Starring Timothy Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, and Monica Babaro
Directed by James Mangold
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan and others
We return to the biographical well for our last theatrical musical film of 2024. Bob Dylan is one of the most beloved and influential singers and songwriters in the world. His music inspired everyone from the Beatles onward to dig a little deeper, be a little more poetic, and take stronger chances. He started out as a folk singer in the early 60's, but by 1965, he was lamenting the restrictive world of folk and having to sing other people's songs. His attempt to bust out of the mold and gain his own artistic freedom by playing with a band and an electric guitar was hugely controversial in the folk world at the time. How well does this film depict what caused that controversy? Let's begin with Dylan (Chalamet) as he arrives in New York City to meet his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and find out...
The Story: Dylan eventually travels to a hospital in New Jersey, where Guthrie is bed-ridden and unable to speak, to play a song he wrote for him. Guthrie and fellow folk legend Pete Seeger (Norton) are so impressed with his performance, Seeger takes him in and introduces him to New York's folk scene. He meets pretty civil activist Sylvie Russo (Fanning) at a concert and falls for her, eventually getting an apartment together.
Dylan's equally attracted to folk star Joan Baez (Babaro) after seeing her play and flirting with her. Manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler) is so enamored with him, he takes him on as a client and encourages Columbia Records to let him make an album. They order him to sing covers of folk songs rather than his own material, something he hates. He and Baez have an affair after Russo goes on a long work trip to Europe and he starts to create more socially-conscious material.
By 1964, Dylan's one of the most popular stars of folk and rock music, and he and Russo have separated. He's seriously beginning to regret his desire for fame. All anyone wants him to do is play the same songs he did on his previous albums. He's so tired of it, he won't even sing them with Baez on tour. Looking for a new sound, he starts recording his next record Highway 61 Revisited with an electric guitar, something that's shunned by the folk community, which prefers simpler acoustic arrangements. It becomes a bitter feud between Dylan and the arrangers of the Newport Folk Festival, including a shocked Seeger. In the end, he learns the price of freedom when he does get what he wants...but damages his relationships with Seeger and the women in his life in the process.
The Song and Dance: This is the second December in a row Chalamet put in an incredible performance as an enigmatic, eccentric genius in a musical film. His Dylan is no charming Willy Wonka, but a mysterious figure who keeps everything about himself hidden, from his childhood to just what's going on in his troubled head. Fanning and particularly Babaro more than match him as the women who inspired by him, but were driven away by his ego and inability to talk about himself. Norton is also excellent as the gentle Seeger, who is afraid for what Dylan's electric experiment means for the future of his beloved folk music, and there's Boyd Holbrook as country legend Johnny Cash. Though mostly filmed in New Jersey rather than New York or Rhode Island, the cinematography and Mangold's simple direction still manages to mostly capture both Dylan's gritty world and the little odd moments that show Dylan at is mercurial best.
The Numbers: We open with the "Song for Woody" that so impressed the two old folk musicians. This leads into "I Was Young When I Left Home." He does his own "Girl from the North Country" with Baez at that concert he spends flirting with her after being impressed with her version of the traditional folk ballad "Silver Dagger." He gets in his own "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall." Seeger performs the South African number "Wimoweh" (better known to most people as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight") for an enraptured crowd at Town Hall. Baez is almost as popular with her "House of the Rising Sun" shortly before her affair with Dylan
"Folsom Prison Blues" introduces Cash, who encourages Dylan to sing his own material his way. He does "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" with Baez before the Civil Rights movement and Cuban Missile Crisis inspire his "Masters of War" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues." He and Baez get "Blowin' In the Wind," a big signature number for both. Cash is heard doing his own "Big River," while Dylan insists "The Times, They are A-Changin'"...even if the folk community doesn't like it. He joins Seeger and black blues man Jesse Moffette for a dynamic "When the Ship Comes In" on a local educational TV show Seeger hosts. After Bob refuses to sing "Blowin' In the Wind" and barely finishes "It Ain't Me, Babe" Joan gives the audience at the disastrous tour a version of "There but for Fortune." They record "Highway 61 Revisited," complete with a whistle Dylan picked up from a street busker, in New York.
"Maggie's Farm" kicks off the Newport Beach Festival with a literally and figuratively electric performance. Chalamet does so well capturing Dylan's raw performance style here, you're glad when Seeger's Japanese wife Toshi (Eriko Hastsune) refuses to let her husband turn the sound down. "Like a Rolling Stone" is even better, with the pure energy rolling off the stage in waves. This is followed by "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Lot to Cry." "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is the song he finally plays the the acoustic guitar.
Trivia: The New York scenes were filmed in Jersey City; the ones set at the hotel in Newport were actually filmed in Cape May at the southern tip of New Jersey.
Everyone in the film did their own singing, including Chalamet.
The real name of the Sylvie Russo character is Suze Rotolo. Dylan insisted her name be changed to protect her privacy.
What I Don't Like: First of all, this is a nitpick, but I grew up in Cape May and walked past the Victorian Hotel (the Viking Hotel in the movie) and its yellow next-door neighbor Congress Hall a thousand times as a kid. I don't know how much Jersey City and Paterson look like New York, but I do know Cape May is pretty obviously not Newport. (I also recognized the North Cape May Ferry Terminal when Sylvie was leaving town.)
Second, and more importantly, while this isn't quite your standard biopic, it does hit some standard beats. The focus on Dylan's music comes at the expense of Fanning, who doesn't really have as much to do in the second half after she breaks up with him. It tries hard to get under Dylan's skin...and it becomes frustrating when it almost, but doesn't quite succeed. Apparently, only a few documentaries have come anywhere near truly revealing the inner workings of Dylan's genius. Also, rough language and the focus on Dylan's affairs makes this for adult folk lovers only. Start your older kids on the earlier albums represented here if you want them to learn more about Dylan.
The Big Finale: If you love Dylan or Chalamet or want to catch some truly electric performances this Christmas season, head to the theater to check out how one restless young man changed the way music was presented forever.
Home Media: The soundtrack is currently available for streaming and will be released on vinyl in January and CD in late February.
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