I'm Not There
How do you make a film about the life of the enigmatic American singer Bob Dylan, who is prone to "reinvent" the facts about his life at every opportunity?
Martin Scorsese did it one way, in an acclaimed, two-DVD documentary, "No Direction Home," that covered Dylan's career between 1961-1966. And Todd Haynes did it completely differently and just as well in the new film, "I'm Not There," using six actors, including Cate Blanchett, to portray Dylan during the key periods of his amazing and brilliant career.
I saw "I'm Not There" at the Midtown Theatre in Harrisburg, Pa., on Friday night and liked it a lot. It is almost an anti-documentary. If you don't come to the film with a lot of knowledge about Dylan's life and music, it's not going to make a whole lot of sense. But if you do, just sit back and let the film roll over you. I have every non-bootleg Dylan album up through "Slow Train Coming," and have read both Anthony Scaduto's 1973 "Dylan: An Intimate Biography," and Dylan's own autobiography, "Chronicles, Vol. 1." But even I didn't get every reference; you'd need the Dylan equivalent of the Rosetta Stone for that.
Complicating things is that different names are used for just about every person in Dylan's real life except for the poet Allen Ginsberg. Some of the portrayals were obvious, such as Julianne Moore playing a woman who was Joan Baez. French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg portrays Dylan's first wife and major muse, Sara Lownds. But I have no clue, for example, who Michelle Williams is supposed to represent.
I can tell you that the scenes with Richard Gere as Billy the Kid were inspired by the 1973 Sam Peckinpah movie, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," in which Dylan played a small role and wrote the soundtrack (including, 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'). The spider crawing across the screen and the poetry represent Dylan's 1971 book of stream-of-consciousness poetry, "Tarantula." (It is a difficult read at best.) The exchange between Dylan and British fans, one of whom calls him "Judas," can be heard on "Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert."
Of the six portrayals of Dylan, Cate Blanchett's was far and away the best. The others were good, but she is the one who could get an Academy Award nomination. Best Supporting Actress or Best Supporting Actor? There's a topic for discussion. She looks the most like Dylan.
Haynes got the rights to use actual Dylan songs sung by Dylan in the film, although the official soundtrack, with one exception, is Dylan songs sung by others. That exception is "I'm Not There," a song from the Bootleg Tapes that has never been released by Dylan until now.