A review of sorts.
James Mangold’s biopic of Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown has received rave reviews in almost all quarters. It has been praised on many levels. The film is based on Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties. A book, I confess, I have not read, but so far no one has accused the film of being unfaithful to the general message and tone of the book and I know not whether any of the failings of the film are also of the book or are down to Mangold’s interpretation of his source material.
The film has of course been praised for Chalamet’s interpretation of Dylan, and rightly so. He gets Dylan down to a tee. The same could be said of Monica Barbaro’s portrayal of Joan Baez and I was particularly impressed by Ed Norton’s Pete Seeger. On that level, there are few criticisms that could be made. The film runs for a full 141 minutes, but you won’t notice it. A long film that does not feel long, because its length is partially due to many of the songs being complete or near complete renditions. It makes the film enjoyable and no one is going to come away saying they were bored or that the acting and soundtrack was substandard. It scores on that level, though perhaps we are more familiar with the material it does so nowhere near as much as the Coen Bros, O Brother Where Art Thou? which went on to be a best-selling album and winning five Grammys and other awards. But any music lover is likely to enjoy this film.
It starts off with Dylan going to New York and meeting up with his hero Woody Guthrie when he goes to visit him in hospital. The film kicks off with Woody Guthrie’s music and includes Bob Dylan singing Song to Woody,[1] (links to all songs are included in the footnotes) which went on to be recorded by a number of other artists including Irish musician Christy Moore, under the title of Tribute to Woody.[2] One of the things the film gets right is Guthrie’s influence on Dylan and a host of other musicians. It would not be an understatement to say that without Woody Guthrie there might never have been a Bob Dylan, at least not as we know him.
The film goes on to show Dylan composing some of his more memorable songs Blowing in the Wind,[3] The Times They are a Changin [4] and Like a Rolling Stone.[5] However, the context in which these songs were written is almost absent from the film. There are only fleeting references to the convulsions of the time that inspired Dylan and the political and even musical movements he fed into and off. His song Blowing in the Wind, provoked the black singer Sam Cooke to not only do a cover of it,[6] but to say it was the type of song black artists should be doing and so he wrote A Change is Gonna Come,[7] which was released after his untimely murder.[8] We don’t just owe Woody Guthrie for giving us the Dylan we know, we also owe the Civil Rights Movement and the general upsurge in protest in the sixties. Again, Dylan without that social upheaval would never have been the Dylan we know. It is not a minor point, as the exclusion of this aspect contributes to a skewed vision of his decision to go electric and the bust up at the Newport Folk Festival and the parting of ways with Pete Seeger and others, including Alan Lomax to whom every musician in the USA and indeed the world owes a debt of gratitude. The event was much bigger than any musician which is clear from the programme at that time.[9]
It was Lomax who from the 1930s toured the US recording musicians, who were generally unknown, and preserving forever, music that otherwise would have been lost. He and his father, and other collaborators contributed thousands of field recordings, photos, field notes and more to the Library of Congress. It is thanks to Lomax we know of Leadbelly, Guthrie himself and even Seeger amongst others, some of whom Dylan mentions in his Song to Woody. Lomax was committed to the music for its own sake and as a representation of the people. He earned a living doing it, but scraped by, never making the fortunes that others, including Dylan would go on to make. In the film he comes across as some purist who just didn’t get it and a nasty person at that. Dylan owes Lomax more than Lomax would ever owe him, though that is not what you get from the film.
There is a scene where Lomax and Dylan’s manager come to blows at Newport. They did in fact do that, but the fight had nothing to do with Dylan going electric. There are many myths about that night which the New York Times has dealt with. Dylan was not the headline act, he had already released electric material and in fact an electric band opened the festival with no problems. There were other problems with Dylan on the night related to the volume and poor sound quality.[10] Though in the film Pete Seeger is seething and his Japanese wife in a nod to the popular image of Yoko Ono, gives such a deathly, I would gladly kill you stare. Another Japanese woman ruining good music apparently. Yes, subtle racism creeps in.
Of course, Dylan didn’t just go electric. He didn’t just walk away from folk and it is arguable that what he did contributed to modernising folk music. But he was breaking with people who had against the odds and with little money struggled to promote folk music and like Seeger were called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and paid dearly for their political and musical commitment, something Dylan never had to do. Dylan went on to mark his distance with the social and political movements that helped make him. Without the upheaval of the times, he may well have been just another folk musician. His break with the politics of the time led Joan Báez to write her song To Bobby[11] in 1972.
Dylan did write the odd political song afterwards, such as Hurricane[12] in 1975 and rescued a Phil Ochs organised concert following the coup in Chile and the murder of Victor Jara, by agreeing to appear last minute.[13] He even went on to record the song Jokerman[14] in 1983 which some have claimed is about Reagan, though it is full of references to Sodom and Gomorrah, and the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Dylan had his Jesus freak period and also his unabashed Zionist period, which started in 1971 and even after the Israeli massacre of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon he wrote his song Neighborhood Bully, which the New York Times described as an outspoken defence of Israel.[15] The Jewish Journal described it as a Zionist anthem.
You wouldn’t know from the film that Dylan had anything other than musical differences with “purists” such as Seeger and Lomax and was beginning his not so slow march away from activism, towards even greater riches. He became immensely popular after Newport. Dylan got where he is by turning his back on what he was and not just in some “purist” musical sense. Woody Guthrie was Dylan’s hero and in Guthrie’s song Tom Joad[17] he says:
And that is where Dylan most definitely wasn’t for most of his musical career thereafter. His rival Phil Ochs, now mostly forgotten, stood his ground and even poked fun at Dylan’s self-image as a godlike figure on his album Ringing of Revolution, in which in the introduction to the song Canons of Christianity[18] he explains how in a dream the Christian god came to speak to him and incredulously Ochs replies, “You’re putting me on of course, Dylan.”
Ochs does not appear in the film, despite appearing at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964 and 1966. He was not at the 1965 festival that is in the film. Though at an earlier concert in the film one of his songs There But for Fortune which Báez made famous does get an airing from Báez [20] herself but not from Ochs.[21] Both of them would later perform it together live.[22]
At the end of the day, it is an entertaining well-made film with solid performances from the main actors, though it is not an accurate depiction of the period or even of Dylan and how he came to be. It is to a large extent a Dylan hagiography, though an enjoyable one. If you knew nothing of the politics of the period, you would, after seeing the film still know next to nothing. Likewise, if you were unaware of the great musical explosion that was the 1960s and the immense variety and innovation going on, you would still know very little and perhaps think the innovation was just Dylan going electric. Watch it, enjoy it, but just don’t expect too much in any other sense.
References.
[1] See.
[2] See.
[3] See.
[4] See.
[5] See.
[6] See.
[7] See.
[8] The New Yorker (17/03/2015) The Unlikely Story of a Change is Gonna Gome. David Cantwell.
[9] See.
[10] NYT (27/12/2024) What Really Happened the Night Dylan Went Electric? Alan Light.
[11] See.
[12] See.
[13] See.
[14] See.
[15] Al Jazeera (22/10/2016) The Other Bob Dylan. Ali Saad. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/10/22/the-other-bob-dylan
[16] Jewish Journal. (18/05/2022) Bob Dylan’s Bohemian Zionism. Blake Flayton.
[17] See.
[18] See.
[19] Far Out. (10/11/2024) From Joan Baez to Phil Ochs: The five songwriters who crossed Bob Dylan. Kelly Scanlon.
[20] See.
[21] See.
James Mangold’s biopic of Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown has received rave reviews in almost all quarters. It has been praised on many levels. The film is based on Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties. A book, I confess, I have not read, but so far no one has accused the film of being unfaithful to the general message and tone of the book and I know not whether any of the failings of the film are also of the book or are down to Mangold’s interpretation of his source material.
The film has of course been praised for Chalamet’s interpretation of Dylan, and rightly so. He gets Dylan down to a tee. The same could be said of Monica Barbaro’s portrayal of Joan Baez and I was particularly impressed by Ed Norton’s Pete Seeger. On that level, there are few criticisms that could be made. The film runs for a full 141 minutes, but you won’t notice it. A long film that does not feel long, because its length is partially due to many of the songs being complete or near complete renditions. It makes the film enjoyable and no one is going to come away saying they were bored or that the acting and soundtrack was substandard. It scores on that level, though perhaps we are more familiar with the material it does so nowhere near as much as the Coen Bros, O Brother Where Art Thou? which went on to be a best-selling album and winning five Grammys and other awards. But any music lover is likely to enjoy this film.
It starts off with Dylan going to New York and meeting up with his hero Woody Guthrie when he goes to visit him in hospital. The film kicks off with Woody Guthrie’s music and includes Bob Dylan singing Song to Woody,[1] (links to all songs are included in the footnotes) which went on to be recorded by a number of other artists including Irish musician Christy Moore, under the title of Tribute to Woody.[2] One of the things the film gets right is Guthrie’s influence on Dylan and a host of other musicians. It would not be an understatement to say that without Woody Guthrie there might never have been a Bob Dylan, at least not as we know him.
The film goes on to show Dylan composing some of his more memorable songs Blowing in the Wind,[3] The Times They are a Changin [4] and Like a Rolling Stone.[5] However, the context in which these songs were written is almost absent from the film. There are only fleeting references to the convulsions of the time that inspired Dylan and the political and even musical movements he fed into and off. His song Blowing in the Wind, provoked the black singer Sam Cooke to not only do a cover of it,[6] but to say it was the type of song black artists should be doing and so he wrote A Change is Gonna Come,[7] which was released after his untimely murder.[8] We don’t just owe Woody Guthrie for giving us the Dylan we know, we also owe the Civil Rights Movement and the general upsurge in protest in the sixties. Again, Dylan without that social upheaval would never have been the Dylan we know. It is not a minor point, as the exclusion of this aspect contributes to a skewed vision of his decision to go electric and the bust up at the Newport Folk Festival and the parting of ways with Pete Seeger and others, including Alan Lomax to whom every musician in the USA and indeed the world owes a debt of gratitude. The event was much bigger than any musician which is clear from the programme at that time.[9]
It was Lomax who from the 1930s toured the US recording musicians, who were generally unknown, and preserving forever, music that otherwise would have been lost. He and his father, and other collaborators contributed thousands of field recordings, photos, field notes and more to the Library of Congress. It is thanks to Lomax we know of Leadbelly, Guthrie himself and even Seeger amongst others, some of whom Dylan mentions in his Song to Woody. Lomax was committed to the music for its own sake and as a representation of the people. He earned a living doing it, but scraped by, never making the fortunes that others, including Dylan would go on to make. In the film he comes across as some purist who just didn’t get it and a nasty person at that. Dylan owes Lomax more than Lomax would ever owe him, though that is not what you get from the film.
There is a scene where Lomax and Dylan’s manager come to blows at Newport. They did in fact do that, but the fight had nothing to do with Dylan going electric. There are many myths about that night which the New York Times has dealt with. Dylan was not the headline act, he had already released electric material and in fact an electric band opened the festival with no problems. There were other problems with Dylan on the night related to the volume and poor sound quality.[10] Though in the film Pete Seeger is seething and his Japanese wife in a nod to the popular image of Yoko Ono, gives such a deathly, I would gladly kill you stare. Another Japanese woman ruining good music apparently. Yes, subtle racism creeps in.
Of course, Dylan didn’t just go electric. He didn’t just walk away from folk and it is arguable that what he did contributed to modernising folk music. But he was breaking with people who had against the odds and with little money struggled to promote folk music and like Seeger were called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and paid dearly for their political and musical commitment, something Dylan never had to do. Dylan went on to mark his distance with the social and political movements that helped make him. Without the upheaval of the times, he may well have been just another folk musician. His break with the politics of the time led Joan Báez to write her song To Bobby[11] in 1972.
You left us marching on the road and said how heavy was the load
The years were young, the struggle barely had its start
Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby?
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying…
Like these flowers at your door and scribbled notes about the war
We're only saying the time is short and there is work to do
And we're still marching in the streets with little victories and big defeats
But there is joy and there is hope and there's a place for you
And you have heard the voices in the night, Bobby.
Dylan did write the odd political song afterwards, such as Hurricane[12] in 1975 and rescued a Phil Ochs organised concert following the coup in Chile and the murder of Victor Jara, by agreeing to appear last minute.[13] He even went on to record the song Jokerman[14] in 1983 which some have claimed is about Reagan, though it is full of references to Sodom and Gomorrah, and the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Dylan had his Jesus freak period and also his unabashed Zionist period, which started in 1971 and even after the Israeli massacre of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon he wrote his song Neighborhood Bully, which the New York Times described as an outspoken defence of Israel.[15] The Jewish Journal described it as a Zionist anthem.
Clearly, Neighborhood Bully is a Zionist anthem. Every line, the vast majority of which I cannot include in this column, waxes poetically on the Jewish-Israeli experience, blurring the lines between how one perceives the Jewish people as a unit and how one views Israel as a state. Written during the Israel-Lebanon War, the piece was seen as a lightning rod of support for Israel from the American Jewish community, at a time when even the Israeli people were increasingly critical of their own government. But over time, the tune has faded away, lost from the memories of even the most die-hard Dylan fans, and Google has even been accused of censoring it.[16]
You wouldn’t know from the film that Dylan had anything other than musical differences with “purists” such as Seeger and Lomax and was beginning his not so slow march away from activism, towards even greater riches. He became immensely popular after Newport. Dylan got where he is by turning his back on what he was and not just in some “purist” musical sense. Woody Guthrie was Dylan’s hero and in Guthrie’s song Tom Joad[17] he says:
Wherever people ain't free
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights
That's where I'm gonna be
Dylan has a complex relationship with many of his musical peers, but his connection with Phil Ochs seems one of the most turbulent. It’s unclear why; perhaps Dylan felt threatened by the prominence of another singer-songwriter with a political edge. Or, maybe seeing Ochs was like looking into a mirror, one that reflected his earlier musical vision, which he was becoming increasingly intent on leaving behind.[19]
Ochs does not appear in the film, despite appearing at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964 and 1966. He was not at the 1965 festival that is in the film. Though at an earlier concert in the film one of his songs There But for Fortune which Báez made famous does get an airing from Báez [20] herself but not from Ochs.[21] Both of them would later perform it together live.[22]
At the end of the day, it is an entertaining well-made film with solid performances from the main actors, though it is not an accurate depiction of the period or even of Dylan and how he came to be. It is to a large extent a Dylan hagiography, though an enjoyable one. If you knew nothing of the politics of the period, you would, after seeing the film still know next to nothing. Likewise, if you were unaware of the great musical explosion that was the 1960s and the immense variety and innovation going on, you would still know very little and perhaps think the innovation was just Dylan going electric. Watch it, enjoy it, but just don’t expect too much in any other sense.
References.
[1] See.
[2] See.
[3] See.
[4] See.
[5] See.
[6] See.
[7] See.
[8] The New Yorker (17/03/2015) The Unlikely Story of a Change is Gonna Gome. David Cantwell.
[9] See.
[10] NYT (27/12/2024) What Really Happened the Night Dylan Went Electric? Alan Light.
[11] See.
[12] See.
[13] See.
[14] See.
[15] Al Jazeera (22/10/2016) The Other Bob Dylan. Ali Saad. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/10/22/the-other-bob-dylan
[16] Jewish Journal. (18/05/2022) Bob Dylan’s Bohemian Zionism. Blake Flayton.
[17] See.
[18] See.
[19] Far Out. (10/11/2024) From Joan Baez to Phil Ochs: The five songwriters who crossed Bob Dylan. Kelly Scanlon.
[20] See.
[21] See.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
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