2008 Woodie Awards
I'm not there: the many lives of Bob Dylan
Drew Mika
Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: Entertainment
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12/07/07 - It's impossible to completely portray or understand another person's thoughts or personalities. Trying to interpret them and display those concepts on a screen through actors must be even more impossible. Attempting to do this with the personalities of Bob Dylan - who some call one of the most intricate and creative minds of our time - is like attempting to climb Mount Everest with no feet.
Somehow, Todd Haynes, director and co-writer of I'm Not There, the new motion picture about the many lives of Bob Dylan using six different actors to portray Dylan at different periods of his life, manages to accomplish this feat- and he does it flawlessly.
I'm Not There (the title is a play on one of Dylan's songs) is not a documentary, and in fact Bob Dylan's name is never mentioned. All of Dylan's songs on the soundtrack are cover songs, except for the movie's title song, "I'm Not There," and Dylan's most famous song, "Like A Rolling Stone," is only played during the credits. So if you didn't know anything about Dylan going into it, then you surely would not know anything about his life coming out of it.
The first character in the film to interpret Dylan is Marcus Carl Franklin, a fourteen year-old black boy, whom Haynes chose to portray Dylan during his early years - or at least the early years that Dylan fabricated for himself - naming his character Woody (in homage to Woody Guthrie).
Haynes uses what Dylan claimed his early childhood to be: living with a traveling circus, boxcar hopping to get around and having no formal education. This of course, just like in reality, is discovered to be false information later in the movie, when Cate Blanchett, who plays Dylan in the mid-60s (her character was named Jude Quinn) has a nasty interview with a British reporter who reveals all. The result is the song, "Ballad Of A Thin Man" on Highway 61 Revisited, a song and performance Haynes brilliantly incorporated into the film.
Cate Blanchett could have the performance of the year. Her character is the only one in the movie who looks, acts, and embodies Dylan as he/she runs ramped around a surreal London with companions such as Allen Ginsberg (played by David Cross), the Beatles, and the Edie Sedgwick-esque Coco Rivington, all the while, showing the pain, the enjoyment and the trips while touring with The Band 1965-1966.
Somehow, Todd Haynes, director and co-writer of I'm Not There, the new motion picture about the many lives of Bob Dylan using six different actors to portray Dylan at different periods of his life, manages to accomplish this feat- and he does it flawlessly.
I'm Not There (the title is a play on one of Dylan's songs) is not a documentary, and in fact Bob Dylan's name is never mentioned. All of Dylan's songs on the soundtrack are cover songs, except for the movie's title song, "I'm Not There," and Dylan's most famous song, "Like A Rolling Stone," is only played during the credits. So if you didn't know anything about Dylan going into it, then you surely would not know anything about his life coming out of it.
The first character in the film to interpret Dylan is Marcus Carl Franklin, a fourteen year-old black boy, whom Haynes chose to portray Dylan during his early years - or at least the early years that Dylan fabricated for himself - naming his character Woody (in homage to Woody Guthrie).
Haynes uses what Dylan claimed his early childhood to be: living with a traveling circus, boxcar hopping to get around and having no formal education. This of course, just like in reality, is discovered to be false information later in the movie, when Cate Blanchett, who plays Dylan in the mid-60s (her character was named Jude Quinn) has a nasty interview with a British reporter who reveals all. The result is the song, "Ballad Of A Thin Man" on Highway 61 Revisited, a song and performance Haynes brilliantly incorporated into the film.
Cate Blanchett could have the performance of the year. Her character is the only one in the movie who looks, acts, and embodies Dylan as he/she runs ramped around a surreal London with companions such as Allen Ginsberg (played by David Cross), the Beatles, and the Edie Sedgwick-esque Coco Rivington, all the while, showing the pain, the enjoyment and the trips while touring with The Band 1965-1966.