Seen the New Dylan Movie?

Been to the movies lately? With so many channels and streaming choices these days, going to a movie theater seems a bit archaic, but we still enjoy seeing a movie on the big screen. I know we could wait till it’s streaming, but there’s a certain feeling you get when you settle into your seat, the surround sound envelops you and you become totally immersed in another world.

In our area, a local casino has a Cinemark Century 18 that offers $5.50/pp movie tickets. Quite the bargain! Of course, it’s $25 for the associated popcorn and a drink. OUCH! But, I ask you, what’s a movie without popcorn? We don’t go all that often… maybe once a month if there’s something playing that interests us. The theater is within walking distance so we get our exercise before consuming all the popcorn.

Midst all the holiday celebration, we found time to see ‘A Complete Unknown’, a biopic about Bob Dylan. We who were kids in the 60s grew up with Bob Dylan. Robert Allen Zimmerman, now 83 years old, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. We stopped by his childhood home back in 2018 when we were traveling through Minnesota. It’s an unassuming two-story blue house situated on the corner of Bob Dylan Drive and 7th Avenue. Bob doesn’t live there anymore, so we didn’t stop in.

Dylan’s childhood home in Hibbing, MN

Starring Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, the film is more of a chronicle than a biopic and covers a four year period of Dylan’s meteoric rise to fame. Between his arrival in New York City in 1961 and his ‘betrayal’ of traditional folk music at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when he played an electric guitar and sang rock’n’roll, we got a bird’s eye view of Dylan, his relationships, his metamorphosis from folk to rock. Dylan had input into the script and we suspect there was some revisionist history involved.

Early Dylan and Chalomet

Having written over 600 songs, Dylan is considered by many to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time. His musical career has spanned six decades and it’s estimated he’s sold more than 125 million records worldwide making him one of the world’s best-selling musicians. He has innumerable awards and kudos including his induction into Nashville’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, the U.S. Medal of Freedom, an Oscar, 10 Grammies, a Golden Globe Award, a Pulitzer prize and in 2016, the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma celebrates and explores his music and artistic brilliance.

We learned some stuff about Dylan, we didn’t know. In his early years, he was inspired by and spent time with Woody Guthrie and was taken under the wing of Pete Seeger in his early career. He had an intimate relationship with Joan Baez and was a ‘pen pal’ of Johnny Cash.

Dylan is portrayed as somewhat of an egotistic schmuck. He used people and betrayed them. He thought quite highly of himself and… he was a genius.

All that said, we thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Chalamet was excellent. He sang and performed over 40 songs for the movie, 26 of which made the final cut. Though the theater was nearly empty, those of us there were caught up in the music, singing the familiar lyrics and swaying in our seats.

If you get a chance to see it, we highly recommend it.