"Why Bob Dylan precisely now?". James Mangold looks puzzled on the other side of the zoom call. Timothée Chalamet, beside him, looks away. He seems to have understood the question. But remains silent. "Should I repeat the question?". "No, it's not necessary. But allow me, instead of answering, to ask you some questions: Why Picasso? Or Why Edward Hopper? Or, in another way, Why art?" says the director of A Complete Unknown with the same energy, we imagine, with which a mathematician reduces any argumentation to absurdity, whether it comes from a journalist or not. "Do I have to answer?". "No, it's not necessary, but you understand what I mean, right?", he concludes, seemingly proud.
The one responding, just to set the scene, is the director of one of the current hit movies. And we don't say it, but the box office (arriving in theaters on Friday) and the Oscars (unless something changes on Sunday), where it competes with up to eight nominations including best picture, director, and lead actor. The movie, indeed, is about Bob Dylan. Or rather, about his myth. Or, more precisely, about the exact moment when he renounced fame and everything associated with it to create a new world and gain even more fame. You know, when the folk singer went electric and became a legend. The Nobel Prize in Literature came later.
Question. So I'm going to ask you to develop the argument then.
Answer. I think there are things that are simply great and transcend culture, time, style, and fashion. Regardless of everything and apart from musical styles. I sincerely believe that is true and applicable to hip hop, folk, and rock and roll. You just see how many things fade away and others remain forever. I don't think there is a new reason to listen, for example, to Bob Dylan. I believe his music remains relevant, and what drove people to listen to him in the 60s is exactly the same now. His music is just as relevant for the same reasons. Because, what is Dylan's work about?
Q. That's another question.
Yes, and I'll answer it. It's about love, life, freedom, the struggle against submission... In other words, right now we face the exact same fears as someone could have faced in 1963. Any form of pure, uncontaminated art remains and endures.
Understood.
Q. Do you share the reasoning? (To Chalamet)
A. Yes, I find it a perfect reasoning. But I prefer to talk about my particular case. When I embarked on this journey into a period of history and music that I was unfamiliar with, I didn't know what I would find. And you realize that the struggles back then are the same as now. Then Dylan left us something that remains perfectly relevant. He did his best not to be categorized, never to be defined. And there he left us the same lesson that, curiously, Frank Herbert in Dune left us: be careful with anyone who claims to have a solution. It's curious because both, each from a different coast of the United States, came to the same conclusion at the same time, and it's even more curious that this lesson remains so relevant now.
And that's where it ends.
A. If something distinguishes A Complete Unknown, it's its willingness not to be defined by the easy and recurring biopic formula. And there it runs parallel, so to speak, to the life of the protagonist character, always determined not to be trapped by a definition or stereotype. The songs flow across the screen, many of them in full, always integrated into the narrative. At times, the film seems closer to the classic musical genre than to conventional biographical drama. Each well-known song is presented intertwined with the reality in which it is born and made. This applies to The Times They Are A-Changin before the audience at Newport receives it for the first time as if it were the soundtrack of their own life; to Master of War when the Cuban missile crisis erupts, or to the first rehearsal with Joan Baez (Monica Barbero) of Blowin' in the Wind. Later, again with Baez and with his other lover (Elle Fanning) as a witness, Chalamet/Dylan will perform It Ain't Me Babe and in the wrenching lyrics announcing the abandonment of everything that is not himself ("It ain't me you're looking for, babe"), the moral of all this melodrama is exposed: Dylan is who he is (and who he was) because of his infinite capacity for adaptation, understanding of the new times, indeed, betrayal of his own. That's what all this is about: renunciations and selfishness that create worlds, our world.
Q. You talk about new times, but, as in your film Walk the Line about Johnny Cash, everything unfolds in an idyllic past. Do you see yourself as a nostalgic person? Do you think the past was better?
A. I wouldn't go that far, but it's true that I love that era. I like the style of the 60s. And I feel that right now there is enough distance to be able to examine it truthfully. Besides, darn it, I would be happy if I never had to film a scene again with someone using a cell phone or typing a Google search. Modernity, our technological modernity, has diminished films. Before, if you were in love with a woman, you had to run to see her or at least dial her number on a rotary phone. There was always a filmable physical movement. Now we seem like vegetables in front of screens. Right now, if a man is left alone in the desert with a bottle of water and a dollar, the possibility of adventure ends if you also give him a cell phone. Risks, excitement, and drama have been drastically reduced. It's much harder now to tell a romantic story than before.
Q. Definitely, you are a nostalgic person.
A. Let's say there are symbols and metaphors from the past that speak to us about our present. That's the part of nostalgia that interests me.
Another issue that the film treats with disdain is the mystery that has always surrounded a reclusive artist, jealous of his private life and very reluctant to please his fans. In the film, Dylan seems so human that at one point Joan Baez tells him off. And she's right. "I find it striking that there is always talk of that, of the enigma, of the secret, to refer to an artist who has recorded more than 55 albums where he talks about everything that happens. Can one be more transparent?" says Mangold, and Chalamet agrees with him. "They ask me how hard it was to imitate Dylan, and truly, I don't think in those terms," the actor now speaks. And he continues: "Bob Dylan is alive in Malibu, and there is only one. I never thought of bringing a ghost to life. We are humble interpreters. Now let the audience judge."