A new Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, arrives in theaters Christmas Day. As historian Douglas Brinkley tells us, it’s just the latest chapter in a lengthy love affair between Dylan and the movies.
Growing up in the iron-rich mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, in the 1940s and ’50s, Bob Dylan was not exposed to much non-conformity or social upheaval. Except, that is, at the movies.
It was at the local theaters, one of which was owned by his relatives, that he first set eyes on Brigitte Bardot, an early crush and muse for some of his first songs.
“Well, my telephone rang it would not stop
It’s President Kennedy callin’ me up
He said, ‘My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?’
I said, ‘My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot
Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren …’ “
— “I Shall Be Free” by Bob Dylan
Young Bob sported a leather jacket after seeing Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” When he saw the juvenile melodrama “Blackboard Jungle,” with its innovative rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack, he reportedly said to a friend, “This is exactly what we’ve been trying to tell people about ourselves.”
Seeing James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” inspired him to stand up against the shackles of Cold War conformity in his music.
Once Dylan made it to New York’s Greenwich Village, it was the art-house international films that caught his eye: Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” … Fellini’s “La dolce vita.” That film, about a tabloid journalist searching in vain for fulfillment in a hedonistic Rome, looked, Dylan later said, “like life in a carnival mirror.
Dylan’s first major film appearance, however, was a cameo in director Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.” The film spawned the classic song “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” now the Nobel laureate‘s most-streamed song.
His music has enhanced scores of movie scores, from “The Big Lebowski,” to more recently “St. Vincent.”
One film stuck with Dylan for decades: “The Gunfighter,” starring Gregory Peck. When Peck heard his name in Dylan’s epic 1986 ballad “Brownsville Girl,” he phoned him up to thank him. Peck would reiterate his gratitude in 1997, when he presented Dylan with the Kennedy Center Honor.
The new biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring an astounding Timothée Chalamet, is hardly the first cinematic depiction of Dylan. But it’s a reminder of the enduring and symbiotic relationship between Dylan and the movies … and a welcome excuse to revisit the work of this singular American artist.
To watch a trailer for “A Complete Unknown,” click on the video player below:
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: George Pozderec.
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