Bob Dylan Film Is a Ship Without a Sail

Rating: 7/10 (25 November 2007)

I felt about "I'm Not There," Todd Haynes' tribute to the spirit of Bob Dylan, much about the way I feel about Bob Dylan himself. I like the IDEA of Dylan more than I enjoy sitting down and actually listening to him, and that's how this movie was for me.
"I'm Not There" is not a biography of Bob Dylan, and for that I'm grateful. The last thing the world needs is another film like "Ray" or "Walk the Line," bland paint-by-numbers biopics. Rather, Haynes' film is more of a tribute to the many feelings Dylan songs can inspire, and the various personas Dylan the artist took on in the eyes of the public. Therefore, we get six actors playing different Dylanesque characters, or the kind of people Dylan might have written songs about, or characters meant simply to represent a distinct time and place in America. The first we meet is a young black boy named Woody Guthrie and played by Marcus Carl Franklin, who rides the rails with guitar in tow and sings songs that sound like they should be coming from someone much older. Ben Whishaw plays a poet named Arthur Rimbaud who appears to be testifying or defending himself in court for reasons we never learn. Christian Bale is Jack Rollins, an icon of the folk music craze who becomes a born-again Christian in later life; Heath Ledger is an actor who made a name for himself playing Rollins on screen and whose personal life is slowly disintegrating. Richard Gere is Billy the Kid, hiding out in the old West. And in the film's most memorable performance, Cate Blanchett plays Jude, the character most modeled on Dylan himself, who struggles with success and fame in the face of a public growing increasingly frustrated with him for not playing the part they expect.
"I'm Not There" is full of ideas about art and artists, and I applaud Haynes for attempting to bring something fresh and original to the screen. But I never once connected with the film on any level. The movie never stops experimenting, so it doesn't give you much to get involved with. Everything is representative and symbolic, so none of the characters feel like living breathing people. It's far too long -- I especially felt my patience beginning to snap by the time Gere made his appearance late in the film. The movie feels like it's comprised of a hundred different strands of thought that never cohere. In some ways, this is fitting, since the film is in large part about the enigmatic nature of artists, and the general public's indifference to who an artist really is in the face of who it wants him to be. But even a film about an enigma needs something to anchor it.
Grade: B