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I’m Not There
I’m Not There
Director: Todd Haynes
Killer Films: 135 min.
I walked out of the movie thinking, “Maybe I’m just really stupid and don’t get it, but that movie was pretty awful to watch.” Then, later, I looked on RottenTomatoes.com and saw that 81 percent of reviews (that are in so far, mind you, but a high percentage nonetheless) are in favor of I’m Not There, the fragmented biopic of Bob Dylan by Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine). And I think that, knowing people were going to garner this as “Dylan heaven” as I watched the movie, is the notion that freaked me out the most. That folks are going to love this biopic, which is more about getting hit over the head with blatant symbolism rather than Bob Dylan’s music. Cue the nuns, the giant tarantula, and the lady that lights her hair on fire; cue Allen Ginsberg (David Cross) riding up alongside “Jude’s” car as they both ride past a cemetery. And that ain’t even the start of it. Like one review said, the most amazing thing about this movie is the fact that Dylan gave his permission. Amen.
This movie’s target audience is anyone in film school, but it isn’t necessarily for fans of Bob Dylan’s music. For some folks, it’ll make them think the key to understanding Dylan is hidden within its layers upon layers, and it may, in fact, take several viewings of this movie to understand the core statement, if there is one at all. And if there isn’t one, it seems folks will say it’s Dylan who doesn’t have the core instead of the movie. It’s my belief that Haynes, while coming up with a lofty and interesting idea indeed, ultimately took on too much to give this film any cohesive narrative whatsoever.
The biggest problem I had with I’m Not There is that it was ridiculously complicated to navigate. And, at least for me, Bob Dylan’s music (not his personality) has always been about saying perhaps complicated things in a simple way, both musically and lyrically. Sure, in the media he portrayed himself as this witty, enigmatic poet who can talk circles around any and everyone, but his music was never so much about picking apart what every word meant. It’s good enough to think about how much it made you feel—the poetry in his music has its way of finding untouched nerves and emotions, those of which will never be the same after they’ve been touched.
So… here we have a movie where not only do we never hear Dylan’s name, but six different characters play different eras of “Dylan”—there’s a young black boy who calls himself Woody Guthrie who transfers at will to French poet Arthur Rimbaud, then there’s Greenwich Village beatnik turned Pastor John (Christian Bale), then there’s a womanizing movie star named Robbie (Heath Ledger), then there’s the troubled and frail Dont Look Back Dylan named Jude (Cate Blanchett, the best of the bunch, to be sure), and then… then… there’s the most confusing of all (it’s like we were saved the worst for last), the outlaw, Billy the Kid, played by a generally bewildered-looking Richard Gere. The movie grapples along, shape shifting to and fro, here and there, between storylines and characters, and then we get the hefty pleasure placed upon us of wading through the movie’s symbolic molasses. But if you’re smarter than me, and you probably are, that’s not just it either, because all of the aforementioned is shot through Dylan’s various media representations (cover art, interviews, etc.), so we also get that plus the documentary with No Direction Home-type interviews featuring people (there’s 142 names in all) that we may or may not know, but are mostly never given their real name anyway. Phew!
But the main problem, for me, was that every time I figured out what was going on with one character I was interrupted by some insipid moment of directorial, self-congratulatory control over anything based in reality. Call it avant garde or impressionism, but that’s how I felt the whole way through; it was like lapping up Salvador Dali soup and choking on each swallow. But perhaps this piqued aggravation was being fueled by two nights before where I attended the I’m Not There charity event at the Beacon Theater in NYC (the stage where I last saw Dylan perform), featuring many high-caliber musicians from the movie’s soundtrack.
For such a great venue and great musicians, the show, for the most part, was oddly uncomfortable and the sound was absolutely horrendous. As each act stepped onto the stage to play a song, they were practically crippled by the hissing, squeaking, and screeching to the point where it was almost surreal. However, there were some great moments to be wrenched out of the shock. Shout-outs go to Jim James and My Morning Jacket, Calexico, Al Kooper, the dude in the shiny pink shirt who held it all together playing a variety of instruments for many of the night’s songs, Mark Lanegan, John Doe (who was the only one to mention Bob Dylan at all), Tift Merrit, and the Roots, who did a truly amazing prog-rock version of “Masters of War.” All of these people brought their A-game into this event and to the songs themselves. Others like J. Mascis, Yo La Tengo, the dudes from Gomez, Lee Ranaldo, and Mason Jennings did pretty good… but mostly lacked the passion for a great delivery, and their performances felt mostly like karaoke renditions of the real thing. However, make no mistake, those stupid stinkin’ hippies from LA otherwise known as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros made a mockery of Dylan, themselves, and the entire event, and should be absolutely ashamed to have ever called themselves musicians. It was wildly embarrassing to watch their “performance” of “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.”
And maybe that’s the thing here. At the end of if all, who wants to experience this many people marginally portray Bob Dylan? I’m not there is right.
Watch: Clip from “I’m Not There” [at youtube.com]
18 Comments
I was hoping this would be a review of the soundtrack. I consider myself a big Dylan fan, but I have no desire to see this movie. Your review reinforced this feeling. The soundtrack is excellent though.
bird jam – If you’re a big Dylan fan and proclaim the soundtrack to be “excellent” why not see the movie? it’s just silly to ignore it. even if the film disappoints you’ll still get something out of it.
Jocelyn, This is a movie. It needs a movie review by a movie person. There is nothing worse than getting Dylan people – or music people – to see their subject thru a different medium. Film has different goals. You’re not there.
One reason the film worked for me is that it’s drenched in Dylan’s music – and most of it is sung by Dylan. There are heartstopping moments where ‘Moonshiner’ and ‘Blind Willie McTell’ and many other songs erupt on the sound track. I’ve listened to the soundtrack double CD n’t bowled over. It’s mostly respectful but it does send you scurrying back to the Dylan originals. For me, the only 2 wonderful moments on the CD were Antony onsons’ ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ and Dylan’s 1967 recording of ‘I’m Not There’ in all its enigmatic stereophonic wonder.
Just listen to the original studio
recordings – that’s plenty of entertainment/ enlightenment, don’t need no stinkin’ badge. Or go to a live show, sit up front, and get th real deal.
Jocelyn, I can’t change your mind. For you, the film sucked. It worked for me (as I said below) because it’s drenched in Dylan’s music. I wasn’t prepared for that. All the pre-release publicity revolved around Blanchett’s female Dylan! and African American boy Dylan! but the film itself unfolds like a kaleidoscopic dream where the pieces never quite meet. A bit like me y friends scratching our heads in the 1960s stly wondering how John Wesley Harding related to Blonde On Blonde, How Slow Train Coming related to Blood On the Tracks. Well they don’t. In “Chronicles, Volume One” Dylan says that when he stumbled across Rimbaud’s declaration “Je est un autre” which translates into English: “I is someone else”, Dylan writes: “When I read those words the bells went off. It made perfect sense. I wish someone would have mentioned it to me earlier.” (Chronicles, p. 288) That insight has sustained Dylan thru all his multiple personalities, finger pointing folkie, rock rebel, Nashville good ol’ boy (Oh me oh my, love that country pie), tormented picaresque lover (Tangled Up In Blue), Born Again Christian. When he performed on his first album, aged 21, he was trying to summon up the voice of a 60 year old blues singer. I was also surprised by the long Richard Gere sequence where Gere seems lost in the backwoods, but all these strange characters s animals roll past, it certainly captured the mood of all those weird Basement Tape songs for me. And there’s a strange visionary flash where Gere has a glimpse of Vietnam. It made perfect sense to me. There’s a moment in the Sing Out! interview with Dylan in 1968 when Happy Traum asks Dylan “Why don’t you speak out against the Vietnam War?” and Dylan replies: “It’s for or against the war. That really doesn’t exist. It’s not for or against the war. I’m speaking of a certain painter and he’s all for the war. He’s ready to go over there himself. And I can comprehend him.” This film isn’t a biopic, for me this movie worked in a free association surreal way, like Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, or Highlands works.
This review, and all of you who have indulged its ill-formed opinion on this message board, can take a walk. Clearly, you have nothing but a superficial appreciation of Dylan and lack the intellectual framework necessary to appreciate a film that departs from the linear biopic narrative of something like “Ray” or “Walk The Line.” You’re right Dylan isn’t there in the movie, but the point is, he isn’t there in “real life” either. It’s reading a review like this that causes me to wonder how Dylan was ever appreciated in a world so hopelessly bent on mediocrity. Maybe they just should have cast Russell Crowe and made him learn to sing the Dylan real good.
Fools.
I believe I admitted twice that I might not be smart enough to understand this movie. But I think not being smart enough proves my point quite nicely: why does everyone have to have a pretentious level of intelligence to “get” a movie about Dylan? So, I lack an intelligent framework; therefore, no Dylan for me. Is that it? There’s something very wrong with that line of thinking. I think it’s doing his real fans a great disservice. People are going to pay their hard earned money to see a bunch of silly shit on screen, a bunch of uncomfortable acting, when maybe they hold Dylan near and dear because he speaks very clearly to their own simple lives, making them poetic, greater than most anyone ever has. I’m serious. Dylan has so many fans, and they don’t all wear black turtlenecks, live in cities, and talk about organic vegetables and hybrid cars and silent films. I think what made Dylan special is that he spoke about the heart of everyman, and this is not a movie for everyman.
Another question, I hope you can elaborate on, hypnotist collector: what do you mean when you say Dylan isn’t here in real life? I’m very curious about that, since it seems to be the crux of your argument. I’ve seen him live three times. It was rad.
“Dylan has so many fans, and they don’t all wear black turtlenecks, live in cities, and talk about organic vegetables and hybrid cars and silent films. I think what made Dylan special is that he spoke about the heart of everyman, and this is not a movie for everyman.”
Amen.
Well, I’m a Dylan fan and saw the film in London and listened to Todd Haynes answer questions after …… I really loved the film because it seemed to me to draw from all kinds of influences, but to echo the methodology of Renaldo and Clara in a way that was instinctive rather than intentional ….. it developed a mesmeric quality that melded sound and vision and kept my eyes glued to the screen. Clearly it was not logically organised, but it WORKED. It is a rare event for me to want to revisit a film – generally only the best – quickly after having seen it. I am waiting for the film to be released here in England so that I can watch it again and see things I didn’t see last time.
But Jackson, aren’t I (and you) really the target audience for this film, and not just some film critic?
I haven’t seen the movie, but Jocelyn’s criticism of it does register with me. “Masked and Anonymous” was a similar, non-linear, surreal project–yet I still liked it, even though I understood why many others didn’t. Dylan’s music works on so many levels, and directors try to find ways of mirroring that on celluloid, and often the result is pretentious and misses the mark. But it’s hard if not impossible to capture Dylan’s mercurial genius–whether in print or on film. I still often enjoy the attempts. I felt the same about Bob’s own mad movie, Renaldo and Clara–almost impossible to follow, symbolism run amuck, and yet I still pull it out from time to time for the concert scenes, and Bob’s interactions with Ginsberg, etc. And somehow I don’t think a straight Dylan biopic would work either, just too limiting. As great as Scorcese’s “No Direction Home” was, it too felt too straight,too conservative a take on such a revolutionary icon.
I’m going to see the movie when it opens here, and try to enjoy it for what it is–no more or less. In the meantime, I love Sonic Youth’s take on “I’m Not There”, what a marvel of a song even when covered.
Hypnotist collector you’re a fucking joke. So the reviewer only has a “superficial” appreciation for Dylan because they thought the movie sucked, which it does. It is a flaming piece of crap. It’s main theme is a completely fucking unoriginal idea.. oh there’s more than one bob dylan, GENIUS! To top it off the scrip is terrible and so is the acting. This has nothing to due with it being abstract etc. It’s just a bad representation of Dylan. This will sound immature but it pisses me off that people even like this
I tried to like this movie, because I am such a huge Dylan fan, but I didn’t feel like this movie said anything about Bob Dylan. It was the most cliche thing I have ever seen. Its almost like they watched No direction home– took the most obvious parts of it and had people OVER act it out. The interview parts of the lady that plays Joan Baez is the worst. This film speaks nothing of real life or real emotion. Bob Dylan isnt a mythical figure… He is a guy that wanted to play his songs.
My shirt was purple, not pink, though it is pretty shiny
“I’m Not There” was, for me, the perfect way to tell a Bob Dylan story. Dylan has long railed against those who thought they could piece together a few facts from his life, some song lyrics, and a little pseudo-psychology and boil him down to an easy explanation – this is the “real” Bob Dylan. Who of us is that two dimensional? Certainly Dylan isn’t. Todd Haynes film allows us to see various sides of Dylan’s personality without simplifying the man for easy consumption and digestion. You leave feeling with both a better understanding of the greatest song writer of the modern age, as well the knowledge that there is still so much more to the man.
This movies SUCKS!
So, basically, the problem that you had with it was that it didn’t give you the conventional biopic you were hoping for? No doubt, you also have problems with your friends and family not fitting into clearly defined categories, and with your life not having a cohesive narrative. So, enjoy all of the other formulaic biopics out there, and leave this one alone.