The Lives and Time of Bob Dylan

A few days ago I watched I’m Not There, a biographical movie of Bob Dylan, written and directed by Todd Haynes. I must say the movie is truly impressive, my first time to watch a Todd Haynes movie and instantly liked the visionary in him. It’s an unconventional biopic, the not-really-typical narrative where the life of iconic singer-songwriter Bob Dylan is conveyed in shifting stories through different characters. And Cate Blanchett is superb. Superb. I have to say it one more time. Superb.

In this movie, Bob Dylan was portrayed by six different actors (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett) who play characters based on Dylan in different stages of his life, but with different names. Marcus Carl Franklin is Woody Guthrie, a young black kid who represents the 11 year-old Dylan. In the movie he runs off from a juvenile correction center by hitching on a train. The version of Bob Dylan as the young folk activist Jack Rollins turned ‘Pastor John,’ signifying Dylan as the born again Christian is portrayed by Christian Bale. Cate Blanchett is Jude Quinn in the movie, which represents Bob Dylan at the peak of his career during the ‘60s, the time when he was labeled a sell-out by original fans for shifting from folk to electric. Ben Whishaw plays a version of Dylan as a young rebel who calls himself after the poet Arthur Rimbaud. Heath Ledger (this is the last recent movie I’ve seen with Ledger before his untimely passing) is Robbie Clark in the film, a Hollywood actor famous for his performance of Jack Rollins. Clark corresponds to Dylan as the husband and later divorcee from wife Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). This character echoes Dylan’s marriage to and divorce from Sarah Lownds. Richard Gere lastly, is Billy the Kid in the movie, which mirrors Dylan who went into exile in Woodstock, New York, after his 1966 motorcycle crash.

The movie is not actually revealing, and you wouldn’t hear even once Bob Dylan’s name being mentioned in the film. For it is the characters that speak for the name Bob Dylan, and the songs of Dylan inhabiting the storylines speaks as well for the legend himself. “I’m Not There” is actually a Dylan outtake, a song never officially released until its appearance on the film’s official soundtrack album.