I'm Not There

I'm Not There uses a nonlinear narrative, shifting between six characters in separate storylines "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". Each character represents a different facet of Dylan's public persona: poet (Arthur Rimbaud), prophet (Jack Rollins/Father John), outlaw (Billy McCarty), fake (Woody Guthrie), "rock and roll martyr" (Jude Quinn), and "star of electricity" (Robbie Clark).
Production notes published by distributor The Weinstein Company explain that the film "dramatizes the life and music of Bob Dylan as a series of shifting personae, each performed by a different actorâpoet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, rock and roll martyr, born-again Christianâseven identities braided together, seven organs pumping through one life story."[3]
Arthur Rimbaud[edit]
19 year-old Arthur Rimbaud is questioned by interrogators. His cryptic responses are interspersed throughout the film, including remarks on fatalism, the nature of poets, "seven simple rules for life in hiding", and chaos.
Woody Guthrie[edit]
In 1959, an 11-year-old African American boy calling himself Woody Guthrie is freighthopping through the Midwestern United States. Carrying a guitar in a case bearing the slogan "this machine kills fascists", he plays blues music and sings about outdated topics such as trade unionism. One African American woman advises him to sing about the issues of his own time instead. Woody is attacked by hobos and nearly drowns, but is rescued by a white couple who take him in. They are impressed with his musical talents, but Woody runs off when they receive a telephone call from a juvenile corrections center in Minnesota telling them he is an escaped fugitive. Upon learning that the real Woody Guthrie is deathly ill, Woody travels to New Jersey to visit Guthrie in the hospital.
Jack Rollins/Father John[edit]
The career of folk musician Jack Rollins is framed as a documentary film, told by interviewees including folk singer Alice Fabian. Jack becomes a star of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s, praised by fans for his protest songs. He signs to Columbia Records, but in 1963, just as the Vietnam War is escalating, he stops singing protest songs and turns away from folk music, believing that neither effects real social or political change. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jack gets drunk at a ceremony where he is receiving an award from a civil rights organization. Remarking in his acceptance speech that he saw something of himself in Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, he is booed and derided by the audience. He goes into hiding, and in 1974 enters a bible study course in Stockton, California and emerges a born again Christian, denouncing his past and becoming an ordained minister performing gospel music under the name "Father John".
Robbie Clark[edit]
Robbie Clark is a 22-year-old actor who plays Jack Rollins in the 1965 biographical film Grain of Sand. During filming in Greenwich Village in January 1964, he falls in love with French artist Claire, and they soon marry. Grain of Sand is a hit and Jack becomes a star, but their relationship is strained and Claire observes Robbie flirting with other women. She is particularly offended when, during an argument in 1968 over whether the evils of the world can be changed, he opines that women can never be poets. Eventually Robbie moves out of their house, then goes to London for four months to film a thriller and has an affair with his female co-star. Richard Nixon's January 1973 announcement of the Paris Peace Accords inspires Claire to ask for a divorce. She gains custody of their two daughters, but allows Robbie to take them on a boating trip.
Jude Quinn[edit]
Jude Quinn is a popular former folk singer whose performance with a full band and electric guitars at a New England jazz and folk festival outrages his fans, who accuse him of selling out. Travelling to London, Jude is asked by journalist Keenan Jones if he still cares about people, or thinks folk music has failed to achieve its goals of sociopolitical change. Jude is attacked by a hotel employee, hangs out with The Beatles, encounters his former lover Coco Rivington, and meets poet Allen Ginsberg, who suggests that Jude "sold out to God". Interviewing Jude, Keenan notes that Jude's songs are being used as recruitment tools by the Black Panther Party and opines that Jude refuses to feel deeply about anything while simultaneously being very self-conscious; Jude is offended and walks out of the interview. At a concert performing "Ballad of a Thin Man", Jude is booed and called a "Judas" by the audience. Keenan reveals on television that, despite his claims of a rough-and-tumble vagabond past, Jude is actually Aaron Jacob Edelstein, the suburban, middle-class, educated son of a Brookline, Massachusetts department store owner. Faced with a long string of upcoming European tour dates, Jude spirals into drug use and is killed in a motorcycle accident.
Billy McCarty[edit]
Outlaw Billy McCarty, believed to have been killed by Pat Garrett, lives in hiding in rural Riddle, Missouri. Learning that Commissioner Garrett plans to demolish the town to build a highway, which has caused several townspeople to commit suicide, Billy confronts Garrett. Garrett recognizes Billy as the outlaw Billy the Kid and has him thrown in jail. He is broken out by his friend Homer and hops into a boxcar on a passing train, where he finds Woody's guitar. As he rides away, he remarks on the nature of freedom and identity.
The film concludes with footage of Dylan playing a harmonica solo during a live performance in 1966.[4]

Question: What is Dylan playing?
Answer: Harmonica