"Je est un autre"

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2008)

Both the ambition and the approach of this movie are appealing. "Inspired by many lives of Bob Dylan", it's joyfully mocking the concept itself of "true biography". But in fact, such disrespect for the true story turns out to be the most respectful approach that Dylan's well-known talent for self-invention deserves. In a significant sequence, one of the six characters inspired by Dylan lets call himself Arthur and while investigated by a commission wanting to reveal his true motivations and presumably subversive intentions, he quotes from the French poet famous phrase : "Je est un autre". By analogy, there is nothing like Bob Dylan's true ME. While watching "I'm not there", the only thing we "learn" is not to search for a true core of the man as if it was something hidden under his concrete acts, words and attitudes. That's because such an approach would share the same violence that reporters and fans exercise on Dylan after his "electric turn": in the most powerful moments of this picture, Cate Blanchett plays Dylan annoyed by the fame surrounding him and spreads cynical aphorisms while being interrogated by the press about what he means by his songs, his actions or his stances. And how should those be put together with his previous songs, actions and stances. But why should we strive to summarize all the disparate elements in a man's life into a coherent whole? After all, does a life of anybody have to be coherent to be worth living?