Tom Dunne: How will Timothée Chalamet shape up as Bob Dylan?
Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan (left) in A Complete Unknown.
A Complete Unknown, the new James Mangold-directed Bob Dylan biopic, opens on Christmas Day in the States. You’d wonder if this timing is deliberate. Is Bob equating its release with a previous Christmas Day arrival of some note?
I suspect the answer is yes. In the movie when he is challenged, derisively, about being God he is unequivocal. Played by Timothée Chalamet, Dylan eyes his accuser and answers: “How many more times? Yes!” Yes, indeed.
I have not yet seen the movie. I will be having that pleasure a little later tonight. But like one of the three wise men I have been expecting it and have followed its progress in the night sky. Expectations are high, its release brought forward to save if not mankind, then Oscar season.
At the centre of its high expectations is Chalamet’s performance. Obviously all biopics hinge on the performance of the main character. Rami Malek brought something to his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody that was incandescent.
The Live Aid performance was one of the most remarkable pieces of film, of any type, of the last ten years. The lines blurred. Where did Freddie stop, and Malek begin? The Oscar was in the bag at that moment.
It is the bar by which all other performances are measured: Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, James Fox as Ray Charles, Austin Butler as Elvis and Taron Egerton as Elton were all mesmeric. But privately you suspect they all call Malek “the boss.”
So how will Timothee shape up? If it does not wow Oscar judges it will not be for want of effort. He spent five years learning to sing and play both guitar and harmonica to the level Dylan was at in the early 1960s, or at least good enough to play the 13 songs he performs here.
These are performed live, into a vintage mic and via a vintage amp. There are no overdubs or bits of the performance fixed later in the studio. These I have heard and what can I say? Give him the Oscar now.
Early reviews are generally ecstatic. Chalamet is “an electric revelation” who perfectly captures a Dylan who is at times “hilarious and seductive,” but also a “smirking, scowling, unwilling leader of his generation.” Others are even more positive.
But not all. One review talks of the film being “flimsy” with Chalamet “stiff and brooding” and “phoning in” the non-singing parts. It points out that Bob’s image is now so cliched – wiry hair, nasally voice, shades – that it is almost impossible to play.
The story centres around Bob’s performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 at which he “went electric” to the absolute horror of the folk contingent. This is apparently cast in a “denying his divinity” light, which again makes the Christmas Day launch in the US all the more interesting. Knowing what we do of Bob’s eccentricities, he may see all of it as a Christmas Day movie!
But get it right and the sky is the limit, as shown by the box office receipts of the five biggest-ever-grossing music biopics.
Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar as June Carter. The oldest film on the list would probably gross more if released today as Cash’s star shows no signs of fading.
You’d have to put this down as a disappointing return coming as it did after the Freddie Mercury biopic and having such amazing songs.
A surprise hit given how radio unfriendly so much of the music is.
A great film, but again, would you not have expected it to have done even better? Seven Oscar nominations, and no wins, tell a tale.
Taking almost three times what its nearest rival did and rightly so. It wasn’t just the performances that were amazing, but the fun it had capturing the era in all its madcap grimness.
For A Complete Unknown to come near Queen it will need to beguile audiences and connect with a younger demographic in a way we don’t see that often. Dylan will need to appeal to people not just musically, but as a character.
This is where I have the most hope. Those of you who know Dylan know that he is definitely not the messiah, but a very naughty boy. And that is so much more entertaining!
