"You may call me anything but no matter what you say... "

Rating: 4/10 (22 December 2008)

I am a fan of Bob Dylan's talent. I admire him as a singer-songwriter, musician who plays several instruments, and especially as a poet. I understand very well that Dylan is not Luciano Pavarotti, Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury or Ian Gillan but his rough, nasal and far from perfect singing voice speaks to me clearly. For five decades he's been a major figure in popular music and the number of his admirers has only increases as time goes by. It is not surprising that the figure of such complexity, influence and enigma would attract journalists, writers, and film directors who would try to understand and explain phenomenon of Bob Dylan. When I learned about Todd Haynes' films about Bob Dylan where different aspects of his personality during different times of his life, represented by the different performers, I became a little suspicious. The whole idea sounded a bit pretentious even if I respected what Hayens was trying to achieve. Sadly, his approach did not work for me.
The movie is all over the place and it jumps from past to present and around the world with the grace and elegance of a behemoth. 6 actors of different ages, genders and races play the different Bob Dylan's personalities. I have no problems with many actors playing one person but the problem is - Hayens in his latest film is not Federico Fellini or Luis Bunuel who had made a movie with two actresses playing one character. Bunuel's last film was funny, mysterious, and interesting because Bunuel did not make a big deal of it, and because of his incomparable sense of humor. Having six actors playing one character makes the movie crowded, claustrophobic, and over-complicated with no particular reason and with "no direction home". Besides, of six actors, not all are equally good and it is not perhaps even their fault. Try to create depth of the character, for instance, in Richard Gere's part as a Billy the Kid outlaw figure - I could not help laughing out loud every time Gere was on screen and I love the actor dearly. One of the ominous signs for me that the movie is bad is an urge to laugh in the wrong places. Or take another Dylan's incarnation by the name Arthur Rimbaud - you either know who Arthur Rimbaud was and you laugh at the parallel Haynes tries to draw here or you don't, and it would make no sense to you why the French poet-Rebel of 19th Century was brought to life to enlighten us with the pieces of wisdom like: "I accept chaos. I don't know whether it accepts me "or "Y'know, it's nature's will. And I'm against nature. I'm not cool with nature" among others.
I understand that "I am not there" was the loving tribute and the attempt to understand one of the most complex, enigmatic, controversial, and influential figure in the modern culture but quoting Dylan himself,
"You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy, You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy, You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray, You may call me anything but no matter what you say... ", Mr. Haynes, sorry, but it did not work as the whole.
You should have made the movie with one Bob Dylan - like figure and it should have been Cate Blanchett. She is way above all five male performers combined together, and her Jude Quinn simply blew away all other personalities from the screen. If ever the dis joined overwrought overcrowded incoherent self-indulgent and confusing with no redeeming cause movie did reach a high point, it was with Blanchett on screen. She keeps proving with her every role that she is truly one of the best (for me THE best actress of her generation - courageous, always ready to take on the challenge, convincing, compelling, beautiful talented Cate Blanchett.
4/10 - all points go to Cate Blanchett