From the Ledge

I’m not a big Bob Dylan fan.  To be honest about it, I am not a big music fan at all.  So I went to see I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’ film biography of Dylan with a little bit of trepidation.  I’m sure I won’t recognize much of the music, so would that detract from my fuller appreciation of the film?  I don’t know a lot about Dylan except that he has quite an exalted, almost mythic, place in the American musical history of the 60s and 70s, when his poetic, humanistic, but outspokenly rebellious music deeply touched the collective zeitgeist.  Would I be able to form an opinion, then, on how ably the film represents his life?  No worries, however, because Haynes has created a powerful, jaw-dropping film that is as dazzling, and yes, as mythical, as his subject, with a sensational central performance from one of the few women I will strongly contemplate turning heterosexual for, the too-magnificent-for-mere-words Cate Blanchett, as, amazingly, Bob Dylan, during his Don’t Look Back period.

Anyone expecting a musical biography in the vein of say Ray or Walk the Line will be deeply disappointed by I’m Not There.  There is no conventional narrative to speak of; Dylan’s story is told in a series of impressionistic episodes with people who are not named Bob Dylan, but who represent some part of him, or some invention of his about his life and work.  There’s the adolescent boy named Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), who invents a folk-singer persona while running away from juvenile prison.  There’s the reluctant singer of the 1950s, Jack (Christian Bale), who becomes an overnight success and then runs away from it all to become a Christian minister.  There’s the actor who plays Jack in a bio-pic, Robbie (Heath Ledger), who runs away from family responsibilities and into the trappings of celebrity success.  There’s Jude (Blanchett), the famous anti-war singer who loses his way in the madness of both the 1960s as an era and the need to measure up to the expectations of his public.  There’s Billy the Kid (Richard Gere), hiding as a recluse in a surreal, 19^th century town that looks like a cross between the HBO shows “Carnivale” and “Deadwood” who runs away to elude his pursuer, Pat Garrett.  Then, there’s Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw), one of Dylan’s acknowledged influences, in an interrogation room expounding on what one would think are Dylan’s views about art, life, and celebrity.  The stories are told in a semi-linear manner, with cross-cutting between storylines, alternating use of black-and-white and color film stock, and containing a dizzying collection of cinematic references from Fellini to Godard to Antonioni’s Blow-Up to yes, Don’t Look Back, the critically-acclaimed documentary by DA Pennebaker on Dylan.  It is exhilarating film-watching from a purely visual sense.  But Todd Haynes’ genius is not limited to his technical mastery; he has written (with Oren Moverman) an intelligent, reflective screenplay which clearly captures the elusive and maddeningly unexplainable nature of Dylan’s public persona, and why this constant reinvention, this constant running away from something (in all the episodes, the Dylan character both literally or metaphorically runs away), this ambiguity in what he stands for and in what he is, more than his music or his philosophies, is the reason why he occupies such a significant role in the cultural imagination. 

This point is brought home powerfully in the “Jude” episode, where a British newsman played by Bruce Greenwood, tries to sift through the layers of reality and invention to nail down what Jude really stood for.  He almost succeeds.  He has his work cut out for him, though, because in Cate Blanchett’s brilliantly riveting performance, Jude is canny and clueless, focused and lost, funny and depressed.  Jude is a mass of highly complex contradictions, and watching Blanchett go to town with this character is one of the greatest pleasures of my moviegoing year thus far.  Blanchett, more than any of the other actors in my view (although Heath Ledger is also masterful), is in lockstep with both Haynes’ ambition and Dylan’s mythology.  She gets the gestures, the voice, the look right, but as always, she goes beyond impersonation, and delves into what makes the character tick (in this case I think it is Jude’s inability to sort out himself what fact is from invention).  I have always been a great fan, but she outdoes herself, and every single actor of her generation, with this performance.  First Elizabeth I (in Elizabeth), then Katharine Hepburn (in The Aviator), now Bob Dylan- who will she play next?  Margaret Thatcher?  Nelson Mandela?  Maybe Chi-Chi Larue?  (and those of you who got this pop culture reference should give yourself 100 gold points). 

I’m Not There has already gotten variety of critical raves such as this and this, which already positions it as a top awards contender.  I don’t think the Academy will forget Blanchett (she is always Oscar bait), but hopefully they also recognize the context of this performance, Todd Haynes’ achievement in attempting to comprehend an incomprehensible icon.