Caught an early screening of the new Todd Haynes film tonight. I’m thinking I should have taken a few notes. Haynes is deconstructing the bio-pic from every angle while urgently demystifying the mythologies swirling around a mercurial artist like Bob Dylan . . . and it mostly works, up to a point, though the thing is messy and insidery (hell, I have no idea who Sara Lownds is). It didn’t help sitting in an audience full of Dylan purists (it is Minnesota after all) who hung on every slippery yet iconic image Haynes was willing to offer up. Still, I’m not going to call it a mess nor do I think it is overtly intellectual. As you’ve probably heard, Haynes cast six actors to take on his vision of “Bob Dylan;” there’s the eleven-year-old black kid singin’ the blues and riding the trains, the twenty-year-old poet (Dylan as Rimbaud), the intensely politicized folk singer turned Christian evangelical, the plugged-in rock-n-roll asshole, the celebrity movie star misogynist, and the runaway cowboy hiding out from the law. Variations on Alan Ginsberg, Jean Baez, Lownds, the Beatles, and Edie Sedgwick also move in and out of the scenes. Haynes lovingly quotes Fellini, D.A. Pennebaker, Godard, seventies style talking-head documentaries, Sam Peckinpah, Conrad Hall, and others. Ultimately, the film appears to be an insightful meditation on race, power, identity, celebrity, America, war, sex, conformity, freedom, etc., but mostly the film sounds a discordantly pessimistic note as it interrogates the notion that any artist can and/or should be held responsible for advocating social justice and inciting social change. Haynes’ Dylan is a supremely narcissistic chameleon unwilling and perhaps unable to speak for any generation. If you want to keep a low profile, never create anything one of the Dylans remarks to the camera. Embedded within the act of creation are the seeds of destruction . . . and it’s the destruction, man . . . it’s the destruction that’s blowing in the wind. The times, they don’t seem to be changing one damn bit.
Ah, I’m envious. I really loved Haynes’ last music-obsessed film (the glam-era gender-bending sexuality-tweaking Velvet Goldmine), and I dig him generally. So, despite not really much liking Dylan at all… I’m keen to see it.
Yes, I’m no Dylan fanatic and I didn’t stick around last night to see what types of questions Christine Vachon was asked during the post-screening Q&A (eavesdropping before the showing, many of the conversations suggested there were more music fans than post-structural cinema fans in the house so I am curious about the reaction). I’ve seen Dylan a couple of times in concert (one very good, one horrible) and own a couple of LPs currently gathering dust at my parents’ house in Kentucky. I did feel as if I needed a Dylan concordance to figure out who’s who and what’s what while watching, and that was frustrating (the film is willfully, almost arrogantly non-linear). This essay in Film Comment is certainly worth reading, even if you don’t plan on seeing the film. Finally, there are some very fine performances. Blanchett is as good as you’ve heard but the performance also feels like a vainglorious stunt (still, she owns this film). Christian Bale burrows so deeply into his performance; the results feel almost creepy (this particular Dylan doesn’t seem able to communicate with anyone). The kid, Marcus Carl Franklin, conveys the most human tones in the film. I will be curious to see what this kid does next as he projects an open and honest persona on the screen (which may be Haynes’ ultimate joke as this character mostly tells lies upon lies upon lies). Julianna Moore is very funny even if it appears as if she drifted into the film from Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind.
J. Hoberman’s essay in the Village Voice is required reading for anyone who cares.
This is well worth watching. As Jeff points out, the performances are almost uniformly superb. Watching Blanchett in the new Indiana Jones this weekend, I kept seeing her Dylan peering out from under the commissar haircut. The fragmentation of the movie could have been just irritating, but it beautifully separates out the different elements of Dylan’s life and character and then ties them back together late in the movie. Sure, the movie operates at a different level for Dylan purists but it is deeply enjoyable (as long as you pay attention) for the casual admirer. A nice pairing with ‘Last Days’ which I’m just watching again.
I watched this recently with the commentary track on. It’s quite impressive. Haynes delivers, seemingly off the cuff, a fascinating lecture about the history of film (particularly his self-conscious attempt to generate a cinematic pastiche), the cultural history of Bob Dylan, and an informal history of semiotic analysis. It’s quite engaging, and one of the smartest commentary tracks I’ve ever heard. One odd note: he talks about Heath Ledger in glowing terms, but his highly romanticized memories of Ledger’s self-obsession with “the work” of being an actor (somewhat understandable given how close his commentary was to Ledger’s death) is somewhat problematized by the fact that Ledger’s death was, if Haynes is on target, a by-product of his own creative and personal fragility. Ledger as tortured maverick is almost too heavy a burden to carry as you listen to Haynes’ subjective, perhaps even unfiltered, analysis.
we watched this last night. i found much of it to be very compelling (all the sections with the young boy, most of the billy the kid bits, some of the cate blanchett bits), some of it bordering on sublime (david cross as allen ginsberg–just the idea of it; bale-dylan in the born again section); unfortunately, i also found far too much of it came to me from deep inside its own ass (everything else with christian bale, most of the rimbaud stuff, most of the ledger stuff). i was also annoyed by the constant precious insertion of song titles into the dialog.
but the covers of the dylan songs were almost all amazing. especially calexico’s wondrous take on “goin’ to acapulco”, which just confirms once again for me that dylan was/is at his best when he channels americana.
Throw an address at me and I’ll send you the MP3 files for the Dylan covers commissioned for the film. It holds up pretty well.
i’ve sent your address to the r.i.a.a, jeff.
The RIAA can kiss my bat belt. I’m willing to take the risk if you want the songs. John Doe’s cover of “Pressing On” is worth a few weeks behind bars. Sufjan Steven’s nearly steals “Ring Them Bells” away from the master himself. It’s a grand collection.
i actually have most of the songs. i think the sufjan stevens cover is crap, actually. but yes, the john doe “pressing on” is most excellent.