I'M NOT THERE and WALK HARD came out the same year, and I saw both in the theater, which made me feel kinda over Dylan's whole poetry/inscrutable '60s philosophy thing. But I've been slowly listening to more of him and reading more about him, and getting more and more fascinated. I finally caught the actual DON'T LOOK BACK documentary on the Criterion Channel earlier this year, and I'm sorry to say it blew my mind. With the advantage of being older and understanding more of the context, I found the stuff he was saying incredibly insightful. Feels silly to be this late to it, but I guess I'm saying I get the veneration now.
Another thing about Dylan, which made me like I'M NOT THERE a lot more on rewatch (also Todd Haynes becoming one of my favorite directors), is that Dylan is the only high-status musician that I honestly do not understand as a person. Everyone else that gets big doc/biopic treatments, I can recognize the kind of person they are under the persona, or at least recognize familiar motivations. Dylan is a mystery to me; doesn't remind me of anyone I've ever met in real life. Watching him in that "We Are the World" Netflix documentary threw even yet another wrench in my brain. I don't understand this guy! I legitimately think he's one of the most incredible artists in American history!
I will freely admit that a lot of my avoiding Dylan stuff over the years comes from a place of "oh my god shut up, boomer!" It's not so much that i resist him being venerated as that so many of the venerations seem so boneheaded.
Yeah, this movie in particular seems like exactly the shallow, annoying veneration that kept me away so long. And the phrase "Edward Norton as Pete Seeger" seems like some Manchurian Candidate-style op that will make everyone learn my middle name.
Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles Vol. 1, is one of the better celebrity autobiographies or biographies I've read. Very different from the typical structure but accessible.
One cool thing about it is that it literally incorporates bits from other books, including an amazing music autobiography called Really the Blues, by Mezz Mezzrow, another middle-class Jewish kid who ran off to the big city to make music with his idols and hung out with tons of famous musicians. Main differences being that this was the 20s & 30s, he was obsessed with jazz, and his primary talent was selling drugs, which meant that he still had a place in the band even if he was a mediocre musician.
Can we post links in here? Anyway, i’ll never forget the way John C Reilly made me wheeze-laugh at his Bobby D spoof in Walk Hard. The song is “Royal Jelly” and i know all of its lyrics even now
Such a wonderful movie, and yet more proof that Tim Meadows is a generational talent. (So is John C Reilly, but hopefully that's obvious to everyone by now).
I can’t see this without thinking of the Monty Python “Protest Song” - a lot shorter and probably a lot more enjoyable. Or the Weird Al sound-alike “Bob” in which all of the lyrics are palindromes.
Gawd, it's impossible for me to care less about this movie. I already dislike biopics, but the most punchable versions are the ones like this where we (presumably) spend 120+ minutes being told how important the subject is.
Regardless, I think we're all overlooking just how painful Ed Norton's accent choice is. It's giving me vibes of Calculon doing his Hal 9000 one-man show:
"Heady times for a young unit, but I reckon if I had to do it all again, I'd murder those astronauts just the same. Wouldn't you?... Wouldn't you?"
My brother (Gen X, not a boomer!) is a MASSIVE Dylan fan. He goes to every local (Chicago) show and last time even got front row seats. As a result, I have learned a lot more about latter-day Dylan through him, and I kind of wish that someone would do a biopic of Dylan in his 60s/70s instead of in his 20s. Dylan just seems like a genuinely weird and wacky guy. Like, he once snuck into the audience of "American Idol" wearing a fake beard! He took a meeting with HBO when he decided he wanted to star in a slapstick comedy (then changed his mind)!
The e gets the forward slash, the hat, and the backwards slash. The forward slash sounds like "ay" and some sounds end in "ay ay", the backwards slash and hat would sound indistinguishable to your ignorant American ears. We don't talk about the sideways colon.
The o only gets the hat and it makes no difference for the sound.
The u gets the backwards slash only when you think it doesn't need one. You can't learn it except by feel.
The a gets a little circle over it but then you erase part of the circle to make a slash or a hat. If you try and skip the circle people will know and make fun of you.
If you confidently put a slash over a y people will let you get away with it.
Oh no no no, no! Not Timotheeeee Shallowman. Please no.
Timmy is the male Zendaya, someone with a face so blank, so stupid looking, so vacant, that I can't bare to look at it for more than two minutes. Admittedly, he resembles young Dylan a bit since they both have the Ostjuden look about them, but Dylan didn't give off imbecile vibes.
Carly Simon always did look a little mannish, but somehow back in her heyday she managed to pull off "mannish but hot." Or maybe it's just the clouds in my coffee.
Lol I just meant like...in another universe where Carly Simon was born male, her name would have been Carlo Simone. Male first name, female last name, instead of female first name mail last name, it was a very dumb observation.
Also, yeah, Carly Simon in this universe?? She could *absolutely* get it.
I haven't watched the show yet, but I saw an interview with Jason Isaacs about preparing to play Cary Grant (a man with a famously distinctive accent) in ARCHIE. He seems to have spent quite a lot of effort to track down an obscure recording where Grant was talking naturally, not acting.
Wondering where we stand on the necessity or not of getting the exact accent and speech patterns regardless of how watchable it is...I'm thinking specifically of Tom Hanks as Col Tom Parker
Full agreement on Bob Dylan (mostly like his music, liked I'm Not There when I saw it in 2007, absolutely zero interest in the man or the legend).
Also still on the fence with Timmy Cham-Chams. I don't think he's bad, nor do I dislike him. I just have yet to see the performance where I think, yes, this guy has the It Factor to lead multiple movies every year.
I was scrolling Letterboxd to see what the last traditional biopic I enjoyed was, and didn't have to go far - last year's Chevalier, which is basically "what if a cool Black guy was Mozart," and whose lead, Kelvin Harrison Jr., should be an even bigger star than Timmy. Here's the first seven minutes.
"what if a cool Black guy was Mozart," doesn't sound too traditional to me... but then again, with the new Assassin's Creed coming out, maybe it is now.
Agree with your assumption about this movie, even though I like both Dylan and Mangold. But your comment about “I’m Not There” is curious to me. Wasn’t that whole thing a deconstruction about the fact that boomers think he’s a “wizard that plays guitar” and, furthermore a compulsive liar?
I'M NOT THERE and WALK HARD came out the same year, and I saw both in the theater, which made me feel kinda over Dylan's whole poetry/inscrutable '60s philosophy thing. But I've been slowly listening to more of him and reading more about him, and getting more and more fascinated. I finally caught the actual DON'T LOOK BACK documentary on the Criterion Channel earlier this year, and I'm sorry to say it blew my mind. With the advantage of being older and understanding more of the context, I found the stuff he was saying incredibly insightful. Feels silly to be this late to it, but I guess I'm saying I get the veneration now.
Another thing about Dylan, which made me like I'M NOT THERE a lot more on rewatch (also Todd Haynes becoming one of my favorite directors), is that Dylan is the only high-status musician that I honestly do not understand as a person. Everyone else that gets big doc/biopic treatments, I can recognize the kind of person they are under the persona, or at least recognize familiar motivations. Dylan is a mystery to me; doesn't remind me of anyone I've ever met in real life. Watching him in that "We Are the World" Netflix documentary threw even yet another wrench in my brain. I don't understand this guy! I legitimately think he's one of the most incredible artists in American history!
Anyway. This movie looks like shit.
Thank you, I really enjoyed this comment.
I will freely admit that a lot of my avoiding Dylan stuff over the years comes from a place of "oh my god shut up, boomer!" It's not so much that i resist him being venerated as that so many of the venerations seem so boneheaded.
Yeah, this movie in particular seems like exactly the shallow, annoying veneration that kept me away so long. And the phrase "Edward Norton as Pete Seeger" seems like some Manchurian Candidate-style op that will make everyone learn my middle name.
My step-grandmother did not give Pete Seeger room and board for a week in Winnipeg in the 60s just for him to be portrayed by Edward fuckin' NORTON.
Oh please your step-grandmother gave "room and board" to everyone in the 60s, there's a plaque about it.
There is, she was a sweetheart 🥰
Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles Vol. 1, is one of the better celebrity autobiographies or biographies I've read. Very different from the typical structure but accessible.
One cool thing about it is that it literally incorporates bits from other books, including an amazing music autobiography called Really the Blues, by Mezz Mezzrow, another middle-class Jewish kid who ran off to the big city to make music with his idols and hung out with tons of famous musicians. Main differences being that this was the 20s & 30s, he was obsessed with jazz, and his primary talent was selling drugs, which meant that he still had a place in the band even if he was a mediocre musician.
Can we post links in here? Anyway, i’ll never forget the way John C Reilly made me wheeze-laugh at his Bobby D spoof in Walk Hard. The song is “Royal Jelly” and i know all of its lyrics even now
Such a wonderful movie, and yet more proof that Tim Meadows is a generational talent. (So is John C Reilly, but hopefully that's obvious to everyone by now).
It's deep!
I watched that clip again yesterday, and everything from the lyrics to the melody is so fuckin' perfect. Boggles my mind.
I can’t see this without thinking of the Monty Python “Protest Song” - a lot shorter and probably a lot more enjoyable. Or the Weird Al sound-alike “Bob” in which all of the lyrics are palindromes.
I’ve suffered for my music - now it’s your turn.
Gawd, it's impossible for me to care less about this movie. I already dislike biopics, but the most punchable versions are the ones like this where we (presumably) spend 120+ minutes being told how important the subject is.
Regardless, I think we're all overlooking just how painful Ed Norton's accent choice is. It's giving me vibes of Calculon doing his Hal 9000 one-man show:
"Heady times for a young unit, but I reckon if I had to do it all again, I'd murder those astronauts just the same. Wouldn't you?... Wouldn't you?"
My brother (Gen X, not a boomer!) is a MASSIVE Dylan fan. He goes to every local (Chicago) show and last time even got front row seats. As a result, I have learned a lot more about latter-day Dylan through him, and I kind of wish that someone would do a biopic of Dylan in his 60s/70s instead of in his 20s. Dylan just seems like a genuinely weird and wacky guy. Like, he once snuck into the audience of "American Idol" wearing a fake beard! He took a meeting with HBO when he decided he wanted to star in a slapstick comedy (then changed his mind)!
"and it stars Timóthéé Chálámét (I can never remember which syllable has the accent, so I thought I’d cover my bases)"
Sadly, it's on the "i".
Here's the primer on French accents.
The e gets the forward slash, the hat, and the backwards slash. The forward slash sounds like "ay" and some sounds end in "ay ay", the backwards slash and hat would sound indistinguishable to your ignorant American ears. We don't talk about the sideways colon.
The o only gets the hat and it makes no difference for the sound.
The u gets the backwards slash only when you think it doesn't need one. You can't learn it except by feel.
The a gets a little circle over it but then you erase part of the circle to make a slash or a hat. If you try and skip the circle people will know and make fun of you.
If you confidently put a slash over a y people will let you get away with it.
This is exactly what I was telling the woman at the grocery checkout today.
Some people think it's wry and clever to say that the ur-music biopic is Walk Hard. I call those people me because Walk Hard is that.
As far as Dylan, Don't Look Back and No Direction Home are really good documentaries that give you a sense of the guy behind The Guy.
Oh no no no, no! Not Timotheeeee Shallowman. Please no.
Timmy is the male Zendaya, someone with a face so blank, so stupid looking, so vacant, that I can't bare to look at it for more than two minutes. Admittedly, he resembles young Dylan a bit since they both have the Ostjuden look about them, but Dylan didn't give off imbecile vibes.
What a sad state of affairs.
My god, the senseless hate, lol
Yo, you got something to say about Zendaya?
Auxiliary parking lot, 4pm.
Hate keeps you young.
I'll believe it when I see it 🤣
Also if you look just below this comment.... Carlo Simone is gender-swapped Carly Simon, right?
Carly Simon always did look a little mannish, but somehow back in her heyday she managed to pull off "mannish but hot." Or maybe it's just the clouds in my coffee.
Lol I just meant like...in another universe where Carly Simon was born male, her name would have been Carlo Simone. Male first name, female last name, instead of female first name mail last name, it was a very dumb observation.
Also, yeah, Carly Simon in this universe?? She could *absolutely* get it.
I haven't watched the show yet, but I saw an interview with Jason Isaacs about preparing to play Cary Grant (a man with a famously distinctive accent) in ARCHIE. He seems to have spent quite a lot of effort to track down an obscure recording where Grant was talking naturally, not acting.
I invite you to listen to the Bob Dylan album "Christmas in the Heart" released in 2009.
Based on the album title, it sounds more like a challenge than an invitation.
Wondering where we stand on the necessity or not of getting the exact accent and speech patterns regardless of how watchable it is...I'm thinking specifically of Tom Hanks as Col Tom Parker
Full agreement on Bob Dylan (mostly like his music, liked I'm Not There when I saw it in 2007, absolutely zero interest in the man or the legend).
Also still on the fence with Timmy Cham-Chams. I don't think he's bad, nor do I dislike him. I just have yet to see the performance where I think, yes, this guy has the It Factor to lead multiple movies every year.
I was scrolling Letterboxd to see what the last traditional biopic I enjoyed was, and didn't have to go far - last year's Chevalier, which is basically "what if a cool Black guy was Mozart," and whose lead, Kelvin Harrison Jr., should be an even bigger star than Timmy. Here's the first seven minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwXT9WHGFLo
"what if a cool Black guy was Mozart," doesn't sound too traditional to me... but then again, with the new Assassin's Creed coming out, maybe it is now.
Traditional in the sense that he was a real dude. IT was a pretty interesting movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges
Agree with your assumption about this movie, even though I like both Dylan and Mangold. But your comment about “I’m Not There” is curious to me. Wasn’t that whole thing a deconstruction about the fact that boomers think he’s a “wizard that plays guitar” and, furthermore a compulsive liar?
Probably. I don't know. I haven't watched it in 17 years.