Every bit as good as advertised

[bill_schubert]

In my experience, the more a movie is advertised the worse it is. A Complete Unknown has been all over my feed for a couple of months now and I've seen the TV commercials recently. Maybe it is just because I'm a music person and love Timothy Chalamet from his tour in Dune but the movie has outstripped its fanfare.

If Chalamet does not get an Oscar this year there is no justice and he'll end up winning in a couple of years for something idiotic just to make up for it. Seldom have I seen anyone so completely become a character, all the more difficult as I've seen enough of Dylan to get a pretty good feel for what he's like and I saw him on the screen and heard him talking and singing and playing guitar (all of which Chalamet did almost entirely on his own).

And Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, the same. It was really like listening to Seeger. And Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez. Same.

The movie is wonderful. I've been to most of the locations in the movie although it was a few years after the time period covered. Still, the grit of the Village in NYC was there in all its pre crack glory.

I also loved seeing the characters of Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, Mavis Staples and Maria Muldaur and how they fit in the story.

It was a fun movie for me and really did give me more insight into Dylan's character. One of the things he said was that he could tell when people asked him how he wrote his songs they were really asking why they couldn't write them. And at one point Joan Baez accused him of being an asshole for coming to her apartment and writing songs. Songs, presumably, she could not keep up with, music that was so good and so prolific.

Funny side note. About 23 years after the time in which the movie is set I went to the Newport Folk Festival and saw, among others, Arlo Guthrie play.

Comments

[zestfive]

Peter Seger and Arlo Guthrie were some of my dad's favorites. I remember hearing them play as a kid probably 12 years old or so in a large auditorium in Minneapolis and I remember the energy of everyone singing along. It was lovely.

[bill_schubert]

Ed Norton captured the kindness of Segar and they did portray some of the audience sing along kind of thing that was so big back then. Sing along with Mitch time frame.

[siglinde999]

I have heard good things about the movie, mostly from a film reviewer who generally hates this kind of biopic. I will need to check it out.

[bill_schubert]

There aren't subtitles. I'm used to subtitles. So weird to have to actually listen to the words without being able to read them too.

[siglinde999]

Funny how we get used to movies a certain way. I hate subtitles and am constantly turning them off for services I share with my daughter. I gave up watching Shogun because I found them too annoying; they were essential because so much of the show was in Japanese LOL.