a complete unknown…

Moira and I went along to the Watershed yesterday to see James Mangold’s ‘A Complete Unknown’ – about Bob Dylan’s rise to become one of the most iconic singer-songwriters in history. The 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in New York in 1961 with his guitar and is destined to change the course of American music.
I recall my schoolboy days in 1962 when, in order to try to look ‘cool’ and ‘keep up with the music scene’ (I’m pretty sure I was the first person to actually discover The Beatles!), I used to subscribe to ‘Disc’ magazine or what later became ‘Disc Weekly’… and so began my fascination with Mr Dylan and his music. “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” 1963 album has always been my favourite.
As my good friend Tony suggested (after he’d seen the film last weekend), watching it was an exercise in ‘nostalgia’… in a very positive way. He was absolutely right. Unsurprisingly (on a Tuesday afternoon!), the vast majority of the pretty much capacity audience comprised lots of old couples in their 70s (like us!) – reliving their youth.
I feared that it would all be very disappointing… a number of people acting out and singing parts of some of my heroes. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought the actors were absolutely excellent: Dylan (played brilliantly by Timothée Chalamet); Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro); Pete Seeger (Edward Norton); and girlfriend Sylvie Russo (pictured on the ‘Freewheelin’ album cover photograph)(Elle Fanning).
In the film, Dylan somewhat predictably (and convincingly) comes across as an arrogant, thick-skinned, selfish musical genius. The film includes the time of Dylan’s appearance at the 1965 Newport folk festival – where he rejects the traditional folk traditions in favour of rock and blues-inspired electric guitars… and I can well remember my own disappointment/disbelief of that time. But, hey, music is something of a journey – and Dylan is still going strong despite his 83 years (and thank goodness for that).
I’d strongly recommend that you see this film. It brought back lots of memories.
PS: Of course, I’ve been re-listening to Dylan albums all over again since seeing the film!
PPS: I think my favourite Dylan song is “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”… and its lyrics are featured in Mark Edwards+Lloyd Timberlake’s brilliant book “Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision With Nature” (published in 2006)… a stunning photographic essay. I absolutely treasure this book. It’s sadly sobering that the book’s major theme – our headlong collision with nature and the pressing issues of climate change, environmental degradation and world poverty – applies even more today than it did then, 19 years ago… and Dylan’s lyrics (which at the time were inspired by the threat of nuclear meltdown) remain scarily prophetic – 62 years later.