A new Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, hits theaters on Christmas Day. As historian Douglas Brinkley tells us, it’s just the latest chapter in a long love affair between Dylan and the movies.
Growing up in the iron-rich mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota in the 1940s and 1950s, Bob Dylan wasn’t exposed to much nonconformity or social upheaval. Except, that is, in the movies.
It was in the local theaters, one of which was owned by his relatives, where he first saw Brigitte Bardot, one of his first crushes and the muse of some of his first songs.
“Well, my phone rang and wouldn’t stop
It’s President Kennedy calling me
He said, “My friend Bob, what do we need to grow the country?”
I said, “My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot
Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren…”
— “I Shall Be Free” by Bob Dylan
Young Bob wore a leather jacket after seeing Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” When he saw the youth melodrama “Blackboard Jungle,” with its groundbreaking rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack, he told a friend, “That’s exactly what we’ve been trying to tell people about ourselves.”
Seeing James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” inspired him to confront the shackles of Cold War conformity in his music.
Once Dylan arrived in New York’s Greenwich Village, it was international art-house films that caught his eye: Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” … “La dolce vita” by Fellini. That film, about a tabloid reporter vainly seeking satisfaction in a hedonistic Rome, seemed, 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 Prizethe most streamed song.
His music has enhanced numerous film scores, from “The Big Lebowski” to, most recently, “St. Vincent.”
One film stuck with Dylan for decades: “The Gunfighter,” starring Gregory Peck. When Peck heard his name on Dylan’s epic 1986 ballad “Brownsville Girl,” he phoned him 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 amazing Timothée Chalamet, is not Dylan’s first film representation. But it’s a reminder of the enduring, 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 the video player below:
For more information:
Story produced by Robert Marston. Publisher: George Pozderec.
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