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I'm Not There (2007)

Director: Todd Haynes

Time Out rating

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9 reviews

Synopsis

Todd Haynes’s (‘Safe’, ‘Far from Heaven’) long-gestating take on the life of Bob Dylan features several different actors playing the folk legend, including Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and Cate Blanchett, in ‘Blonde On Blonde’-era shades and fro-wig.

Movie review

From Time Out London

There are plenty of reasons why you might dislike ‘I’m Not There’, Todd Haynes’ crazy jigsaw of a sort-of biography of Bob Dylan that breaks all the rules without writing any new ones. If you’re a Dylan nut, you might object to the loose telling of the facts – ‘What? You’re telling me that Suze Rotolo and Sara Lownds were the same person and that Dylan fathered two daughters with her?’ That kind of thing. Alternatively, if you know next to zilch about Dylan, you might find yourself all at sea amid Haynes’ torrent of wink-wink references and playful, fold-in, fold-out approach to events in the artist’s life. And, finally, if you’re one of those who can’t stand Dylan’s songs or hear anything in them beyond an excoriating whine, well, sorry, but you may find yourself reaching to employ your popcorn as earplugs: the film is packed with his music, performed by the man himself and a clever line-up of cover artists, from Sonic Youth to Cat Power to Calexico.

The recipe is famous. Six actors. Seven Dylans – none of them called ‘Dylan’. Colour. Black-and-white. Backwards and forwards. Forwards and backwards. Selective memory. Abstract concepts of character. The deconstruction of images and speeches. Marcus Carl Franklin, a 13-year-old African-American actor, plays the spirit of a teenage Dylan meshed with his hero Woody Guthrie’s vision of the highways and byways of the depressed 1930s nation. Heath Ledger is a late ’60s film star who is wrestling with a failing marriage to a celebrated painter (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg). Christian Bale is two Dylans: first Jack, a protest singer in early ’60s Greenwich Village, then in the late ’70s John, an evangelical preacher in the dreary suburbs. Richard Gere is a reclusive Bob, framed in the territory of Peckinpah’s ‘Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid’ and playing Billy as a disguised, wandering survivor of Garrett’s blood-lust. Then there’s Cate Blanchett, all cheekbones and mercurial, as Pennebaker’s black-suited Dylan and who exists in a world where verité meets Richard Lester meets Fellini. And, lastly, there’s Ben Whishaw who evokes Dylan’s love of Rimbaud and hatred of questioning with his back to the wall in an interrogation set-up.

Whatever your prejudices, if you’re sick of films that treat the lives of artists – musicians, especially – in the same, predictable fashion, then you should thank the high heavens for ‘I’m Not There’. Too often, we watch and groan as artistic inspiration is presented as a corny eureka moment (I still haven’t forgotten the sight of paint dripping to the floor of Jackson’s lavatory in ‘Pollock’) and domesticity is offered as a barrier to expression and later as a refuge from the fallout of that expression. Too often, too, a film claims to offer the last word on a life. Haynes is pretending to offer no such thing. His approach is honest: it’s the reflection of a life through the mirror of experimental film. It’s an acceptance that contradictions and interpretations and even mistakes are more acceptable than a biography preached as if from a pulpit.This is a typical blurring of form from a director who has already rethought the lives of Karen Carpenter and David Bowie and who looked afresh at the work of Douglas Sirk in ‘Far From Heaven’. t’s not a perfect experiment. At several points, it loses its strange rhythm, only to be rescued by the music itself, which is always well chosen and placed. At other times, Haynes is too much in debt to his sources, such as Pennebaker’s films, or he fixates for too long on a single thought, such as that which sees Gere wandering through a carnivalesque landscape in the late nineteenth century. But the film’s best ideas – such as Franklin’s ‘Woody’ strumming in the lounge of his proud, white adopted family or Ledger’s ‘Robbie’ wandering out of a Nicholas Ray-style film-within-a-film to fall in love with Charlotte Gainsbourg and later to reject her – are smart, playful and ensure that as a fractured, highly personal biography, ‘I’m Not There’ is full of intriguing arguments, movements and performances.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2007-10-08 17:05:29

Time Out London Issue 1948: December 19 2007-January 1 2008

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User reviews of this film

Jerry said...

Posted on Aug 23 2008 02:07 I thought it an interesting film ,what with the modern
updates by contemporary artists bringing a similar energy to the original in the tracks played.The music also explained pieces of the jig-saw: the multi-personae
that he adopts-the psychic trickster,the outlaw cowboy,
the mystic savant,the Cassandra of doom. Each actor
gave themselves totally to their role-the many selves of Dylan:Jude,Billy,Woody,Robbie,Arthur etc.Gere looked like somebody who strayed from 'Pat Garrett & Billy the
Kid',a rancher from the Basement Tapes out of John
Wesley Harding Americana.He gave the film it's still
centre.The young actor playing Woody captured well
a character out of Dylan's backstory. Blanchett captured
the hermaphroditic mercurial Dylan of 65-66 after he'd
turned electric.London out of a Fellini movie.Whishaw
was the evasive Dylan of the press conferences and
played the Arthur Rimbaud period of Chimes of Freedom and Tamborine Man in the post protest phase.
Protest phase was captured very well by Bale in late 60s
and conversion to Christianity phase(2 in 1).Ledger
captures the cool Dylan and the Dylan of Blood on the Tracks.The female cast are excellent especially
Gainsborough who gives the film dignity and restraint,
and Moore covers Joan Baez in reminiscence and of
course the impressive Blanchett. the choice of music
was not necessarily his best known or liked tracks but
some surprisingly illuminating ones which help explain
the background scenes.I liked particularly'I'm Not There'
by Pearl Jam and 'Going to Acapulco' by Calico. There
is a nod to different film-making styles eg. Ledger's
Dylan would reflect French New Wave especially in it's
treatment of women:to be worshipped but not creative
in their own right.I felt this film was a brave attempt by
Todd Haynes as a fan of Dylan's music and the
chameleon-like changes the man-performer went through.

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Les Molloy said...

Posted on Apr 12 2008 14:13 With, or without, huge admiration for Dylan this is a great film. Like a trip. Combine Blanchett, Gere, Bale and Dylan, notwitshstanding the excellent supporting cast, and you get more than you would expect. Male - female stereotyping, discussed in one scene, is thrown out the window by Blanchett's superb characterisation of a mid career Dylan. This film left me wantimg more. More minutes. 137 was just not enough!

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Feb 21 2008 21:35 Not having seen the film.I still have an idea ot he sense in which it was made.Everybody has their own interpretation of Dylan.Dylan went through many phases in his artistic developement.For example,the Protest phase(Blowin in the Wind,Times they are A-Changingetc.),the lyrical poeticRimbaudian phase,Chimes of Freedom,Mr. Tambourine Man,My Back Pages.The Electric Rock Troubadour phase,Like A Rolling Stone,I Want You,Maggie's Farm,Stuck Inside A Mobile.The Country Boy phase,Basement Tapes,John Wesley Harding,Nashville Skyline. Survivor Bluesman,Planet Waves,Blood on the Tracks.Redemptive Christian phase,Slow Train..,Saved,Oh Mercy.Dylan himself said he physically and mentally changed every 7 years and he had a mercurial presence.The film maker Todd Haynes had the great presence of mind to reflect the elusiveness of Dylan's genius by embodying it in several main line actors.His film is an attempt to mirror all the many layers of the indefinable artistry of this unique talent.There are many personae in Dylan's psyche(King Lear,Little Boy Lost),Dylan acted what he felt he was at any particular time.His whole life was a performance and he always wore a mask.Hence the reason why the film had to be made in this way.

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Paul said...

Posted on Jan 04 2008 11:31 As a big Bob Dylan fan, I was really looking forward to this film. I was very disappointed. It was too long and far too pretentious. It was even worse for friends who were not familiar with some of the more obscure aspects of Dylan's life. There are large chunks of the film which simply make no sense if you don't know about the situation they're representing.
I really enjoyed the 'version' of Dylan represented by the young black "Woody Guthrie" boy. That particular part was well thought out and well-acted and the music was certainly the best in the movie. I also thought the "Arthur Rimbaud" character made sense, though this was a very minimal part of the film. However, the rest of the movie was absolute tripe.
Cate Blanchett played the part of 1965/6 Dylan fantastically, adopting the mannerisms expertly, but the dialogue she had to utter was atrocious as were the situations in which the character was put. The section of the film set in England, including the "Don't Look Back" part, was absolutely appalling. Aside from the man playing the Albert Grossman character and Bruce Greenwood's depiction of a cynical journalist, the acting of the smaller parts was abysmal. England was filled with terrible actors with, on the whole, terrible fake posh-English accents.
Richard Gere's "Billy the Kid" aspect of the film lacked any impact at all and seemed quite pointless. Heath Ledger's section had slightly more to it, assumedly representing Bob Dylan's romantic life with Suze Rotolo and Sara Dylan as well as his family life, but was ultimately dull and inconsequential. As for Christian Bale's performance, it was horrible. The man sounded like some sort of comedy caricature of Bob Dylan - done badly. His acting was equally atrocious.
If you're a big Bob Dylan fan like myself, you might get a little something out of it. Especially enjoyment of the Woody Guthrie character. You may also enjoy Cate Blanchett's depiction of Dylan with its accurate mannerisms. However, I don't think it's really worth 135 minutes of your time. If you're not a Bob Dylan fan, I really wouldn't bother. You're not going to gain anything from it and I doubt you'd enjoy it.

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Jon said...

Posted on Dec 30 2007 10:58 Never a Dylan fan I was entranced. I will never hear this music the same way. I really liked the use of Cate Blanchet giving the character a vulnerable edge to the feistiness. I thought Charlotte G really kept the film real with her understated charismatic performance.

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john toner said...

Posted on Dec 28 2007 21:25 Dave Calhoun and I definitely saw the same film. When you make a biopic of a man who refused all labels, it would be folly to attempt to define him. Ultimately, the film is moving and affirmative. And while nothing is perfect, it is as deserving of six stars as anything else we might see this year.

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melanie mcmahon said...

Posted on Nov 29 2007 16:25 Ive seen the film and its brilliant wow!!!!!!!!!!!

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stephen o'connor said...

Posted on Nov 29 2007 16:23 Its great to see afilm dedicated to dylan. He really is one of the great legends of the musical bible im certainly excited to see what its like. Weve had ray, walk the line so y not dylan ... cant wait!!!!!!

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chase said...

Posted on Oct 17 2007 20:02 I'm really excited to see this movie. Haynes is interesting and their is a great concept using talented actors. I love Dylan so I'm either going to love or hate this film.
However, I think I'm just as curious to hear the soundtrack. Eddie Vedder, Sonic Youth, Sufjan Stevens , Yo La Tengo, Jeff Tweedy, and John Doe are all doing Dylan covers! That's insane. I'm really curious to hear it come the 30th of October. Has anyone heard the soundtrack?

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