’s Restaurant” and Hal Ashby’s 1976 “Bound for Glory,” about Depression era Dustbowl ballad composer Woody Guthrie. “Unknown” opens in 1961 with 19-year-old Dylan hitchhiking to Manhattan to discover Greenwich Village’s folk music scene – and meet his “Okie” folksinger idol.
“Unknown” cuts to a court where Seeger – who refused to be an informer when testifying before HUAC in 1955 – is tried for contempt of Congress. In his defense, the amiable folksinger whips out his banjo to play the song he calls “patriotic,” not “subversive,” but the judge stops him, finding Seeger guilty. Undeterred, outside on the courthouse steps Pete plays that song for reporters: Woody’s “This Land is Your Land.” Bystanders applaud, but a man holds a “Better Dead Then Red” sign.
Dylan learns Woody’s (Scott McNairy) hospitalized and goes to New Jersey where he finds not only Guthrie, but Seeger. The veteran folkies ask guitar-slinging “Bobby” to play, impressing both with Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty.” Incapacitated by Huntington’s chorea, Woody bangs on a bedside chest.
Seeger takes Bob under his wing, driving him to his home; en route, the two disagree over Little Richard’s hit heard on the car radio, cleverly foreshadowing the generational clash to come. But at Pete’s cabin in the woods, where he lives with his wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune) and their children, the co-writer of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” grooms Dylan to become heir apparent of the “throne” of folk music, with its tradition as the people’s authentic voice.
Thus “anointed,” Dylan makes the rounds wherever folk music is played. At Riverside Church, Bob meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning portrays a fictionalized version of Suze Rotolo, pictured beside Dylan on 1963’s “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”’s cover – Mangold incorporates famed Dylan album covers into Unknown’s cinematography). The aspiring artist and student activist introduces Dylan to Greenwich Village’s countercultural scene and lefty politics. A member of the Congress of Racial Equality, which Sylvie informs Bob led the Freedom Rides to desegregate the South, she takes him to a Civil Rights demo.
Although Dylan may have already leaned Left, Sylvie/Suze was a major political influence. Onscreen, Dylan’s briefly glimpsed performing at 1963’s historic March on Washington. A month earlier Dylan played at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, although “Unknown” omits this, plus that real life Suze was a “Red Diaper Baby,” daughter of Communists.
While Bob’s still completely unknown, he moves into Sylvie’s Village apartment, and becomes a fixture performing at the bohemian quarter’s cafes, developing a following, landing a recording deal with Columbia. The New York Times dubs him “a cross between a choir boy and beatnik.” He also meets already-famous Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). While his girlfriend studies abroad, Dylan beds Baez at Sylvie’s pad. According to “Unknown,” Bob had an erratic erotic life, but the biopic’s most sensuous scene is when, after hearing Dylan sing at a café, where he and Joan rapturously kiss.
This may be because the real passion Dylan has is for music; he’s repeatedly shown pursuing his true love: Songwriting. There’s been conjecture for decades over Bob and Joan’s affair. In “Unknown” both seem to be more musically than physically attracted to one another, using each other to advance their careers. By the time the Minnesotan arrived in Manhattan, Baez was established in the folk world. He justifies collaborating with Joan, observing she’d appeared on Time’s cover. When Bob privately sings as-yet unrecorded “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the ambitious songstress asks Dylan to let her publicly perform and release what Baez realizes will become a classic first, rationalizing this as giving her lesser-known lover/competitor more exposure.
After the two break up, still contracted to perform together, they musically spar during live shows, including a droll scene where their “It Ain’t Me Babe” duet drips with sarcasm, singing/ slinging “I’m not the one you’re lookin’ for, babe.”
Meanwhile, Dylan’s star is on the rise; overseen by proud Pete, Bob’s the toast of the folk universe’s avatars, including ethnomusicologist/archivist Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz). In 1963 and 1964, Bob’s a hit at the Newport Folk Festival, but the film shows his loss of privacy takes its toll on Dylan, who confesses to Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) being “pulverized” by fame. (Mangold also helmed 2005’s Cash biopic “Walk the Line.”)
As the Beatles, etc., storm the music industry, enticing youth now beyond the older generation’s command, with the rollicking sound of July 1965’s single “Like a Rolling Stone,” enlivened by Al Kooper’s (Charlie Tahan) keyboards, it seemed Dylan was musically moving in that direction. Led by Lomax and Seeger, keeper of folk’s flame, the anxious Old Guard tries preventing Dylan’s backsliding towards rock, which they view as betrayal. This leads to the film’s final showdown, as Bob takes the stage at Newport July 25, 1965, wielding – gasp! – an electric guitar, triggering music’s biggest contretemps since, according to legend, Igor Stravinsky’s 1913 “The Rite of Spring” sparked a riot at Paris’s premiere.
What makes Dylan tick? Early in “Unknown” Sylvie accidentally learns Bob’s last name is really “Zimmerman,” indicating he’s hiding being Jewish. Sylvie reproaches him for not revealing truths about his Minnesota upbringing. Does Bob’s evolution from acoustic to amplified music symbolize America’s generation gap, New Left versus Old Left? Was it the quirks of genius, pursuing one’s personal artistic vision? Or was the Tambourine Man seduced by the blandishments of fame and fortune rock stardom promised? But celebrityhood is costly – when Bob attempts to woo back Sylvie, who loved him when he was completely unknown, it’s too late: “And it’s all over now, baby blue.”
Who can explain Dylan’s raison d’etre? The biopic’s end credits sum it up: As “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” plays, onscreen text states Dylan’s the only songwriter who ever win a Nobel Prize in Literature – but he didn’t attend the awards ceremony. Bob Dylan’s rhyme and reason may never be completely known…
“A Complete Unknown” opened nationwide in theaters Dec. 25.
Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. A version of this first appeared at Progressive.org.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2025
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