The Big Picture - ‘A Complete Unknown’ Is a Bob Dylan Movie. How Does It Feel?

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin to dig all the way into ‘A Complete Unknown,’ James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet. They discuss, among other things, the musical performances of Chalamet and his costar Monica Barbaro, the supporting performances around the edges of the movie, Mangold’s ability to tackle one of the most central pop cultural figures in American history, the moment the film is trying to capture, and more. Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash dioffer to learn more. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you. Damn you! The Susie Rotolo and Joan Baez of my life. Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin. What's happening, guys?

We never did too much talking anyway. Not until today. Today we are talking about A Complete Unknown, which is the new docudrama about Bob Dylan, about Bob Dylan in a very particular period in his life, a critical period in his life between 1961 and 1965 when he came to New York and ultimately went electric. This movie is directed by James Mangold. Big Jim. It is co-written by Mangold. I believe he did a rewrite of a script by the great Jay Cox. This movie, of course, stars

Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. Boy, does it. Listeners of this show know that I have been deeply concerned about this movie for some time. And I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan. I know Mallory is also essentially on a par with me in terms of Dylan fandom. Bob Dylan fan. I know Mallory is also essentially on a par with me

in terms of Dylan fandom. A mega fan. Chris Ryan. Very big Bob Dylan fan. How would you put yourself in the hierarchy? I think that he was like a really formative person for me, but other maybe acts from that time period have eclipsed him in terms of my like constant interest

in returning to it. You're more of a Pete Seeger guy. But I was going to say that this movie marks what is a pretty reliable every five to seven years. There is a Dylan revival because of a film or a documentary that comes out or a book or an appearance. And this is the great gift of Dylan fandom is that you can kind of leave it for a few years and then something will happen where you're like, well, it looks like I have to go listen to a 10 hour chronological playlist of his work from 1960 to 1970. 10 hours,

so deeply abridged. Yeah. That ain't much. Mal, why don't you talk about your fandom appreciation, how you came to love Dylan? Sure. I would say he is the most important man in my life other than the two of

you. What's up, Adam? Yeah, Adam. What up, Barry? Jesus Christ. And Barry Rubin, who, of course, introduced me to Dylan. Yeah, I was trying to, like, think back and identify the exact moment in time where I really fell into the discography. And I can't tell you the exact year, but I am certain that I just stumbled upon Biograph in my dad's living room.

Like, that is definitely what happened. And it was early high school for sure. And also then Love and Theft had come out in 01. And that double whammy of realizing, like, the depth of music and history and decades of exploration that awaited. And also that there was something brand spanking new featuring, to this day, one of my favorite songs of all time, Mississippi. And now we're two decades further down the road, and that is still true for anybody who stumbles upon Dylan today. There's something brand new waiting, and there's just now even more history. So right away, he became my favorite, and that has lasted. He is my favorite musician. He's my favorite writer.

He's my favorite poet. He's certainly my favorite character in film or documentary. And I just think that he's the absolute best. And so because of that, I, like you, was incredibly nervous about the movie. I would describe my anticipation level as active dread. Yeah. And so I look forward to

exploring why that proved to be ill-founded. Number one, I never had a doubt, first of all, for a complete unknown. You never had a doubt. No, I had strong,

I was long this movie and we'll get into whether I was right or wrong. Just to piggyback off what Mal's saying, I do want to say that one of the things that this film want to say that one of the things that this film does very well

and one of the things I think is the most rewarding part about being a Dylan fan is that you get to do three different things at once. You have the work itself, so you can just revisit these albums and live in them, and they mean different things to you at different points in your life.

You have the absolute two universities worth of scholarship and writing and thinking and documentary filmmaking and people who spend all their time on Reddit analyzing like Dylan and the dead shows and stuff like that. But then you also have like this incredible wealth of stuff that Mal mentioned Biograph. But for me, it was bootlegs, the first bootleg series, which I think came out in 89, but was like a huge part of when I first started working at record stores at the end of high school. That would get played a lot. And it was my first glimpse into listening to someone becoming what they were about to be. So like basically listening to the creative process take place. And that was like my first introduction to the idea

that like a Rolling Stone does not just happen. It's like it's 18 takes of it and it's a waltz with a piano and then accidentally a guy comes in and starts playing an organ and you're like, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't know that's how art got made. So you get to see that. You get to listen to that, obviously. But to actually see

some of it dramatized was one of the great pleasures of this movie very similar to how I feel getting to watch Chris put together a Talk the Thrones outline all the stages

of Discovery also deeply influenced by Rambo and Ginsburg mostly composed in the bathtub what about you? what was your

what was your origin story with Big Bob? It's similar to yours. I'm just a little bit older than you. So time out of mind, becoming a phenomenon, you know, many years after I think most people had felt like Bob's best years were behind him. That was a huge comeback for him, that record. It was, you know, Grammy celebrated.

He'd done an unplugged around that time. And so he was very much back in the consciousness in a mainstream way. After a long, I mean, roughly like 82 through 95, it's a very quiet period. And that's really my adolescence. And so up to that point, I think a lot of kids who were big readers, as we all were, who were, I was deeply interested in music and had a simultaneous hyper obsession with the contemporary and hyper obsession with trying to like cram in as much knowledge of the past as possible. And if you listen to a lot of classic rock, he just recurs. Like if you listen to a Byrds record, his songs are all over the place. If you listen to the Beatles, his influence is all over the place. If you start reading about

the construction of popular music and especially rock and roll in the 60s, he just looms so strongly over all the writing. so yeah I mean same for me he's my favorite writer I can listen to songs that I first heard when I was 11 and still be kind of untangling them finding new meanings and new appreciation for them just have a very big emotional relationship to the music and it's one of the few things I've remained uncynical about in my life and I think it's one reason why I think this movie scared me a little bit you know and it's I think there have been you know to, to your point, Chris, like a lot of really good films about who he is or what he is or using his music in compelling ways

or using him as a performer in compelling ways. He's been in some of the best concert films of all time. Some of the best documentaries ever made. He has been in great Westerns, you know, he's made his own movies. Like he, he. Like, he is meaningful to movie history, too. And there's never really been something like this, which is extremely Hollywood and standard. This is very straightforward. And we know now, after like roughly 20 or so years of this framework, kind of typical and cliche riddled style of movie making. So, I'm a fan of Mangold. Yeah, same.

I think it's interesting that he chose to do this movie because of course he made Walk the Line. Yes. Which was a big success. Won Reese Witherspoon Academy Award. Most people felt Joaquin Phoenix. Pulled off a performance of a person who is unreplicable in Johnny Cash. And you've got

a very similar challenge with this movie with trying to personify someone who is as much living mythology as he is just a guy in somebody's house right now. And, you know, in the aftermath of Walk the Line, he made like the Walk Hard came out and Walk Hard detonated this format

forever. Like it's, and that movie is so clearly inspired by the success of Walk the Line. And I got to give Mangold credit for just like not hearing the footsteps because he kind of just commits like every sin all over again in this movie.

And so I want to use that as like an entree into talking about whether you guys like the movie or not because you can like the movie because of those things. You can like the movie in spite of those things or you can reject it because of those things I think those are kind of your choices so where did you land on a complete unknown um I actually found it to be probably a little bit less formulaic than maybe you're describing it like I think it's actually more or less a very very very long music video like the lack of dialogue in this film and the

lack of really particularly dramatic scenes there's like half a dozen maybe and because if you know anything about Dylan or even if you're just using the logic of like well I know it I know that he actually does go electric so this is sort of a moot point like you just wind up immersing yourself in the the power of that music and there are a lot of parts about it that I think are going to be mocked. But I'm almost like, well, what did you think people were doing when they saw Bob Dylan the first time? They were probably staring at him. Yeah. Because they were like, holy shit.

You know, he's... And so even if there are factual or historical inaccuracies in the film in an effort to, like, build up up dramatic tension or something like that. I found myself basically unmoved the entire film, never itching, never being like, when is this over? When are they going to get to Newport? When does he meet Mike Bloomfield?

I am so happy to be going on the magic carpet ride. I think from the moment it starts in the back of a station wagon, you're like, holy shit, dude, this is great. And I fully acknowledge that Queen fans

might have felt that way about Bohemian Rhapsody and Elton John fans might have felt that way about Rocketman and I did not. I was like, this sucks.

But for this, for Bob Dylan, for something I care about, I think they did a really credible job of creating, is it a Hall of Presidents feeling? For sure.

Yeah. I don't care. Like, I like going to Disney every once in a while. Totally. What'd you think, Mel? This is my favorite movie

in a long time. Why? Even though I don't, and Chris and I saw it together, and we talked about this right after with Joe, we all saw it together. I wouldn't, and Chris and I saw it together, and we talked about this right after with Joe, we all saw it together. I wouldn't necessarily call it a movie.

Yeah. And that's obviously something I'm interested in discussing with you both today, but I was absolutely riveted watching it. Like, my eyes were as wide as scoots the entire time. You moved as much as him as well. I know. Every time Boyd came on screen,

I was like, ah, Elbow and Chris. And he's like, yeah, I know. Boyd Holbrook portrays Johnny Cash in the film. You have plenty of opportunity here today. Boyd does he. You know, as we've already alluded to, it's hard to think of too

many people in the history of music or really any aspect of culture who have not only made the impact that Bob Dylan made, but have been like chronicled to the length that Dylan has been chronicled. And so like part of what I was nervous about was just like, why? Right. period in particular, 61 to Newport and 65, is one of the most studied and interrogated and poured over stretches of musical history. Now, I am a Bob Dylan lover, but I can't claim to be a music historian like you are. And yet, even I know a lot about that period in time and what this represented. This was my complaint when I movie, when I first heard about the movie is I was like,

this is the least interesting time to me. This is the one I least want the docudrama about because it's the one with no mystery. Right. And so the combination of, and I do think like one of my critiques of the film, which again, I loved, is that I think you start to really feel that

in the third act. I thought the first hour 45 was way stronger than the closing stretch because you start to feel the inevitability of reverse engineering against the quote-unquote purpose of the film. But ultimately, I think for us sitting in the seats and for the people who are

making it, the purpose of the film is to just spend time with one of the most consequential figures in the history of the world. And the performances were unbelievable. Timothy Chalamet was uncanny and unbelievable figures in the history of the world and the performances were unbelievable like timothy chalamet was uncanny and unbelievable as bob dylan in a way that i mean i love timmy i think he's a great actor and when the trailer came out for the movie i was like oh what is happening here what is happening here what have they done and watching it i, I was, again, just like completely swept up in the magic of enjoying the thing. I think like when it when it ended, Chris, you know, we were looking up at the credits rolling and it's screen after screen after screen of song. Right. And you were observing like, like, you know, just as Dylan going to get like a screenwriting credit. Right. Because so much of the script of the movie is in fact the songs.

But I ended up loving it. I think it was an inversion of what I anticipated. I thought the songs would play second fiddle to an attempt to interrogate an unknowable figure. And that was just simply not the case. And I loved that about it. It's the most fascinating thing to me about the movie. And I definitely am not as enthusiastic as either of you guys.

I think I like it way more than I thought I would. Yeah. And there were a couple of times where I just like burst into tears while they were singing. It's so beautiful. This is incredible. And it is that thing you're talking about with Queen. We're just like hearing those songs so loud and them nailing the performances. Yeah.

It just took me over. Oh my God. And I can never sit in a movie like that and be like this isn't good you know like it is impactful but

you know I don't know I'm still I'm totally stumped on this movie in so many ways about how I feel about it because

did I want a Bob Dylan movie that was going to attempt to interrogate what he was up to and to unpack his psyche and his motivations? Or do I want something that just sort of, you know, burnishes the myth a little bit and then

otherwise just platforms the music? What would have been better? I don't know. I don't know. I do think it's interesting that like, there's really no meaningful exploration of the interiority of Bob Dylan at all. Yeah. So I, you know, you mentioned, uh, Walkard as like this comparison point and Jim Mangold basically like kind of being like, I, I'm fucking, I'm doubling down to me. The, uh, very useful comparison point would be, I'm not there for this film, which I know we're going to talk about Dylan on screen in a little bit, but I can't resist talking a little bit about Todd Haynes'

2007 movie before that because this Todd Haynes' conception of this story not necessarily a specific story, although there is the Cate Blanchett section is essentially the second half of this movie, you know, the polka dot shirt, essentially. That's the kaleidoscopic way of doing

this. That's the like, he's unknowable, so we have to shatter the urn and piece it back together through all these postmodern storytelling devices. And I think that I just really responded to Mangold

being like, straight up, I'm just going to like, look this thing in the eye. And there may not be like a core here. Like, I may not get to the like, is this guy an act of self-creation?

Does that matter? How did he treat women? Like I don't, yeah, there's an unknowability to that. And to some extent, like that's not Shalif May's fault, but it was almost like watching someone's game tape. Like where you're like, oh my God, this guy, this guy is really- Tim, you would appreciate that.

And I'm sure he would. But it's like, this guy fucking learned how to play guitar for five years like he can do this in a master shot and you don't have to like dub in stuff and everything let's get as much of that up on screen as possible and that is going to be a very worthwhile experience in a movie theater so uh i did a thing that i've never done in the history of podcasting about movies. I went to a screening and then I reached out to the studio and was like, I have seen the movie, but can I please see it again? I was so amazed that you told me that earlier this week.

I just like, because I couldn't stop thinking about it. And so the second time that I went, there was a panel after the film with Mangold and the cast. And one of the things, this is what you were just saying, made me think of this. Chalamet is just furious about the seating in the CFP. He's like, I thought we were here.

How is Boise State getting this vibe? Stop talking over me. One of the things that Mangold said, and I'm paraphrasing here, but was, like he really pushed back against the idea that the film is about the fact that bob dylan is an enigma and he said in essence like you can't play a question mark i can't tell timmy to play a question mark and we know him through the songs he gave us all these

songs like what more do we want than what he told us about himself in the songs? Now, I, like, really don't agree. At all. At all with that. But I found that to be such a fascinating perspective. And the fact that we're like, I don't agree with that, even though you made the movie, is to me part of the proposition and part of the reason why, even though Bob Dylan has been in people's lives for so long and studied at such length, it's worth making a movie like this. Because just as he is a figure defined by reinvention, that's why I'm not there. This movie does it with one actor, but in a very different tone, right? And sensibility.

But it's the same thesis in a way, right? It's like when we see the envelope or the notebook with Zimmerman on it, there's not a single moment other than Sylvie, the Suze stand-in, saying, are you going to tell me anything about your past? Or the sister being like, oh, I guess he wasn't really in a carnival. It's just there as one more fact on the ground, right? One more bit of context to say, well, before we even got to the period where everyone was studying how he reinvented himself, this was an inevitability. This is who he is at his core. It's why when Seeger is driving him to his log cabin built by his own hands, and they're talking about the idea of being a folk singer, he's like, well,

modified, right? Before any of this actually even happens. And so, like, why is the movie called A Complete Unknown? Well, of course, I mean, that's a lyric in the song that we're building toward. This is a period in his life where he became famous. I love that moment where he's writing a letter to Johnny. He's like, I'm famous. Famous. I'm excited for some of Chris's voice work today.

But I think that despite what the director and maker of the movie is saying, it is also an acknowled acknowledgement that this is a figure who in some way will forever defy the level of interrogation that he invites. Yeah. So the one thing that I think the movie is very confident in doing, which I think is a real credit to it because it didn't have to do it this way. And a lot of times when you have movies that are executive produced by living artists, you don't see this. But this movie is very steadfast in pointing out that Bob Dylan is an asshole. Oh, yeah.

And especially at this time in his life, that he has a complicated relationship with the women that he seduces or that he spends time with, that as an artist, he is defiant of people who took care of him and put him on their shoulders, that he is willing to kind of like mangle history in an effort to go forward.

You know, one of the best things and worst things that I've done since I saw the movie was I rewatched No Direction Home, which is Martin Scorsese's documentary, sort of archival documentary about this exact period. It's the same time. It's 61 through 65. And that movie is just amazing if you love Bob Dylan because you have so many of the key people who were in his life at the time. Suze Rotolo, Dave Van Ronk, friends from Minnesota. People in 1997 explicitly explaining what Bob was like. And Bob's in it too.

And Bob gives one of the longest interviews he's ever given. He gives tons of great information. But throughout that entire documentary you get the sense that like bob dillman is a real opportunist in fact i think someone calls him that at a certain point that even though he is this touched like almost like angelically god-gifted thinker and writer that he was like i like i want to win like him being wanting to be famous him wanting to to ascend for sure above whatever the expectations of a traditional folk singer would be are so interesting and I give the movie a lot of credit for not shying away from yeah

for not trying to valorize him because Bob Dylan is like I'm not a protest singer I'm this isn't these songs are not about that there's something different. And so I respect that they did that. It still doesn't resolve. It's the only thing that it kind of like confirms to me. Yeah, I think that he definitely moved too fast for culture to keep up with. And so by that logic would move too fast for a movie to capture.

Todd Haynes actually had this really good quote when he was asked about casting the six different actors where he said, the minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame. If you try to hold him in your hand, you'll surely get burned. James Mangold was like, I made a movie about Indiana Jones. You know what I mean? like, I think I can do this. And I think what he does, that when I think about why I am going to go watch this movie again, it's everything that's on the outside of the frame. It's the depth of realization of the apartment, the CBS studios,

the control room, the notebooks, the coffee cups, the cigarettes, the wine bottles I want to see all the accoutrement I will go back for Chalamet it could have gone so

so so so wrong and it doesn't and he knows it and that's why he's having one of the great promo runs in American history he didn't fuck it up and if he had fucked this up it would have been one of the all-time flops in, like, you could ever have.

So I really do think that there is a kind of, he is trying to look at this object straight on. And it is an object that never, ever allowed itself to be regarded that way. Yeah, I mean, what I wrote down in the notes is just like, Dylan is prismatic, he's not linear. And this is a movie that's trying to tell you

a linear story. Todd Haynes does the absolute best he can by, as you say, shattering the urn, trying to give him, you know, sort of multifarious meaning by putting him inside

of lots of different people because that's how Bob Dylan imagined himself as a shapeshifter. There's like, you know, the Irish love Bob Dylan because Bob Dylan

is like a folkloric character. Yeah. He resembles a leprechaun in so many ways because he's a trickster. But the movie, it's like, you know, the Irish love Bob Dylan because Bob Dylan is like a folkloric character. Like he resembles a leprechaun in so many ways because he's a trickster. But the movie, it's like deep and abiding sincerity is just like a little much for me where I'm like, this is the guy who wrote Fourth Time Around just to make fun of Bob Dylan.

You know, or excuse me, just to make fun of John Lennon. You know what I mean? Like he is, he's like a motherfucker. Yeah. And it's a little bit, there's a little bit too much when I say that they're biopic cliches. It's the long holds on people admiringly gazing upon him.

You know, it's the like impressionistic flashes of moments rather than any deeper exploration of a big moment. Like him writing a song, like what did we really learn about him writing a song in this movie? That he was like,

went over to Joan Baez's apartment one night and did it to like embarrass her like did you come here to make me watch you right it was great great line great line incredible um and then there's also just like the very typical like this is the establishment and what he's doing is wrong and it's it's way beyond what anyone should do in an artistic space like it's in every one of these movies and the other thing is just like this movie got refashioned to be a love triangle, and I'm not totally sure that that stuff ultimately works. But I'm curious what you guys think. Oh my God, I have so many thoughts

on everything you both just said. Okay, the pod's like 10 hours, right? Yeah, we just started. This is actually a live telethon for Bob. That would be great. Sign me up if we ever do that. He'll be performing at the end. Okay, on the love triangle front.

So, obviously that's true. Sylvie, Joan, Bob. And despite those parts of the movie not always gripping us and grabbing us the way that other parts do, I will say that when they're singing It Ain't Me, Babe, and she is watching, it fucking shattered me. Like, it destroyed me.

It was devastating. When she's watching, when Sylvie is watching him sing, the times there are changing. And this is the figure who, when everyone else was like, sing the classics, right? What folk music is is a tradition that we pass on and share. Sylvie was the one who said to him, well, the old songs like had to be new once. Play your songs. And then she watches him sing The Times They Are Changing, one of the best moments of the movie in general.

We'll talk about some of our favorite musical numbers, so I'll come back to that. But the piece of paper, the scrap of paper that she found with a verse from that song and she has to confront the fact that he would not share that with her but shared it with the world like those parts of it where i thought very uh emotionally like impactful over although thematically the sylvie joan bob love triangle is just a parallel to the folk rock love triangle. That's the real love triangle in the movie. And I thought the movie was effective in that sense of drawing the parallels

and saying it's a story about expression and passion and temptation and understanding his compulsion for constant reinvention through that lens like where are you being pulled in a given moment in time and saying to everyone around you who you form a connection with at any given point there's gonna be something after you and there's gonna be something that's the same thing he was saying to like music fans as soon as you're into highway 61 i'm on to something else as soon as you're into Highway 61, I'm on to something else. As soon as you're into Blonde and Blonde, I'm on to something else. I'm going to disappear. I'm going to come back. You think

I'm, you know, this iconoclast. What happens when I become like a devoutly religious singer? You know, like he's always confounded and sometimes maddeningly weighs what we expect of him. Yeah. And I think like to the point about being an asshole, I mean, that's obviously one of the great joys of the movie. And I think it had to be there. Like you can't, you can't make a Bob Dylan movie in a world where don't look back exists and pretend like he's a nice guy. He's a cool guy. You just simply couldn't do it. The nice thing that they did is they capture him also being a funny asshole. Yeah. You know, could be cruel, could be a little bit nasty, you know. And very honest. And this gets back to what you were saying earlier about like opportunity, but just also

ambition and the fact that like people talk a lot about, I mean, it's very difficult to say anything. There's nothing new to say about a Bob Dylan song, but like part of what's always fun in perpetuity to talk about is just how like he makes you feel at a given moment in time. Right. And one of the things that I think even if people have very different relationships to his music that recurs is like the truth, the honesty, the wisdom. Like the guitar pick's not dipped in honey, it's dipped in acid.

Like the assholery is part of the draw. Like the gall to say those things out loud and then sing them to the world. I loved the moment when he and Sylvia are walking down the street. I think maybe when they're on the way to see uh before they hit the theater to see like now voyager and he says um you know there's that like about being a freak right and she's like are you a freak and he's like i hope so i loved that right and he's like you can be beautiful you can be ugly you can't be plain and i think that sometimes and and and i have this tendency too and like the compulsion to talk about the um you know the church of bob dylan and like sermons but not preachy ones like you you know

the fact that one of the things i love about don't look back and that incredible documentary is like the moment where they're like um the crowd was silent and that was amazing like people sat in awe to listen to him it wasn't like screaming right well part of that is because of what you were just describing which is that in 6263 newport folk festival he was the only person singing new songs right so they were listening to the words because they were not songs that they had heard 100 or 200 times before and so there was this sense of revelation there was this messianic moment because it was about a rival. I don't know. I still think there's like definitely some rote stuff

in this movie. Here's a way to ask the counter of this. Did he bang Joan Baez the night of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Is that in Chronicles? Did he drop a bomb on her? Is that what you're saying?

Did he Fidel the button? Did he throw Khrushchev's boot at her? Well, I mean, that's an interesting that's an interesting device to talk about is, you know,

that they it's I thought that the film shows some restraint in that respect. For example, we don't go to

the March on Washington, a place famously where We do see it in TV though. We see it on TV, but you know, Bob and Joan performing there,

like we don't go there and try to recreate that sequence or anything. And then Forrest Gump walks by. But we do have the Cuban Missile Crisis and someone watches it on TV and they run downstairs and they run down to the

cafe and right on time, Bob Dylan singing Masters of War. Just so happened to be singing just as we all lived in fear and strangers were throwing each other through the streets. It's like it's really ginned up stuff. Not that the Cuban Missile Crisis was not an absolutely terrifying moment in American history. But it's when you start bending time around a person's mythos that I get a little bit queasy in these movies.

And so I don't that's that is a rare case where they did something that I was like this is too much there's gonna be a lot of like he actually didn't do that then and this is why is he playing bringing it all back home songs like

he's writing them but the album's already out like there's definitely moments like that I did not think of that for one second while I was watching the movie I was never like

well you know I was I was like pretty affected by almost all of it and you know, I was pretty affected by almost all of it. And, you know, like, I got to say, I mean, I would be the first person to be like, why is this movie about, like, his two girlfriends?

Like, he changed the world. Like, I think we could make, you know. I found Elle Fanning to be really affecting. I found Margot Barbaro was incredible. I was shocked. Shocked. Unbelievable. And I thought he had, like, legitimately really electric chemistry with both of them. With. I was shocked. Shocked. Unbelievable. And I thought he had like legitimately

really electric chemistry with both of them. With everyone. With Woody. With Pete. With Jesse. Like with everyone. Yeah.

That's it. That's all you want to say about you have nothing else to say about women. That about does it on that front. About desire. Yeah.

I mean I think I was Do you want to talk about Red Room? There's women in that, right? There certainly is. You know, Joan is such an interesting figure in their history. You know, they're still friends.

They still have this relationship. She's talking in No Direction Home so amusingly about him. Where she's just like, God, he was such a bastard, wasn't he? It was so great. But I hated him, but I loved it. There's scenes in Don't Look Back where she's singing a song.

Grossman's sitting in the hotel like reading some papers. Dylan is typing and drinking coffee and smoking. And she's just like, you should finish this song that I'm playing. It's like, that was a good one.

And then like their banter and their interaction. I'm like, to your point, Mal, it's like in a weird way. Like, I don't think you can actually recapture the crazy intimate moments we have of Bob Dylan's life

at a time when that was not common it doesn't really try to put any of those moments from Don't Look Back I didn't revisit Don't Look Back after seeing this

but I don't think that they're unlike say Haynes it's a lot of it that's London he doesn't really go to London right right okay yeah I think that's a good choice because some's London he doesn't really go to London right right okay

yeah I I think that's a good choice because some of those moments shouldn't they shouldn't try to replicate them also every one of those incredible

infamous interviews you're like Cate Blanchett really nailed that yeah she's yeah she's phenomenal but like the Donovan stuff

for example where he's just so fucking mean to Donovan just like destroys his soul Donovan got one he got he caught one stray in this movie.

That, a lot of people put that video up of, like, Donovan, there's a Don't Look Back scene where Donovan plays a song and then Bob Dylan takes the guitar and it's like,

Kobe running through Pogsall where it's like, we're not fucking homies. Like, this is, it's all over now, baby blue. Like,

put yourself in a, in a crypt. We're not the same. Uh, but I've, I've heard also that they were friends and that he did not mean that. It's almost like where the myth and the reality leave, even in a documentary.

I might hit you with one, but it's out of love, man. You're trying to say I didn't care about Joan Baez's interior life. Well, I mean, she's obviously a person who I think could withstand a movie like this too and we just get a really one perspective of her but obviously Timothee Chalamet learning to play guitar I think from scratch and singing all these songs is an amazing accomplishment Joan Baez is one of the signature American singers of the 20th century I mean her voice reverberates through an entire generation and Monica Barbaro does a pretty good job.

She's amazing. And she didn't sing before this? Like, I saw an interview with her after my screening and she was like, I had to learn to sing during COVID. I was like, what do you mean learn to sing?

Learn to sing like Joan Baez? So this movie is crazy. Actually, one of the first films that I can think of that almost benefited from the delay. I completely agree with that. Because it was initially called Going Electric.

They were going to start it in 2020, I think, or something like that. Yeah, that was the plan. He said in 2019, he showed Ford v. Ferrari to the Telluride audience. And either on the way home, he got the Jay Cox script from the president of Searchlight. And he was like, I think you should do this. And he read it on the plane, or maybe read it that night, and emailed him the next day and was like, I need to do this. Yeah. So this is a situation where I don't know whether or not,

like if they had shot that in June of 2020 or something, would Timothee Chalamet's stuff all be like cutaways and, you know, half and half shots or something. But clearly he has spent between playing Paul Atreides and Willy Wonka, like learn to play guitar. Yeah. Three Lords.

Pretty convincingly to the point where they're actually able to use his guitar playing. There's that one scene. Um, can we talk about specific scenes and stuff? There's that one scene, uh, when he's early in his recording career, I think it's his first session and he's not singing into the microphone.

So he has to start the song over. And I'm like, I think he's doing that session and he's not singing into the microphone so he has to start the song over and I'm like I think he's doing that. That's pretty dope. It's like watching Tom Cruise play pool in Color of Money. You're like, well, if you can do that then we can do all sorts of other stuff around you being able to convincingly do the thing

that this movie is about. And that has gotten me thinking a lot. I'm very curious what the edit of this movie was like because And that has gotten me thinking a lot. I'm very curious what the edit of this movie was like because you mentioned this earlier that it feels like 60% performance. It feels like a huge

chunk of the film is just singing and maybe when they got on set and they realized these kids can really do this that maybe we should start cutting away

at sequences. Maybe there are things that we don't need to do because the movie, and the movie is roughly two hours, right? It's not some like overstuffed three hour epic. Yeah, it's like 2.20 maybe. Okay, 2.20.

So I'm curious about that. I'm not entirely sure. I will say, I mean, the thing to me that works the best in terms of the framework and device aspect of the movie is Pete and Bob and Seeger and Edward Norton and what he's doing and I like there's a part of me

that wants to wanted to host this whole pod like Pete Seeger you know like just like hey I'm Sean Fennessey and this is the big picture

I'm here with Chris Ryan I'm Sean Fennessey and I'm real happy about Juan Soto coming over to Queens Mallory Rubin just dropped in just dropped in

to play a tune for us. Buster Alden, he said that Steve Cohen's going to regret that contract. We'll see about that, Buster. This song is called Wimoway. You have no comment. If you watch it, you just think 15 years,

you guys are, it's a marriage. You were going to try to troll me on Juan Soto. I don't think so, my friend. I really like what he's doing in this movie if you watch Pete Seeger interviews pretty close yeah uh pretty close that reedy voice and that aw shucks and that stiff posture and the head held high and that kind of like aw shucks morality that Pete Seeger brings to everything and that clash you know like I think he to, I thought the Alan Lomax aspect of it is way less effective. I want to get to that.

Okay. I have to say, one of the really great underlying tensions to the Seager, Dylan on screen and Chalamet Norton thing on screen is that if you have ever watched any Ed Norton interviews, he really would like to have played Dylan.

Oh, yeah. He talks about Bob Dylan so much in interviews like people will be like Ed Norton welcome you're in the Italian job he's like Bob Dylan 63 does like get to Telecaster at the West Village guitar shop and that idea that like he kind of missed that window to be able to do that although I will make the argument that Mangold could just do the Linklater, like come back to this in six years

and have another Shallow Moon. I was going to raise that to you guys. That's one of the interesting things about like Walk the Line, Dial of Destiny, Logan, Mangold is,

this is what I really like about his movies, actually obsessed with legacy. Yeah. Like, Dial of Destiny worked a lot better for me than I think it did

for most people because I was like, it's kind of like brave and cool to be like, it's kind of like brave and cool to be like Indiana Jones got old and washed and the world passed him by. And so it's so interesting to pair him with like the birth of Dylan,

the dawn of Dylan. But just having that other actor be like, God damn it. This could have been me. That is funny. But that meta aspect is perfect. It plays, yes. For Seeger because like,

so you were, it will not surprise you to hear this at all. You were completely reasonably mocking, gently, lovingly mocking the like wide-eyed, doe-eyed, oh my God, Bob Dylan look on everybody's face in the film. I like absolutely loved that part of it. Because that felt so true to me. That that is what would happen when people heard him sing for the first time like who wrote that i just think cinematically it's boring you know it's just not it's just not good movie making to make you look at someone looking at something it's like spielberg guys but but it i don't know it's like not a dinosaur it's a guy in a west village bar so like yes I would say like with like Albert or even Joan.

For those reasons, it's like, we're like, yeah, wow, I would probably look that way too, but less effective. But with Pete and Woody, it felt really like keen and like it tapped into

what that would actually have meant in that moment. So to me that you just put your finger on something that I wanted to point out. It works so well in the opening scene when he sings a song to Woody. When he sings song to Woody, to Woody when he's in the hospital bed in Jersey

and Pete is looking at him and it's the thing that Pete literally says where he's just like, I'm watching the future unfold before me in the form of this Minnesotan kid. They nailed it. Like they got the thing that I needed, which was like, I'm watching the future unfold before me in the form of this Minnesotan kid. They nailed it. Like, they got the thing that I needed, which was like, you look at this person, you hear their voice,

you see the conviction and the creativity, and you're like, he has arrived. He is him. But then, yeah, he is mother. But like, they do it like 13 times in the movie. At a certain point, I just thought it was a little bit overstated because we're already in our seats for the Bob Dylan movie.

You know, we're already here. Absolutely. I am seated to genuflect. I kind of also wondered whether or not just in the practicalities of filmmaking, I'd be very interested to hear Mangle talk about this. I don't know if he's going to come on the show, but like the,

it feels like they shot the Newport stuff like in a block probably, right? Like over the years, they have like that, they have that crowd and stuff like in a block probably right like over the years they have like that they have that crowd and they can do that a certain amount of those same thing probably for the cafe and the smaller venue shoots and it did get me wondering like

I guess what else would you shoot it's either the band or it's people watching the band people watching the band you have to convincingly be like these people are having their fucking grape squeezed right now like Bob Dylan is playing Masters of war like they're losing their minds so there's not that much like i wonder would you have been like into like if they had cut away from the reality of the moment to show like news footage of like the things happening in the streets like i kind of like keeping it

audience and dylan you know even if it is repetitive and yeah I I'm not a filmmaker and I don't have like a here's what would have been better take on that I think it's just that there was like an over-reliance on a tactic that you see in all of these movies which is that they fake they shove this concept down your throat because they don't know what else to do because he is inherently a musician yeah not a an actor and so there's nowhere else to go in the movie yeah which just kind of limits it to me as a as a movie experience but you know when the songs when you're playing heartburn's gonna fall or whatever like that's that's that's the song you know that's a song that can change lives so let me ask you did you find yourself coming uh aside

from obviously like there's half a dozen to a dozen musical performance in this where everybody just is like I'm fucking taking my shirt off but they're not though that's the thing too until we get to the

final sequence I'm sorry to cut you off yeah but it's only at the final sequence where there's any meaningful action happening I guess Sylvie kind of

storms off but like aside from that oh well so this is my I mean take my like I'm storming out just because I'm like he's singing Girl north country this is good yeah uh did you like or even prefer bob dylan goes into a party bob dylan wanders into an irish bar bob dylan does like everyday

shit yeah i did you know yeah i did like bob dylan quickly cleans up an apartment before his girlfriend gets home that was quite amusing now pointed out one of the more interesting sequences, which is sort of like his, the early stages of his meeting with Sylvie and them going and catching a movie and then talking in a diner. That was like a legitimately dramatized period of his life that I haven't seen in that way before. And so that like,

that is an exploration of like who this kid was and whatever it was, 62, 61. And I guess I could have used a little bit more of that, before and so that like that is an exploration of like who this kid was and whatever it was 62 61 and I guess I could have used a little bit more of that a little bit more of like a deepening of the relationships between those characters I think I would have liked to have seen a couple of more quiet moments between Bob and Pete like what did they actually talk about or how did that relationship decay you know yeah and they make it seem like it's just because of the creative decision making that bob had but you know pete's got a lot of like unexplored jealousy there too and that's not really interrogated at all like edward norton's face is doing a lot of work there and he's he gives a very good performance but nothing is really like unpacked i wanted to ask

you guys about that actually on the the tracking the seager part of the shared arc but also just the seager arc then there's the scene where they're all sitting around the table prepping uh for the festival and you know quite concerned right about what will happen and what yeah he plays these new songs yeah and pete is the dylan defender in that scene, right? And then, of course, we have a couple moments between them at the shirt shop. Wonderful stuff. I like that scene, yeah. Genuinely wonderful stuff.

But there's not too much time with Pete between him saying, like, well, would it really be so bad in the room full of, like, the sentinels defending the folk revival and him, you know, in one of the great, like, mythical moments in music history, like, considering grabbing the axe, right? Did that feel, did you feel like we needed a couple more beats of connective tissue or is there enough to understand

about what Dylan represented for achieving Seeger's dream for realizing Seeger's dream of the the folk revival reaching the masses to just like inherently get that that being jeopardized would be like his life's work and ambition crumbling in real time this is a this is a very interesting conversation I'm not sure if it's a good conversation for a movie podcast about the Bob Dylan movie, but the ultimate philosophical friction between Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan is that Pete Seeger is like,

I am a product of and a vessel for a civic cause that I want to help change the world by speaking and singing honestly about the struggles of those who have less than, which is the most noble thing in the world. And Bob Dylan does do that for a period of time. He does it from his perspective out of empathy for the human condition,

not because he wants to be a part of a movement, but he does it all the same. And so Pete adopts him and uses him in a way with nobility i think but uses him to further his own philosophy he's the megaphone yes he brought the shovel everyone else had teaspoons yeah so we get to the end of that time and bob dylan is like i am a flame that can't be held i have to go explore other sides of my creativity and it's okay to turn into the self and to explore what I want and what I think will make the most for me

and hopefully will give people something that they want. And Pete is left to feel like, really, he basically gets left behind in 1965. Yeah, he's on public access television. And is a tragic figure in many ways. This is both true in real life and in the movie, even though Pete Ziggur is fondly remembered as a an american hero by some but like what is right what is actually like what is the right path like bob is confronted by this conversation by pete at the end of the movie but there's no discussion because bob will not have the discussion yeah i

think that you're touching on something that i was trying to get at, which is not the counterfactual of what James Mangold could have done. It's more that in 2024, what matters is these songs and what people will care about in 50 years are these songs. And so this movie is a platform for these songs in all their different stages, live in an apartment, in a bathtub, in the studio, whatever. In 2060, if we're all still here, we will not be talking about how Pete Seeger felt about being slightly used in the, not on a mass level, right? And I think that this movie is leaning into the idea that yes, the drama probably comes from should he or should he not go electric at Newport who should he spend his romantic time with did he live up to Woody's

dream of an American song but what we really want to spend our time on is showcasing this music in the best possible circumstances and that is like the movie you get versus the movie you want, basically. The movie we might want is one that maybe digs in a little bit more to the details and stuff like that and like the kind of like the trends and the currents of the West Village at that time. And I wanted more Bobby Newworth.

I wanted more Mike Bluefield. I wanted more Al Cooper. I wanted more Sessions. And what records was he listening to? My understanding is that the original script is more that because it's more attuned to the Elijah Wald book, which is much more of a music book and not a biographical movie or a biographical story. It's about the creation of sound and the decision-making around plugging in, which I think for nerds and historical fans would have been exciting,

but it's obviously not like a movie that Searchlight wants to make either. You know, there needs to be some star aspect to it. I don't know. What do you think? So one of my favorite moments in the movie, I just was like, this is incredible, is the hard cut from the raucous i've discovered like my siren whistle

we're making highway 61 revisited studio session into sad lonely pete and his banjo saying i can't see you that little magic box and we are just in two completely different moment in time and so that conversation in between the two of them in Newport at the end

when Pete goes to tell the story the fable of the teaspoons and Albert's like we get it it's seven in the morning it's seven in the morning

I'd like to sleep very funny very amusing I think Norton is fantastic in that scene oh my god I mean Norton is tremendous throughout We get it. It's seven in the morning. It's seven in the morning. I'd like to sleep very funny, very amusing. I think Norton is fantastic in that scene. Oh my God. I mean, Norton is tremendous throughout the entire movie. Like I thought he was sensational.

Again, the whole cast was great. I think what you said a few minutes ago is inarguably right. Like there's nothing, even though we get a couple moments of like, which guitar do you want? And this like illusion almost that there's a potentially different outcome than the one that we know not only happened because it happened but is inevitable because of who this figure is there was still the tension in that conversation when bob puts on the shirt and sits down it's like someone just bring me a cigarette and actually does despite having rolled his eyes at pete when he saw him in the street previously want to hear him out. Like want to give him

like the grace of having that conversation. And I loved the way that scene was structured because the thing even if this is not really what happened and the conversation

can never have led to a different outcome. The thing in the movie's dramatization of that moment that swings it the thing that leads Bob Dylan to get up and put his boots on and his tight pants on

and walk out is like, I sent you my record. Did you even listen to the songs you're telling me not to sing? And so it's like, how could you possibly, no matter what that person had done for you, like, I think the movie, I'm really interested in what the movie says not only about adoration and adulation,

but like contempt. Because I think, and I think it does this deftly, actually. I don't think that the movie wants to tell us or believes that Bob Dylan had contempt for folk music or Pete Seeger or the people in the room at the banquet who were like, why didn't you bring your guitar? It's like contempt for the idea of standing still. Yeah.

I almost feel like in the reality of the film maybe not in historical reality that dylan was rejecting the fact that pete was trying to compromise you know what i mean like the line there's some line in there where he's basically like if you just do it one more time if you just play acoustic one more time for us and it's almost like if it's just one then it actually doesn't matter if it was like no folk music is this you are a folk singer we built you you can't go anywhere that would be one thing but instead you're like i know that i can't stop what's about to happen but if i could just get like five more songs from you that make it so that this can then live into next summer and we can consist to sustain this movement. And it was almost like the,

the middle ground is what he rejected. That's how I, that's how I read that scene was like him trying to, him trying to like, he just didn't want to compromise at all, but you're right. Like that's a great moment in that film. The film,

I wish it had more moments of tension like that. Yeah. More moments of like, there's like this kind of artistic conversation and this idea about like artistic purity happening but i think it's like we gotta get to the next song you know like that's that's sort of where the movie's engine takes it i so i started reading the book i had never read this book uh i'm about 25 in so i haven't finished it yet, but I mean, it is fantastic. It's really good. Holy shit, the writing is like unbelievable. And it's just so interesting.

It's not Walt's first Bob Dylan book. He's a true scholar. Boy, you can tell. But I loved this. This is from the intro actually, but I love this paragraph that kind of sums up their relationship and what it represented.

Seeger is a central figure in this narrative because the story of Dylan at Newport is also the story of what Seeger built, what Newport meant to him, and the lights that dimmed when the amplifier sucked up the power. It is about what was lost as well as what was gained. This is what made me think about what you just said here. About intertwining ideals and dreams that never quite fit together and about people who tried to make them fit and kept believing they might like the idea that this was always sort of an illusion that this could be lasting yeah and so if you're holding on to something that you knew was always going to be a moment instead of forever

like how could you invent how could you explore how could you grow how could you try how could you do all the things that are elemental to who bob Dylan is as a figure yeah I think I think one of the things that he is rejecting too is just the idea of expectation from any direction and so the yeah you know religiosity of Lomax and folkways and that those institutions I think he just found you see for a time yeah but ultimately as suffocating as anything coming in the opposite direction that would seem he would be opposed to politically because they both represent a kind of conservatism that he's not interested in to your chalamet we could talk about chalamet but to your point about the portrayal of Dylan is a little bit of a prick

it's like one of my favorite little moments is when he's flirting with uh Elle Fanning at the the hootenanny in the Harlem church and the woman's like shh and he's flirting with Elle Fanning at the Hootenanny in the Harlem church. And the woman's like, shh. And he's just like, nah. You know, like I'm trying to get laid. Like it's not about like this sort of like piety to, you know, oh, these guys, are they playing traditional like folk?

No, I don't care. Like I'm trying to pick up this girl. One of the only people that he bends the knee for is Johnny Cash, which is a very interesting thing that is very accurate. Like if you read Dylan's writing in Chronicles, if you listen to him in interviews, to this day, he has this abiding respect. And he's almost like intimidated by Cash in a way. And so Cash is portrayed by Boyd Holbrook in this movie, who has been Chris's number one boy for going on 10 years.

What did you think of Cash? How did it compare specifically to his musical renderings in Justified? I've been a longtime fan of this guy as has James Mangold. So he's been used multiple times by Mangold. I think I put in our document a picture of Warren Buffett

because Berkshire Hathaway has been seeding. We've been spreading the investment across many years since Norco's. He cashed out, yeah. I think he, look, that's a really hard part to play and Joaquin Phoenix did a pretty damn good job of it. But what he does is,

he's the only person in this movie who's cooler than Bob Dylan. Yeah. And Bob Dylan and Timothee Chalamet know it. And I think their correspondence is perhaps a little bit more intimate

than their in-person meetings. Like that in-person meeting outside of the motel where Boyd's got a box of Bugles and is crashing his car back and forth. That's what it's like

with me and you off mic. But that is the best scene in the movie. It's very sad. You want a Bugle? Yeah. Dropping the Coke. Yeah, the cast does a great movie. Very sad. You want a bugle? Dropping the coke. Yeah, the cast does a great job.

I mean, do you feel like we've done Chalamet here? At this moment in time, I think he's going to win Best Actor. I think he is now just fully confirmed as the movie star of his generation. I really don't think there's, you know, Amanda and I, I think had Margot Robbie at number one

when we did the list last year because of the incredible success of Barbie. Margot Robbie, I think, is like getting close to 35. He's- 28. 28, doing all the right things. You know, I hated Wonka and I hated that he did that.

But for his movie stardom, it was the right move. The Dune thing has just paid off magnificently and now he's making a period piece with the Safdies. So he's really, he has four quadranted movies in such a phenomenal way and now in the event that he does win

Best Actor, he's the youngest Best Actor winner ever, supplanting Adrian Brody when he won for The Pianist. What would be Timmy Chalamet's brutalist? That's the question. I don't know. God willing, winner ever supplanting Adrian Brody when he won for the pianist and what would be Timmy Chalamet's brutalist that's the question

I don't know God willing Brady Corbett is still making movies at that point but like it's very rare in this century

for someone to be able to pull this off you know to be able to play all these different kinds of parts and to maintain this kind of

allure but he's also doing things that Leonardo DiCaprio did not do like going on college game day I don't want to be too like overzealous about this but I have to say like the um the you know the logical

way to have done this is like he did an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple's YouTube and he was very very like pious about Dylan and is like he has been throughout this whole tour. And so, I was kind of like, this is going to be one of those things where it's, like, did he accidentally, like, forget to drop the Dylan voice when he's doing interviews? And is this going to be, like, a little bit too…

The Austin Butler. Too safe? Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. And then when he did Game Day, I was like… Lisan Al-Gaib. Exactly.

Totally. Mardi. Yeah. This is a music. This is basically a musical about a guy from the 60s. How are we going to get

the fucking homies to come out? And it's going on game day and being a true ball knower. And now, and since then,

I was just telling Mal, like, he did this clip with Entertainment Tonight and he's like, this woman's like, hi, we're from Entertainment Tonight. He's like this woman's like hi we're from Entertainment Tonight he's like I know and they're like what

and he's just like I'm responsible for a lot of your engagement like I'm always smashing the heart button and they're like okay and he just plays along

with everything they're asking him they're like we saw you on Game Day he's like yeah I don't really want to be an actor I want to be a sportscaster acting is like

an on ramp to sportscasting and I'm just like you got it man you got it the whole world's in your hands like I don't really want to be an actor. I want to be a sportscaster. Acting is like an on-ramp to sportscasting. And I'm just like, you got it, man. You got it. The whole world's in your hands. What do we think the actual current power ranking is for his heroes between Bob Dylan and Bill Simmons? And Bill, yeah. Who's one and who's two currently?

I mean, he's- Has Bill reckoned with this at all? I don't think so. That's what makes him him, you know? Because Bill won't acknowledge. He doesn't read the comments. Doesn't look at his mentions. has Timmy been in his mentions do we know

if Bill had a choice like went on Kimmel right sincerely if Timothy Chalamet was like I want to do a two hour sit down with Bill Simmons

and instead Drake May was like I will do 15 minutes on Zoom brought to you by right guard who would Bill pick I think we all know the answer to that question 15 minutes on Zoom brought to you by RightGuard? Who would Bill pick?

I think we all know the answer to that question. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of junior chicken, McDouble, or chicken snack wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Is there anything else you want to say about Chalamet?

Beyond just, this is incredibly difficult to achieve performance that he achieved? I mean, I don't know that I have anything to add. I just thought it was like mesmerizing. Honestly. I don't have anything close to the level of familiarity with the other contenders for best actor this year that you guys do obviously but i certainly believe that he should

win yes this is coleman domingo right coleman domingo and sing sing refines and conclave adrian brody and the brutalist and probably daniel craig and queer would be my guest for the lineup. Strongfield. Lots of well-known people. Brody, of course, has won before. The Craig movie is not beloved. Right. Sing Sing is still a smaller film. And then you've got Ralph Fiennes, who all three of us greatly admire and who has a it's time narrative.

This is related to the film. Will this movie be commercially successful? Because if it is, then the chances of best actor really increase, in my opinion. I have no idea. I don't either. I have no feel. Have you seen any tracking on it? I have no feel for it whatsoever.

My guess is that this is going to do very well. My guess is that this is a movie that people who are not like I'm plugged into movie media and like thinking about discourse about movies are like that's earmarked. That's Christmas day or day after.

My mother who cannot really leave the house is like I would really like to see a complete unknown in the theater. That's There you go.

That is the kind of thing that was like I think Kamala's going to win because my mom voted for her. But like I think that like that's pretty and now like that is the kind of thing that was like I think Kamala's gonna win because my mom's voting for her but like I think that like

that's not like accurate but you know what I mean where it's just like people who don't fuck with movies a lot are like the four I'm seeing this year this is one of them

there is something in that like again kind of like meta sense about going to the theater to see this that obviously it's not the same as seeing Bob Dylan in concert,

but it's approximating that thing of sharing the music with the crowd. So I do think that there will be a lot of people who feel that urge to go say, like, I want to, and it was fun in the screenings. Like there was a lot of laughter, you know, at the acid wit, like the, everybody was very respectful. There was no loud singing, but there was like, you know, some the acid wit, like the, everybody, everybody was very respectful. There was no loud singing, but there was like, you know, some swaying in the seats. You could tell the people were moved. Um, so yeah, I do think people will. And I, I think the thing about, it just feels like there's going to be so much, uh, out in the world, out in the ether about the

Chalamet performance that that will then drive even more people who are maybe on the fence to try to see it sooner i think the thing that was so great about the performance in addition to just like the awe that you felt watching him play guitar and play the harmonica and the posture the way he carried himself with the actual singing it was i thought in a way that is like not always the case in a biopic it the just right calibration of obviously you are trying to imitative and his own voice yeah yes this iconic thing but it definitely sounded like timothy chalamet it was unmistakably that it was a good choice to try to get close to the register

but not mimicry yeah which when i watched the trailer i was like oh he's not even trying to do mimicry like this is not close

but then when you feel accumulatively when you hear all the songs you see that it's like he's doing the best he can he can't get to the raspy

reedy place that bob had that was like no one really ever sang like that before. Yeah. He also doesn't smoke 42 Marlboros a day.

I believe it was north of 80. Yeah. Yeah. He sounds like him also though when he's in that right, like, sweet spot way

when he's speaking, just the way that he says, like, you know, your songs are like oil paintings and a dentist's song. That's in the trailer and I think that's when

people were like, we have, Houston, we have a problem. It's because, the trailer and I think that's when people were like we have Houston we have a problem it's cause like if the whole movie is this guy talking like this then that is actually really offset

by Joe Baez being like what are you talking about yeah shut the fuck up yeah I'm trying to make you coffee yeah um great stuff what was your favorite

song performance do you have one Chris uh my favorite is the moment where they're doing Highway 61 Revisited and he's experimenting with the

the kazoo kind of thing mostly because it is the like most naked Chalamet

is as Dylan as Dylan is kind of becoming who he is but he's like laughing at a guy making a face

whose face we'd never see, and he's like, you're killing me. I'm going to lose it. And it's all the banter that if you listen to the bootleg series, you get a lot of these alternate takes where Hammond or Wilson are like, hey man, keep trying that.

Somebody's like, I can't remember how this ends. That's all I got. Just to get a little bit of that Chasing Mercury on screen was great. So that's probably my favorite. I like that one. What about for you?

Can I do like five or six? How about two or three? It wouldn't be a Mal pod. Two or three? I mean there were like three dozen songs in the movie. I asked you when you went a second time

to make a list of every performance and She did. got you got fucking close man you got almost every song i got a lot yeah how did you do that were you writing throughout the movie or did you watch the credits and you just remembered i when i left the first time i was like panicked that i wasn't going to be able to remember all of them so the second time i was really like trying to while still you know allowing myself to be swept up in the movie um pair moments in the chronology of the film with when we heard the the music uh but also just again because the the musical moments were so good it was pretty like easy to remember them we already talked about song to woody i i think that and i was young when i left home i'll kind of pair at, yeah. Early moments where really quickly I realized I was going to have a great time watching the movie.

And you just sort of do. It's like, oh, right. The prophet has arrived. I thought that Blowing in the Wind. What number are we at? Just out of curiosity. This is, I'm going to say, technically number one. Because that dual smuggle was something that we had already

talked about song to woody and so i smuggled i was the ruben smuggle um blowing in the wind when this is like the morning after it's after he smashes can you imagine smashing joan baez and then be like here's my song shades of you on the skyfall pod making a turkey sandwich unbelievable i mean that was just that was great and i think actually particularly uh memorable because blowing in the wind both inside of his relationship with joan where she wants to play it at the concert and he's like fuck this but also he just says later like they just want me to play blowing in the wind for the fucking rest of my life right um to have seen as he was creating it how just astonishing it was

in real time and the way joan kind of like sits behind him on the bed that was great you know i really loved don't think twice it's all right not only because it's one of my favorite songs ever but the way that it stitched together with where we were in the story in the film because you're initially hearing dylan sing it in the studio and you get that, he wrote this, he did moment, right? And then it pairs with the iconic photo shoot for the Free Willin album cover.

And then we go right from Bob singing it into Joan singing it at the concert and then into hearing Joan on the radio and that argument with Sylvie and Bob that I just thought that was like really really good she knew Robbie you don't sing like that she sure did she sure did um but I think my favorite was was the times they are changing like I thought that was just that's everyone realizing all at the same time yeah and that is that take like he didn't do that at Newport right like he didn't debut that at Newport, right? Like, he didn't debut that at Newport. I don't think, I actually don't know.

And that was in the film, Newport 64, and so it's like this pivot point, right? Yeah, and that song is out before then. Yeah, well, that album is 64, yeah. And, but, the thing I loved most about that was his response. Like, we get a lot of Sylvie in that sequence, but Dylan's face as the crowd in real time

is singing this back to him. And he's like, kind of like maybe not feeling it, actually. Right? He's like, what is happening? I thought that was really exquisite. And the Amy, babe duet was great. Did you have any remaining songs? There were tons.

The music was great. They did a great job. I've always really loved All I Really Want to Do. And so him and Joan in Pittsburgh. That was great. Doing that together, I really liked. I mean, I think the one that, when he's doing a song to Woody,

I was like, oh, good, this isn't going to be a fucking disaster, this movie. You know, I really was just... It hit me. When the Ship Comes In is like an amazing song. Dude, that was great. That scene was great.

That's a very special song in that era for him, too, as a writer. I love that. I really liked when he... I misremembered this. I think he does I'll Keep It With Mine

and he's like singing it in the bathtub. I thought he was like messing around with it in the studio, but I may be misremembering it. Which one? I'll Keep It With Mine and he's like singing it in the bathtub. I thought he was like messing around with it in the studio, but I may be misremembering. Which one? I'll Keep It With Mine, the one that Nico... Yeah, is he like on the piano when he's doing it?

That's what I thought. I thought he was like, because that's also in the bootleg series. It's like him kind of like writing that and then Nico does it later in the 60s. The one thing that is interesting is, you know, you mentioned the bootleg recordings i think the royal albert hall performance is like my favorite of those it was kind of monumental when it was released i guess was it late 90s early 2000s and that is the same era that the

movie ends with where he starts touring the bring it all back home stuff and blonde on blonde and all that starts coming and those recordings are so rip-roaring and raw and exciting and this band can't replicate that and so when part of the reason when you get to the end of the movie one i'm just like the alan lomax stuff is so cartoonish with like turn it off and just like like i just that stuff kind of like bummed me out when i like turn it off and just like getting like fighting like I just that stuff kind of like bum me out when I was watching it because I was like

this is such like fake movie I think that's like favorite part yeah that's like the the cavern run and Top Gun Maverick like they have to have something like a dog fight yeah but like

that you just described something that's awesome and this part isn't awesome so I really didn't like that stuff but also I don't think the band sounds that good I don't think the band sounds that good. I don't think those performances of those electric songs sound that great.

You don't think they sound that good when you listen to the Newport recordings, or you don't think they sound that good in the movie? They sound okay in the movie, but they don't sound as good as the acoustic performances in the movie to me. And I have such fond appreciation for those electric recordings that that was a rare case where I was like this isn't as good as Royal Albert Hall and Manchester

are like as good as rock bands have ever sounded absolutely Manchester is fucking insane yeah yeah

but there's a lot to choose from and that's played fucking loud right like that's when he's like yeah but yeah I mean most of it is good like most of the musical performances are good

well just for context like what are your favorite Dylan albums actually? Like do you have a favorite period of his music or kind of dotted throughout his discography? Since college, I've felt like the like 72 through 78 is like his masterpiece era. Like I think his writing is at its best

in that period of time. That tracks. Blood on the tracks. Blood on the tracks. A lot on the tracks. Best album ever made. You know, like the desire also, I just think is like nonstop perfection. But, you know, you get older and you like get into Saved and you get into all the Christian stuff

and start finding ways to appreciate Empire Burlesque. And, you know, like albums that I tried to hear when I was 25 and I couldn't hear it all and now it's on a continuum of interest to me but I think the 70s stuff is still probably what I like the most I did I think in 17 I wrote a piece for the site about the 10-year anniversary of I'm Not There and John Wesley Harding, which is 67 and how that's like this odd little, it's like, it stands alone. It's like, it's not connected to anything and it's not connected really to the basement tapes, which were kind of being made at that time. It's not really connected to the direction that he goes in the late sixties. It's not really connected to

blonde on blonde. It's like kind of a folk record, but not really. So when I was writing that piece, I listened to that album like roughly 300 times. So I have all those songs committed to memory. So I guess that's on my mind too. Anna, what about you? What is your favorite period? Same, yeah.

Blood on the Tracks is my absolute favorite. But I mean, because of this movie, I have always loved Free Will and Bob Dylan, but because of this movie, I've been listening to it. Just nonstop. Nonstop. Really all of them from that stretch. But, I mean,

that's just an incredible fucking album. It's unbelievable. The first, like, 14 albums? Yeah. Bringing it all back home was amazing. What about you?

His first going electric years are, to me, kind of like my platonic ideal of what rock and roll sounds like in a lot of ways so like when you even go back on bootleg

and listen to like She's Your Lover Now and and you know it takes a lot to laugh and a train to cry it takes a train to cry

like I'm like that still sounds like the Oblivions now to me or whatever so that Blondom Wants My Favorite Album and Pat Garrett and Billy theonde is my favorite album.

And Pat Garrett and Billy the Kind is my like, my like underdog. Fun one. Like one I go back to a lot. Number four. That's the one. Blondin' Blonde is so good. Billy number four. Yeah.

Oscars? Yeah. I mean, it was nominated for best drama at the Golden Globes. And now I think it has found its way meaningfully into best picture. I guess that's cool. I, you know, it's not in my top 10 movies of the year. I like it. You, you adore, is this like a five-star movie for you?

No. Okay. No, again, I don't really think it's a movie. Yeah. It's just like a sentimental object that you enjoy. I just found it like so engrossing. Okay. Really like hypnotic.

Yeah. And so I loved the experience of watching it and then I loved like the very familiar well-trod rabbit hole it sent me back into.

Like that's just a fun fun experience. It's a gateway drug. We probably have overused the phrase a great time at the movies to describe things that aren't that good but for a great time at the movies. Red Rooms, a great time at the movies to describe things that aren't that good,

but for a great time at the movies. Red rooms, a great time at the movies. I'll see you in the red rooms. A complete unknown. Pervert in the red rooms. Red rooms. I don't know. My bad.

This literally was that you know where it's like you go see twisters and you're like that was a great time at the movies it was like this is like yo dude this is a really really good time at the movies if you like bob dolan's music you will love it is that a best picture winner no i don't i often wonder for you i don't think so because you have this relationship with the Oscars specifically where it's like, what's good for movies and the Oscars

versus what I want? Ooh. That's why I've been banging the Brutalist drum because I'm like, it's both. I'm like, this is something

that's looking back and forward, something that is incredibly resonant right now, but is an ode to something from the past that i hope more people are interested in in terms of the art of movie making and movie going um and also will probably be nominated for a fuck ton of oscars like that's just that's ultimately my thing yeah um i i often advocate for mainstream movies like this yeah to get recognized

because I think it's good for the health of the industry. Do you think it's bad that this is like boomer masturbation? Well, I think I'm, just like you guys, I'm willing to make an exception because Bob Dylan's the fucking man.

How many cranks? How many cranks are you giving this one? Oh man, four and a half, four. Wow. Does that mean it would take four and a half pumps to achieve all right so like what's the scale here yeah what's the red room it's like one actually better than five red rooms do i want to go into i give this film seven red rooms i guess i mentioned red rooms a lot i just saw it

it's a complicated film yeah with a lot of strong ideas watch it. It's a complicated film with a lot of strong ideas. Is it possible that the three most meaningful things we watched this year were Dune Part 2, A Complete Unknown, and Timmy on Game Day?

Just the Timmy trifecta. One of the great runs. I have no notes. What else is he doing? He's doing that

Safdie movie. He's got to make Dune 3. That might be a minute though. Right? Yeah. I hope he doesn't do Wonka too. Jesus Christ.

Have you seen Wonka? I have not seen Wonka. You saw it? I will at some point. I'm not going to see Wonka. You won't watch it? I will not. Why not?

I just have no interest in it. I've never even, I don't even know. Is that Roald Dahl? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I do know that he got

a custom pair of Wonka dunks because I saw that on sneaker news on Instagram okay great story thank you any closing thoughts I want to keep

talking about Bob Dylan oh my god I know we don't have to stop I mean I made a list of the movies that are meaningful to him and some of them

are widely available and others are not we've mentioned Don't Look Back quite a bit the D.I. Pennybaker documentary if people are interested in this period are meaningful to him. And some of them are widely available and others are not. We've mentioned Don't Look Back quite a bit, the D.A. Pennybaker documentary. People are interested in this period. He captures him during this period. Eat the Document is another Pennybaker documentary that is not widely available. I just bought myself

a copy on eBay over the weekend. Will you be doing an unboxing on film? Maybe, yeah. Bobby in the Box? That's a good idea. Get Dylan on. Top that Let's number. What do you think of yeah. Bobby in the box? That's a good idea. Get Dylan on. Top that Let's number, you know? What'd you think of Bob's tweet about the movie? Oh, man.

I thought it was great. Great stuff. Yeah? Yeah. Do you think you wrote that? I don't know what's up with his Twitter. Okay. It's also a strange time to become a prolific ex-user.

I know. Is he on Blue Sky? I don't know, but the best thing ever was his SiriusXM show. Oh, my God. I have so many play the sound of wind rustling in the background. So many playlists of his like Bob Dylan's. To Jimmy Jam's D'Ondemo. Yeah. This is a great tune from 1957 at Oklahoma.

It was really good. Oh, man. James Austin Johnson is in this movie very briefly as an emcee at Gertie's. He, of course, is the proprietor of the active best Bob Dylan impression on Saturday Night Live. He busted it out when Chalamet was hosting. Great stuff. You know, it's nice to stumble upon this little Easter egg too,

which is that the Jesse character, who's the blues musician who appears on Seeger's public access show, is portrayed by Big Bill Morganfield, who is the son of muddy waters, who is a hugely influential person on Bob Dylan's musical style. And you know, Bob could play the blues, like pretty credibly play the blues in that time. And,

uh, so I liked that a little bit. That was great. Watching them together was great. Particularly amused by the, you know, offer of the guitar and the refusal. Like it would be like touching your woman.

I had no idea where that scene was going when it was happening that was one of the few times where i was like oh what's happening here tries to get out of the thing it just the interview with with the guy with jesse yeah jesse um a couple of other bob movies so that we've got the two scorsese docs right we've got no direction home required viewing if you liked this movie. Rolling Thunder Review, one of my favorite movies of 2019, I think it was, which is another kind of like

assembly documentary that is part real, part fictionalized. Yeah, it's a little bit more indulgent in the Bob Dylan self-mythologizing. Absolutely. It's pulling in part from Ronaldo and Clara, which is a movie that Bob made in the 70s that was, I don't know if it was ever

formally released, but it's kind of like the ultimate bootleg of Dylanology at this point. Last Waltz, of course, he performs at the final concert for the band, also made by Martin Scorsese. We got Masked and Anonymous, the Larry Charles movie that Bob wrote

that is abjectly terrible, but is a nice little time capsule of that era. I think it's early 2000s and then haynes's i'm not there which is a great film that i love and the difference between that movie and this movie is you've got a lot of people in that movie singing scraps of dylan songs throughout but you the movie closes like so mesmerizingly i don't know if you remember this with just the the harmonica performance of Bob. Oh, yeah. Like right in 63 or 64.

And this movie's like the opposite. It's like a deluge of Bob like over and over again on your head. So they're an interesting contrast of styles. Are there any other Bob Dylan, Pat Garrett and Bill the Kid? Yeah, I mean, I have a couple that aren't movies but are just like personal experiences.

So one thing that if people can find it, I can't remember if it's on PBS's app that they have. The 30th anniversary concert was one of, was basically my introduction to him. And so that features all these artists who at the time were pretty contemporary, like John Mellencamp and Tom Petty doing covers. And then Dylan comes out at the end and does a set

and then does an all-star jam. So awesome. So that features the OJs doing Emotionally Yours which is fucking astonishing and Neil Young doing Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues which is incredible.

So check that out if you can find it. And what was the other one that I was going to recommend people look for? Oh, G.E. Smith

from Saturday Night Live. One of the Saturday Night Live band leaders did a series of interviews I think with the Television Academy but I can't remember but it's like

him sitting in his apartment sitting for like an hour long interview half of it is about touring with Dylan and it is the most insightful wonderful conversation

where he talks about getting hired basically off of SNL and going to meet Dylan at Montana's at like 1am to rehearse all night about getting hired basically off of SNL and going to meet Dylan at Montana's at like 1 a.m. to rehearse all night.

Huh. And Dylan just being like, you got the gig. And then doing the never-ending tour with Dylan for a while. And it is just an incredible piece of ephemera on YouTube. If you just type in

G. Smith Dylan interview, it'll come up. Have you guys ever seen Hearts of Fire? This is a rare film in which Bob Dylan stars, a Richard Marquand movie. You may recall him from the Star Wars trilogy. He's the lead of this movie, made in 1987.

He plays a reclusive musician, once a huge rock star, takes a younger female protege, played by Fiona, while on a tour she meets a younger, more popular rocker and switches her loyalties. The younger, more popular rocker is played by Rupert Everett. I haven't seen this movie.

Did we mention Llewyn Davis? We didn't. Great fucking movie. Llewyn Davis is a five-star movie. That's an incredible movie. And that's obviously a movie that is the most about Bob Dylan without being about Bob Dylan. Why?

Because I love animals and I don't want to see harm befall them. That's why. I see. It's also the inverse of all the women fawning at Bob Dylan in Complete Unknown is Carey Mulligan being like, you should tape your dick. Tearing out his soul. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what do you want to say about it uh it's it is the other side of this coin it's the movie that you kind of were looking for inside of this movie a little bit where it's like why is he like the way he is and what what were the moments in between

these moments of singing and what if bob dylan had just basically missed by five degrees you know um and it's one of their great late period films. I read with interest that, I think it was in Dan Riley's GQ piece, or I can't remember. It's around that time Chalamet met with Joel Cohen to talk about like how to accurately bring justice to Dylan because he was working with Francis McDormand on French Dispatch. And I would love to have a recording of that conversation.

You think Joel was nice about it? I'm sure he was, but he obviously made the movie, he couldn't have made a Dylan movie the way he wanted to make it. Right, Joel Cullen never would have made

A Complete Unknown. That's not of interest to him. He's interested in the guy who fucking missed it, you know, like just by like 10 steps. And yet, the music in that movie

is as close to 1962 at Cafe Was anything you're gonna hear. So, it's a great movie if people haven't seen it. This was great. Had a blast.

We gave you our hearts, but you wanted our souls. As always. I'll come back for more later. So I gave it seven Red Rooms. Mallory gave it four out of five cranks.

Did we get your official how many years of Soto's contract will you be giving this movie? Oh, wow. Well, he can have all 15. Does he make it past the five-year opt-out

when he takes Steve Cohen to the Oakland years again? We're going to keep that war above two through our late 30s. That's what we're all trying to do here at The Ringer

as we all age slowly. Christ. We could do better than that. I'm Pete Seeger. Steve Cohen bankrupted several industries in order to pay Juan Soto's

Juan Soto dropped in to the 40 man roster he'll be hitting third in this lineup heard Juan Soto tore his hamstring in spring training wow

put that devil on me Ricky Bobby alright the toilet like still smelling is that is that about the Mets that's just

completely unnecessary. It's completely... You guys are big mad about Juan Soto. Not at all. I feel fine. Big, big mad. I feel fine. I'm mad about the Red Sox

training for Garrett Crochet. Better you guys than the fucking Dodgers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What are the Phil's going to do? The word is, there was a tweet. I can't remember the exact wording,

so I'm going to paraphrase it. There was a tweet? And it was remember the exact wording, so I'm going to paraphrase it. There was a tweet? And it was that Dave Dombrowski brought his trunks. No, Dave Dombrowski wants to go swimming, but he brought his swim trunks or something like that. It was Scott Boris, and it was an iconic Scott Boris quote. The quote was, the Phillies are not yet in the swimming pool,

but they're wearing their swimming trunks. Uh-huh. Which really, Boris the goat he is like the heir apparent to Bob Dylan in terms of poetry of the mind every time

you try to put your hands around Scott Boris it's like he burns you yeah he's like the AAV is going up I don't know how to

rate this movie I mean I feel similarly to you it doesn't really feel like a movie to me I will watch it again do you think your dad's gonna go see it? I don't my dad to rate this movie. I mean, I feel similarly to you. It doesn't really feel like a movie to me. I will watch it again. Do you think your dad's going to go see it? My dad doesn't care about Bob Dylan. I didn't get him from my dad, really.

My dad is not a meaningfully progressive person. If it was a complete unknown, but it was about Dwayne Allman, would your dad go see it? Fuck yeah. He would be first in line. He would love that. I liked my experience with it. I really thought it was going to be the worst movie of the year for me.

And it is not that at all. Okay. It didn't betray my interest in Bob at all. So thanks so much, guys. You're the best. But this is nice. Twice in one month on this show. Incredible.

I'm spoiled. I know. You'll definitely be back at some point in the next five years, Mel. You can count on that. I'm Sean Fennison. This has been The Big Picture. Thanks for listening. It's available anywhere you get focus. I was visiting my friend Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin just dropped on in on us.

Came here to do a podcast. Thank you to Chris Ryan. Thank you to Mallory Rubin for her work here. And thank you to Jack Sanders, who's our video producer here. He's a filmmaker. One of the good men here at The Ringer. Thanks, of course, to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Boy, he is the light of my life.

Thank you for listening to the show. We'll see you next time when we talk about the little film called Nosferatu. See you then. That's good. Oh, man.