Experimental Film-making Makes it to Mainstream Movies

Rating: Null/10 (10 January 2010)

It's hard to relate the Rock 'n' Roll experience to film. Even harder to relate is the experience of the actual lives of rock stars. Rock stars live their lives on the edge of experience. Most rock bio-pics while great at relating the biographical details, fail at the existential experience of the person. So, maybe the way to relate an avant garde life is through an avant garde film? We all have many selves within ourselves. Maybe it should be cellves, the different cellular aspects of our personalities that build the whole person. I'm Not There tries to capture the experience of Bob Dylan by breaking down the different aspects and personas Dylan has projected over the years of his fame. The young Woody Guthrie acolyte trying to find his voice, the Rimbaud rebel, the star, the born again preacher, the aged outlaw trying to lay low. A lot of writers, filmmakers, artists, and psychologists have all tried to break down the human psyche to one degree or another and I'm Not There does portray an interesting and complex personality in an interesting and avant garde manner.
Given it's experimental or avant garde credentials, I'm Not There isn't incomprehensible to the viewer. The portrayals of the different selves overlap and bleed into each other but the fragments fall together into the jigsaw of the whole. You just may have to spend a little time to let it all play out before you.
Probably the most daring aspect of I'm Not There is the casting of Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, the mid-60's era Dylan that went from folk music to electric. This could have been nothing but a cheap gimmick to flaunt the experimental nature of the film. But it isn't a gimmick, you quickly forget Blanchett is a woman playing a man, or in the context of the film you're never really conscious of it. It fits in with all the other portrayals in the film. Each is a subtle, nuanced fragment. Christian Bale's usual knock you over the head delivery is toned down to match the rest of the film. Richard Gere as the aging outlaw living in the surrealistic village of Riddle that's full of anachronisms and you're never sure if it's set in the 19th and 20th century. Gere's performance is sympathetic to a man trying to live out quietly his later years without all the fanfare and attention his early celebrity generated. A feeling I'm sure Gere can relate to. Another performance I really liked was David Cross as Allen Ginsburg. Cross leaves behind all his comic goofiness and delivers a nice little cameo.
The movie admits it's failure to categorize Dylan in the title, I'm Not There. As soon as you think you've nailed down the complexity of a person they've moved on.
Special Features-There's an Introduction to the film that gives you a little thumbnail synopsis of the personas. I thought it was a little unnecessary, the movie more than adequately defines the characters. There's a commentary by Director/co-writer Todd Hynes, and a making of documentary.