14 Reasons To See Todd Haynes’ New Bob Dylan Bio-Pic, I’m Not There:
Because true artistic craft is too often missing from movies. In a year in which I was honestly giving up all hope on film as a meaningful form of art, this film has redeemed it with oblivious and beautiful abandon.
Because when just about every filmmaker right now (in this country anyway) is getting it wrong, Todd Haynes gets it right.
Because postmodern has become a topic of discussion at hipster coffee joints everywhere and now you’ll have another worthy example (besides The Big Lebowski) to cite if and when such a conversation should arise. Or just do what I do and avoid conversation with hipsters all together.
Because Dr H’ doesn’t love too many movies. Dr H’ has never seen a film in the theater twice in one week (Well, not on purpose. The exception being the first Kill Bill, but both times were free of charge and I believe there were extenuating circumstances, that I don’t need to discuss here, for both viewings) and been in awe both times to boot.
Because Cate Blanchett is the best actress in the world!
Because history is important. Churchill once said, “the farther you look back, the further you can see forward,” or something like that.
Because philosophically, culturally, and politically speaking a lot of the same issues Dylan wrote and spoke and sang about are still happening right now. Dylan said, “People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas.” How much lasting effect has the ideals and the movements of the 60’s/Vietnam Era actually had? Or do we just pretend?
Because “without music, life would be a mistake.” That’s Nietzsche.
Because Bob Dylan’s music changed your life whether you like it or not, whether you listen to it or not, whether you care to admit it or not.
Because “music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” Confucius said that. Todd Haynes proves he’s right. Although, I’m not sure Dylan would necessarily use the word “pleasure.” After all, it’s just a word. But I think you get the point.
Because of the questions that are raised about the relationships between art and change, between desire and effect, between care and action.
Because as human beings we should support when an artist does something honest, unique and important. Without supporting meaningful creation, we will consume more than we produce and eventually we will run out.
Because the philosophies and poetry of Dylan is beyond meaningful, whether he’d admit it or not. Dylan said, “I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.” Good stuff.
Because maybe, “I’m not there…” But then again, are any of us? I don’t know. But I think this film will help each of us get a little closer. Wherever that may be…
2 comments:
HAHA i too was inspired to blog about the film.
David Edelstein's review of Todd Haynes' new film I'm Not There in the most recent issue of New York Magazine may be positive, but in complaining that Haynes is more concerned with deconstructing Bob Dylan than getting inside his head, he clues us in to just how little he understood what the movie is actually about, i.e., not the guy who sleeps and eats and DJs on satellite radio. It's about the cultural representation of Dylan, and as such, it's more about us than it is about him. Not to undersell the film's substance, but when you boil down all the things that I'm Not There has to say about Dylan in particular and art in general, it's essentially about how we turn artists into icons, and the way the mythology that we create around them can take on a life and meaning that is far greater than the person, and sometimes even the work itself.
Haynes splits Dylan into six characters, none of whom are called Bob Dylan. (The name is never once uttered in the film.) Only half of the actors resemble the man, and the one who is most clearly evocative of his actual style and mannerisms is a woman in drag. It's important that it's drag, by the way. Cate Blanchett's performance as the Dylan of Don't Look Back is meant to be an over-the-top, fabulous caricature of the artist at his most iconic, and it's the representation that is most charged with transgressive sexuality -- both his own, and what Blanchett claims for herself as she occupies his persona. Blanchett's Dylan is my favorite, mainly because she is standing in for the version of the man I appreciate the most: The "pop" Dylan; the cynical, frustrated young artist who fought against being pigeon-holed by the media; the iconoclast who stood up to the smug, self-righteous conservatism of the folk movement at the Newport Folk Festival and the Royal Albert Hall. The events of those two concerts are represented in the film with a great deal of humor, surrealism, and melodrama. It's a folk story, passed down through generations, and that's the point. It isn't about the truth of those events, it's about the cultural resonance of his actions, and the way we tell and internalize the meaning of the narrative -- it's the moment where Dylan ceases to be a folk singer, and becomes a folk hero.
Unsurprisingly, my second favorite Dylan in I'm Not There is the one played by Marcus Carl Franklin. Unlike the fairly representational versions of Dylan portrayed by Blanchett, Ben Whishaw, and Christian Bale -- or the glamorous post-modern/meta representation of Heath Ledger, who plays an actor playing Dylan in a biopic -- Franklin's character is purely metaphorical, and stands in for the young Dylan eager to cast off his past and reinvent himself on his own terms. The scenes with Franklin suggest that the singer's transforming persona is an intrinsic part of his character, and of his art -- from early on, he understood the power of becoming a character, of becoming something else for the benefit of his art, his audience, and himself.
The film does not follow a linear path, but it's important to note that the story begins with Franklin since it establishes the central conflict of the picture, i.e., the complications of reconciling the differences between the artist's embrace of affectation, and the premium placed on authenticity in folk music, and the culture at large -- or at least up until the end of the 70s, since its worth noting that Dylan's life after his conversion to Christianity in 1979 is not acknowledged in any way by the film. (It makes sense -- nothing else after that moment in his life has any particular mythic resonance, and so Dylan the legend effectively died when his life ceased to be a story.) Even though there are six incarnations of Dylan in I'm Not There, there's really just two versions of his myth on display, and they are at odds with one another -- he's either the idealistic truth-teller, or the guy who forces us to look beyond objective truth of biography and dig into the complicated mess of life via fiction, poetry, and reinvention of character. You don't really have to pick one or the other, but I'm pretty sure I only really have use for the latter version.
Ditto to both of you on basically all of your points. Despite the full on screaming fight that I had with a guy in the theater during the screening, I'm Not There is, simply put, one the best films that I have seen in years, and probably my personal favorite since The Royal Tenenbaums.
Haynes' style is purely his own, while paying homage to the best post-war European cinema. I hope this is a trend we see more of from other American directors, who appear to be stuck in a trend of conformity and repetition.
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