For many people who see it, the enduring memory of Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan inspired I’m Not There will be *Cate Blanchett*’s magnetising portrayal of the man in his famed electric period. It’s little wonder that Blanchett’s Dylan has been plastered on all the promotional material for the film – it is impossible to be anywhere other than right in the moment with her/him for every minute of screen time. Blanchett shifts shape into popular culture’s ultimate shapeshifter in a performance that is not only Oscar worthy (safe to puts odds on it now) but almost appears to be a kind of possession – she has captured everything: from hand gestures, turns of phrase and syllable, even the way Dylan lit his cigarettes, and above that managed to make us care for him as a character, even at the height his most unsympathetic – some might even say misogynist – phase. It is remarkable in every sense, and the film never quite finds the same strength in the five other Dylan threads explored in portrayals by Christian Bale, Richard Gere, eleven year old black actor Marcus Carl Franklin, with Ben Whishaw and Heath Ledger.
If you are hoping for an austere, factually accurate portrait of Dylan, you are not going to get it here. Rather than add to the huge amounts of seriously minded (not to imply that I’m Not There isn’t serious, because it is) documentary material there already is, Haynes’ vision is to take on storylines which were directly inspired by key periods in Dylan’s creative life. And it is a very personal and subjective interpretation of what those periods mean to the director. As a result there are sections that clearly make perfect sense to the filmmaker, but are somewhat lost on the viewer who doesn’t share a similarly intense obsession with the subject. Yet there is so much passion and careful consideration infused within each of the stories, that they stand alone, if not as a coherent whole. Richard Gere’s storyline, which sees him playing an old west incarnation of a lost America, will be confusing to those of us not familiar with that history. But it’s hypnotic none the less, and also one of the more emotionally affecting pieces.
Heath Ledger plays the Blood on the Tracks era Dylan with an atypical intensity. After we follow the part where he is playing an actor who portrays a Dylanesque character in a film (following? Nevermind) named Robbie Clark, we get to explore a time tested notion of the extracurricular affects of a creative life on a domestic one. It is a by turns ugly and devastating story, but again told so honestly by Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the wife divorcing him, that the brutal selfishness of rockstars seems almost a regular human folly.
Bob Dylan signed off on this film, which until now was unheard of. It won’t reveal any ultimate secrets to his creative longevity, or provide much new insight into a man who has made a career out of obsfucation. But it will move you if you’re a fan of music, whether of Dylan in particular or not. There are brilliant cameos from Kim Gordon and David Cross (as Allen Ginsberg, no less) and Haynes’ long time muse, Julianne Moore appears as a Joan Baez character in Christian Bale’s folk line. There are complex references to the historical contexts of each of the timelines, (which are sometimes intercut with newsreel footage to illustrate this) as well as a cultural commentary on the aftemath of the 60s counter culture revolution. It is extremely complex, well researched, funny, insightful, clever and thought provoking at once.
I went and got a bunch more Dylan records after I saw this, so I’m Not There may well turn a whole new generation of people onto him, who will then discover the music in their own way – which is surely a beautiful thing and more than most films can deliver.
