The Man Behind The Songs

Rating: 7/10 (23 February 2008)

So I illegally downloaded Todd Haynes' new film, I'm Not There, the other day. I kinda wish I had seen it in a theatre, cuz there is some amazing music at play here. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the film. The buzz around the film has mostly surrounded the fact that Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan, or rather, a version of Bob Dylan. But while her performance is one of the best parts of the film, it is only a portion of the film. But the buzz has been so overwhelming that I didn't realize Christian Bale was in the film until I saw him in the credits.
The point of the film, I guess, is to show the different sides of Bob Dylan through different character that each represent some part of his personality and a different phase of his life in the spotlight. Each segment has its own unique style and take on the artist. Some segments and actors are better than others. Overall, I'd say the film is worth seeing on the strength of the better segments and on the strength of the music, which is amazing. But it could've done with a shorter edit and less pseudo-intellectual psycho-babble.
The earliest incarnation of Dylan is shown through a young black boy who calls himself Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin). We see him traveling the south on a box car and interacting with various hobos and families that take him in. I suppose that this represents his life before fame, where he seems to be a fake. He talks about losing his true love and losing his career to the bottle before joining the union cause, despite it being 1959. During this segment, Woody learns to "sing about his own time", which leads us into the next segment.
Christian Bale plays Jack Rollins, the introverted political "finger-pointer" who takes the folk music world by storm in the early 1960's. This segment is done in an faux 1980's documentary with Julianne Moore giving interviews as Rollins friend and fellow singer/songwriter. While Moore nails the part of grown up hippie, Bale is a little less sure. His scenes feel awkward at first as he hunches over his guitar and imitates Dylan's trademark mumble. He grows into the role and it seems less like acting later on, but I can't help but feel he was miscast. He has too much confidence and presence as an actor, it just doesn't feel right.
The "documentary" follows Rollins as he becomes disillusioned with the music business and with politics after JFK's assassination. The last we see of Rollins, he's an ordained pastor who denounces his old music as work of "the devil" and puts his songwriting skills to work singing for God.
The next incarnation of Dylan is Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger, RIP), the bad boy movie star who plays Rollins in one of his films. This segment covers his 9-year marriage to Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), which begins well and ends badly after Clark gets entangled with a co-star on one of his movies. This segment of the film is obliquely entangled to the Vietnam War, the marriage ends when the war ends. While Gainsbourg's performance is wonderful, Ledger's Clark doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to Dylan, who was never a real movie star, and never that charismatic. I suppose this sequence was meant to be seen as the era where Dylan entered the mainstream, where he was "cool". But if this is the case, I don't see why so much time is spent on the relationship with Claire.
The Blanchett sequence is the best sequence. Blanchett plays with the sexuality and gender of her character, Jude Quinn. This version of Dylan resembles the post-electric Dylan who angered his fans to the point where they threw things at him on a regular basis. Blanchett's portrayal of Quinn is not sympathetic at all. He is a cynical, drug-addled, mess of a human being, but still a great artist. This segment covers Quinn's interview with Keenan Jones(Bruce Greenwood), a British TV personality who effectively "kills" Quinn by inciting the anger of his fans who wanted the traditional folk songs and are angered by his not being the same as he was before.
This segment also covers the psychedelia of the era by having Quinn get so high as to insult all of his friends and puke at a party from too many drugs. In this state, he befriends the nihilistic poet, Allen Ginsberg (David Cross), who suggests that Quinn will never recover from passing out because dying is the "in" thing to do.
It's unfortunate that the last sequence is one in which Dylan is imagined as an older Billy the Kid(Richard Gere). One who wasn't actually killed by Pat Garrett, but remains in hiding. This is an obvious reference to Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which Dylan co-starred as neither Pat Garrett nor Billy the Kid. There's nothing wrong with Gere's performance, but it bears little resemblance to any of the previous Dylan's and little resemblance to Dylan himself.
Bruce Greenwood returns, but this time as Pat Garrett, who represents the establishment that pisses Billy the Kid off enough to return to work. This whole sequence is too metaphorical, Marcus Carl Franklin even appears as if to complete the "circle". It especially feels false coming off the wonderful Cate Blanchett/Jude Quinn sequence.
I still give the film a thumbs up, however. The is music is all Dylan, and as you would expect, it's all wonderful. The strength of the Guthrie/Rollins/Quinn sequences make up for the shortcomings. When you have 6 actors up against each other like this, it's almost unfair. One is obviously going to come across as better than the others. In this case, it's Blanchett. saying that Blanchett is the best actor is unfair, however, as she also has the most showy character and the best dialogue.
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