When the wild, rambling movie of Rolling Thunder Revue was launched again in 2019, it got here with the subtitle “a Bob Dylan story by Martin Scorsese”, in what felt like a nod to the infinite stream of franchise extensions that come tagged as “a Star Wars story” or “a Mad Max saga”. It cutely prompt that, with the MCU floundering, the 2020s may see a full flowering of the Bob Dylan Prolonged Universe, with films, miniseries and, finally, collectable collectible figurines devoted to the misplaced highways, aspect quests and minor characters of “My Again Pages“.
If that’s the case, then A Full Unknown is the A New Hope of the Bobiverse, telling our hero’s journey in time honoured style. A younger farmboy, raised within the wastelands of the midwest, heeds the decision of a shambling, airtight mentor (Woody Guthrie), and travels to the distant planet of Greenwich Village, 1961, the place he absorbs the pressure of the folks revival. He falls in with an eccentric band of rogues (Dave Van Ronk, Albert Grossman, Johnny Money), meets what appears to be his real love (“Sylvie Russo”, a model of Suze Rotolo), and begins his journey to the darkish coronary heart of the Sixties. He survives setbacks and romantic ordeals, takes up his mystical weapon (a 1964 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster) and travels to the stomach of the beast (Newport Folks Pageant 1965) the place he vanquishes the darkish father (Pete Seeger) earlier than heading out on his Triumph Tiger bike for the open highway as soon as extra.
5 years within the making, James Mangold’s movie is a wealthy, good-looking and largely devoted retelling of this beloved outdated normal. Much more than Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, it conjures the thrill, hum, slush and drone of a Greenwich Village stuffed with cranks, seers and, sure, tambourine males. It assembles a sterling supporting forged together with Scoot McNairy (Enterprise Bob from As soon as Upon A Time In Hollywood) because the ailing Woody, hospitalised with Huntington’s however nonetheless raging towards the dying of the sunshine, Ed Norton giving a profession peak efficiency because the idealistic, conflicted Pete Seeger (it’s laborious to imagine he was solely a late addition after Benedict Cumberbatch dropped out – it’s unattainable to think about one other actor within the function) and Dan Fogler, contemporary off portraying Francis Ford Coppola within the misbegotten The Provide, threatening to steal yet one more present along with his Albert Grossman (probably probably the most rock and roll efficiency within the movie).
On the coronary heart of all of it, Timothée Chalamet is the quizzical eye of the gathering storm. Having ready over the previous decade by taking part in a collection of messianic freaks, from the coed revolutionary Zeffirelli in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch to Paul Atreides in Dune and the younger Willie Wonka, he appears abundantly ready for the function, nailing the hobo stroll, the mercurial moods and the inscrutable cool. Covid delays gave him time to grasp the songbook – and he’s a revelation as a singer, performing over 40 songs, from the early, flinty “Music To Woody” proper as much as the ferocious “Like A Rolling Stone” amidst the havoc of Newport. His musical efficiency is by far the very best factor concerning the movie – it’s laborious to withstand becoming a member of in with the applause of these early, confounded, enchanted audiences.
As an Uncut reader, you might have some qualms. Although primarily based on Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electrical!, in acquainted biopic style the story performs quick and free with the historic document, cavalierly conflating folks, locations and occasions. And it doesn’t actually know what to do with both Sylvie or Joan Baez, who spend a lot of the movie merely gazing wistfully, resentfully or with plain exasperation on the wilful upstart.
But when Rolling Thunder had a number of wildcards up its sleeve, Mangold (whose 2005 Johnny Money biopic Stroll The Line supplied an in the end properly behaved type of outlaw) appears to take his liberties within the title of neatness. Although Bob himself apparently annotated and signed off the script himself, you may battle to detect a lot of his mischief within the polished completed product. There may be lightning in most of the performances, however as a movie A Full Unknown by no means fairly goes totally electrical. Perhaps, as with Star Wars or The Godfather, the actual crackling coronary heart of darkness will come within the franchise’s second episode…
