A Complete Unknown: A Review - A Bob Dylan Bio-Pic Blowin' in the Wind

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. A painfully formulaic music bio-pic, that features great music, but that refuses to do anything but paint-by-numbers. Skip it in the theatre and see it on streaming.

A Complete Unknown, starring Timothee Chalamet, chronicles Bob Dylan’s rise to fame from his beginnings in 1961 to his iconic performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

The film, which is directed by James Mangold and co-written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, opens with Dylan moving to New York City and making a pilgrimage to see the godfather of American folk music, Woody Guthrie, as he lay in dire straits in a hospital bed.

It is at the hospital that Dylan meets both the infirm Guthrie as well as his friend, esteemed folk musician Pete Seeger, and plays a song for them both which impresses them no end. And off to the races goes Bob Dylan’s career.

On the journey of this film, we get to see Bob mix and mingle with such musical stalwarts as Joan Baez and Johnny Cash as well as Seeger and Guthrie. We also get glimpses of his personal life and his relationships with both Baez and Sylvie Russo (in real life this character is Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo), and his struggle and sometimes delight in making it big.

We also get to the standard music biopic touchstones where a guy-writing-songs is interspersed with great historical moments of the time. So, there’s memory lane type moviemaking where Dylan writes this great song and everybody knowingly looks at each other, and then the Cuban Missile Crisis happens, and he writes another great song and everybody knowingly looks at each other, and then the JFK assassination happens and Dylan writes another great song and everybody knowingly looks at each other…and on and on and on.

What we don’t see in the film is any real glimpse of Bob Dylan behind the well-defined public persona. In public life Dylan has long been a distant, aloof, morose and surly entity…and he remains one throughout the entirety of this rigidly formulaic film.

The music bio-pic is such a standard of Hollywood that it feels like self-parody at this point, and A Complete Unknown adheres to the well-worn, paint-by-numbers music biopic approach from start to finish.

Are there bright spots in the film? Sure.

First off, while I am no superfan of Bob Dylan, I do like his music a great deal and the music in this movie is well executed and presented. You can’t help but tap your feet and nod along to the renditions of Dylan’s famous and fantastic songs…of which there are a shockingly high number.

Secondly, there are a few good performances in the movie. The most notable to me is a very nuanced and subtle performance from Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

Norton’s Seeger is a gentle soul that conceals a fiery spirit with which Seeger is exceedingly uncomfortable. Norton gives Seeger a delicate touch but there is something in his gentility that is fierce and undeniable.

Norton gets overlooked a lot, and is widely considered a pain in the ass by the powers that be in Hollywood, but make no mistake, when he is locked-in he is a terrific actor, and he is locked-in here as Seeger.

Another bright spot is that Timothee Chalamet, to his great credit, actually plays guitar and sings for his performance as Dylan. Nothing would’ve been worse than to have a fake-nose wearing Chalamet lip-sync his way through Dylan’s early catalogue. Chalamet singing and playing gives the music a rawness that adds to the authenticity of an otherwise rather inauthentic movie.

To be clear, in terms of the acting, Chalamet does a good impression of Bob Dylan, but due to the limitations of the script, the performance never moves beyond imitation. He is restricted by the script from delving too deeply into Dylan as a human being, and is forced to stick with Dylan as musical genius.

Timothee Chalamet, or as I prefer to call him – “Little Timmy”, has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Critics and industry people fawn all over him like he’s the love child of James Dean and Leonardo DiCaprio. In my less than humble opinion, he’s never been very good in anything I’ve seen him do, with the lone exception of a commercial for Apple TV (in which he is excellent).

I assume Little Timmy will win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work as Bob Dylan. It’s one of those roles that Hollywood loves to celebrate because it pays homage to an icon, Dylan, and gives praise to a young actor they want to turn into the next big movie star.

Little Timmy has definitely positioned himself well for the moment and in his career, and is poised in Hollywood eyes for winning an Oscar, but whether he’ll actually prove himself to be a great actor, or a great movie star, over the next decades, remains to be seen. Consider me skeptical.

The rest of the cast do decent enough work in rather thankless roles.

For example, the usually stellar Elle Fanning, who was so remarkable in the tv series The Great, is under-utilized and reduced to the one-dimensional girlfriend role of Sylvie. Fanning does what she can with the very little she’s given…but boy there’s not much for her to do.

The same is true of Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez. Barbaro does do a good job singing in Baez’s beautiful style, but beyond that she is given gruel on which to feed.

Boyd Holbrook plays Johnny Cash, and he does well enough with very little. One of the funniest moments in the movie is when Holbrook’s Cash tries to move his car at the Newport Festival. If you’ll remember, director Mangold made the Johnny Cash bio-pic Walk the Line, which garnered Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor nomination in 2005. (It would’ve been amusing to me if Mangold went full Mangold Music Bio-pic Cinematic Universe – MMBPCU - and had Phoenix play the small role of Johnny Cash in this movie.)

But even the bright spots of this film aren’t particularly bright, which is often an issue with a formulaic music bio-pic.

The bottom line regarding A Complete Unknown is that it is, as a cinematic venture, unlike Bob Dylan’s discography, pretty forgettable. But the reality is that most people will go and hear the great music and enjoy the movie for the mediocrity that it is…and there’s nothing wrong with that.

In my screening there were a bevy of people in Dylan’s age group (their 80s) who cheered rapturously when the movie ended…and who also spoke ridiculously loudly during the duration of the film. These folks don’t need the movie to be good or even interesting, they just need it to be a nostalgia delivery machine…and they got what they wanted.

Ultimately, I enjoyed listening to Bob Dylan’s music for a couple hours while a middling movie played out before me. I assume anyone who loves or even likes Bob Dylan’s music will feel the same way.

That said, the reality is that A Complete Unknown is a generic, safe and very middling affair that is buoyed by Bob Dylan’s musical brilliance. Because of that, I would say that if you want to see it, save your money and the annoyance of a theatre outing and wait until it hits a streaming service to watch it.

©2024

Nosferatu: A Review - Beautiful, Brilliant and Bloodthirsty

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A masterfully-made arthouse horror movie that features exquisite craftsmanship.

I went to a small arthouse theater here in flyover country last night to see Robert Eggers’ new film Nosferatu, which is a remake of the 1922 F.W. Murnau silent film classic of the same name.

My theater going experience was, to say the least, not very conducive to a positive cinematic experience. First off, the theater across the hall from my screening was playing the Bob Dylan bio-pic A Complete Unknown, and so my often-silent screening of Nosferatu many times had an unintentional bass line accompanying it courtesy of Mr. Dylan.

Secondly, despite being the only people in the theater at the start of the screening, my wife and I were soon joined by a cavalcade of dimwits and dipshits in our small screening room once the film began. A couple in their mid-60’s sat in the row in front of us off to the right and decided this theater was their living room and chatted freely and loudly. Another man, by himself, sat in the row in front of us to our left and after downing a bag of popcorn and drinking a canned iced tea, proceeded to sanitize his hands and compulsively rub them together literally every ten minutes for the duration of the film. The medicated stench of the sanitizer did not add to our enjoyment of the film.

And yet…despite all of the morons and miscreants around us and the uninvited bass line, I still found myself under the spell of the arthouse horror of Nosferatu as its the mesmerizing mastery played out before me.

The original Nosferatu is a truly staggering cinematic achievement. Director Murnau is one of the most influential filmmakers of the German Expressionist era. I saw Murnau’s Nosferatu for the first time in the early 1990’s and was blown away by it. It is essential viewing for anyone interesting in making, or understanding, cinema.

Robert Eggers’ remake is not as colossal a cinematic document as Murnau’s, but it is very impressive nonetheless. What is so remarkable about this new version is that Eggers’ Nosferatu is one of the most magnificently crafted films in recent memory.

The film is bursting with a bevy of extraordinary craftsmanship, from its cinematography to its costume and set design, that is exhilarating for a cinephile. Unfortunately, for whatever reason (and there are a myriad of them), craftsmanship of this level is rarely seen in films anymore.

Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is astonishing as the film is gorgeously photographed. His framing and composition, use of shadow and light, and deft camera movements make for a phenomenal visual feast of a film.

Robert Eggers’ and Blaschke’s clarity of vision, precision and attention to detail are extraordinary. The film is not black and white, like the original, but it is dark…but unlike so many modern movies, the darkness does not lack distinction. In other words, you can actually see despite – or in some cases – because, of the darkness.

Blaschke’s cinematography and muted color palette, combined with the locations, sets and costumes, along with Eggers’ gothic brilliance, set an unsettling mood for the movie which is more-creepy than it is scary.

If you know the original Nosferatu, or are familiar with the Bram Stoker novel Dracula, you’ll know the plot of this film, so there will be no twists or surprises, but thanks to Eggers’ mastery, you’ll still be compelled to watch.

The cast all acquit themselves well, but it is Lily Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp) as Ellen, who stands above the rest with a truly superb performance. Depp is asked to do quite a bit and she is fearless in tackling all of the madness required of her. Depp is unleashed, physically, emotionally, artistically, and she devours the role with a ferocious aplomb.

Depp’s Ellen is the embodiment of repressed female sexuality in the Victorian era. The men in her life restrain her, numb her, drug her, chastise her, shame her and ignore her. But the sexual beast within her, which has called Nosferatu forth, simply cannot be denied.

Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas, Ellen’s husband, and he is fantastic as essentially the cuckold to Nosferatu. Thomas is afraid…of everything, and Hoult brings that fear to life in a captivating, and never mannered, way.

Thomas loves Ellen, of that there is no doubt, but he is rudderless when it comes to navigating the intricacies of the staid business world as well as his wife’s carnal needs.

Aaron Taylor Johnson, Emma Corrin, and Willem Dafoe all give deliciously theatrical performances as Friedrich, Anna, and Dr. von Franz respectively.

Dafoe, if you’ll recall, starred as Max Shreck in Shadow of the Vampire back in 2000 – a fictional (and clever) re-telling of the making of Murnau’s Nosferatu. Now here he is playing a German version of Von Helsing in the remake. It never fails to amuse me that Willem Dafoe has become the go to eccentric character actor of our time…it also never fails to please me.

Bill Skarsgard plays Count Orlack/Nosferatu in all his grotesqueness and is magnificently menacing. Skarsgard’s voice is unnervingly demonic and matches his ungodly and ungainly physicality.

The vampire has long been a symbol of repressed sexual energy…which is why it was such a potent myth in Victorian era. Count Orlock/Nosferatu, is not a sexy and suave lady killer like Dracula, instead he is a demon and beast…a sub-conscious symbol of repressed sexuality.

Ellen’s sexual energy is stifled at an early age under the repressive mores of her time, but it is released when she calls forth the beast Nosferatu…a shadow creature who dwells in psychological darkness where unspoken and unacknowledged desires reside.

As Thomas says to Ellen after she speaks of her calling forth the demon in her youth – “let’s never speak of it again” – which of course leaves it in the psychological shadow which will only further empower the beastly demon.

Eggers’ re-telling of the Nosferatu/Dracula/vampire story goes, unsurprisingly, deep into the lore and the core of vampire mythology. Thanks to this much of the Hollywood stuff we’ve grown accustomed to is gone. For example, there are no wooden stakes or flying bats in Nosferatu…but there are rats…lots and lots and lots of rats.

Eggers is a filmmaker who has a distinct style that some consider an acquired taste. If that is true then I have, for the most part, acquired it. I was blown away by Eggers’ moody first film, The Witch, but was disappointed by his second effort, The Lighthouse, which just wasn’t for me.

I really enjoyed his third film The Northman, but the movie flopped and I was worried what he would or could do next to keep his artistry and his career afloat. Thankfully he’s now given us Nosferatu, which while it isn’t a truly great film, it is so exceptionally made and is doing well-enough at the box office, that Eggers will continue to do his cinematic thing for the foreseeable future, which makes me happy.  

Genuine auteurs are tough to find nowadays, and auteurs with exquisite artistic sensibilities and craftsmanship are even more rare. Eggers is all of the above, and when you consider his unique cinematic style and taste in projects, he really comes to the forefront as one of our treasured filmmakers…even if he isn’t blowing up the box office or winning Academy Awards.

In conclusion, Nosferatu may not interest normal people, or it may be too dark for the cineplex crowd, but it is a masterful piece of moviemaking that should be celebrated and encouraged.

Nosferatu was the best movie I’ve seen this year because it was the best made-movie I’ve seen this year. If you like cinematic excellence, even when it comes in the form of a remake of a one-hundred-year-old silent horror classic, then this movie is for you.

And finally, while I heartily recommend David Eggers’ new arthouse horror version of Nosferatu to those with the taste for it, I also highly recommend the original 1922 Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau, but that I recommend for everyone…as it’s something everybody needs to see at least once in their life (and it is streaming on Amazon Prime!!).

©2024