I'm Not There

I am posting my review for I'm Not There because it just came out on DVD. I saw it in the theater.

This Todd Haynes movie was like a dream sequence. It was as if I went to bed after listening to Dylan all day, reading Chronicles and watching Don't Look Back. This is what I might have dreamed. I’m Not There definitely illustrates what a mythological character Bob Dylan is. The movie contains snippets of stories and legends about Dylan that may or may not be true, such as Pete Seeger and the axe. Some of the dialogue was taken directly from Dylan songs, speeches or interviews.

The movie is filled with subtle gestures that a passionate Dylan lover will appreciate, such as clothing from different eras, phrases or lyrics from songs and other things. As I watched Jim James from My Morning Jacket sing “Going To Acapulco”, I was enthralled. I was not sure how many people in the audience knew that song or about the Rolling Thunder Bob. I wondered if people would understand the white face make up. I knew, and that was all that mattered to me. Vocalist Liam Clancy, a Greenwich Village contemporary, once aptly compared Bob Dylan to the shape-shifters of Celtic mythology: “It wasn’t necessary for him to be a definitive person.” I’m Not There captures that essence perfectly.

The first character is a child named Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin). He carries a guitar in a case that says, “This Machine Kills Fascists”. He is a hobo who sings for his supper. He tells convoluted stories about who he is and where he is from. This is the Dylan who told journalists elaborate stories when he first arrived to New York—the Woody Guthrie impersonator.

Another character is Jack Rollins/Pastor John. Jack Rollins is a protest singer. He’s the “Blowin’ In The Wind” Dylan.
He’s dismayed at having become a commodity. This part of the movie shows an embellishment of Dylan’s famous speech after winning the Tom Paine Award in 1963, and Bale’s Jack singing The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.

Pastor John is Jack Rollins after his conversion to Christianity. This happened to Dylan in the 1970’s. For some reason, this part of the movie came across to me like a Spinal Tap parody. Christian Bale has an almost George W. Bush accent, and the album covers made me laugh. Julianne Moore as a Joan Baez type girlfriend was also humorous. It seemed like a comical take on Protest Singer Bob. Maybe that’s what the real Bob would have been like after a while had he not refused to be the “voice of a generation.”

Jack/ Pastor John is connected to Heath Ledger’s character--an actor who stars in a biopic of Jack Rollins called “Grain of Sand”. He is a womanizer whose marriage is falling apart. Popular Dylan legend says Blood on the Tracks was written while Dylan was going through a bitter break up with first wife Sara.
I’m Not There brilliantly uses songs from this album (and a lovely scene with Visions of Johanna) during this part of the movie. This is the motorcycle-driving, hipster Dylan that everyone wants to sleep with, talk to, and photograph.

Arthur ( Ben Whishaw) is a chain smoking tribute to one of Dylan’s favorite poets named Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891).
This is considered to be the poetic Dylan, the Jokerman Dylan, the enigma Dylan. Some of the dialogue comes directly from the famous press conferences of the mid 1960’s in which Dylan didn’t give straight answers and toyed with the reporters.

The next two characters are my favorites.

Jude (Cate Blanchett) is a dead ringer for Dylan during the “Don’t Look Back” era. Jude has just gone electric, and some folk fans are not taking kindly to it. Blanchett captures the thin, drug-addled Dylan during the chaotic 1965 tour in the UK.
Einstein haired Jude hangs out with Allen Ginsberg, and Edie Sedgwick-like Coco while taking pills and wearing those famous shades. This part is just brilliant. I especially loved the Ballad of a Thin Man scene. I can’t describe what a feat Blanchett has achieved in this movie. She became Dylan in the same chameleon-like way in which Dylan became the different characters he’s been over the years.

In my opinion, that last character is the hardest for a non-avid Dylan fan to understand. Maybe for that reason, it is my favorite. I feel as if I’m in on some secret that only a passionate Dylanist would get. Richard Gere plays a rancher who lives in solitude.
He represents the cowboy Bob. Billy lives in a town called Riddle that is being forced out due to a new highway (Hwy 61?) that’s coming through. The town is filled with wonderfully colorful carnival people. These circus folks are like many of the characters in Dylan’s songs. Billy is like Billy the Kid (who, legend says, might have not been killed by Pat Garrett after all). Some say Billy just disappeared into obscurity. That’s exactly what Bob Dylan did after his motorcycle accident in 1966. Dylan went into “hiding” and made music with The Band. These songs turned into the Basement tapes (which were made over an 8 year period). This part of the movie has a lot of references to The Basement Tapes (I’m Not There is a song from those sessions), John Wesley Harding, and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (a wonderful soundtrack). The scene that ties it all together (for me, anyway) was when Billy finds Woody’s guitar on the train. This symbolizes the point in Dylan’s life when he was ready to play music again after thinking he was done for a while. Woody Guthrie Dylan was always there, no matter how much he tried to distance himself.

I enjoyed the movie. I think Todd Haynes did a great job capturing how difficult it is to capture Dylan in a movie. Throughout I’m Not There-Dylan is there, and then he’s not there. He’s only there in kaleidoscopic pieces until the very end. Then we see the real Bob Dylan in an ethereal, glowing clip-playing harmonica. Beautiful.