I’m Not There
Directed by Todd Haynes
Written by Todd Haynes, Oren Moverman
Starring Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, David Cross, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood
Release Date November 21st, 2007
Published January 15th, 2025
With the release and popularity of the new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, now is the right time to look back at the last time a filmmaker attempted to bring the life of Bob Dylan to the big screen. In 2007, the remarkably gifted director Todd Haynes made the film I’m Not There and to set it apart from the spate of rock n’roll biopics like Walk the Line, Ray, and so on, Haynes decided to approach the life of Bob Dylan from a few different and quite odd angles. Employing a half a dozen actors to embody aspects of Dylan’s career, I’m Not There flies in the face of the traditional biopic and creates something wholly unique that somehow feels more authentic to the life of Bob Dylan than even A Complete Unknown which is a strictly conventional biopic.
I’m Not There approaches the life of Bob Dylan the same way Dylan himself does, in eras and personas. The first such persona is a young black boy, calling himself Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), in honor of the musician that inspired Dylan to pick up a guitar. The verbose young Woody is hopping trains, playing his guitar, and sharing his wise-beyond-his-years philosophy as he makes his way to New Jersey where the real life Woody Guthrie is laying in a hospital bed breathing his final breaths. In a parallel with A Complete Unknown, we see our Dylan stand-in arrive at Woody Guthrie’s bedside and play a song for his hero.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
No comments:
Post a Comment