A Complete Unknown

I went into A Complete Unknown knowing absolutely nothing about Bob Dylan, his life, or really even his music. I think if you’d have put a gun to my head and asked me to name three Dylan songs, I’d say shoot me.

So, to me it wasn’t really a biopic; it was just a film about a guy called Bob Dylan who wants to be a singer. I knew his name, and I knew a lot of the other musicians in it – like Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, etc – but that’s about it.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it! Of course, I’d heard Blowin’ in the Wind before watching this film, so to my ear that’s untrained in all things Dylan, Timothée Chalamet’s voice sounded pretty much bang on to me.

And speaking of voices, the actress who played Joan Baez – Monica Barbaro – has a truly stunning voice. I was legitimately sitting in the cinema in awe at how incredible it was.

You kinda expect that in a film about singers though, don’t you?

Edward Norton, who played Pete Seeger, is just as good as he always is. His performance was amazing, like it always is. I can add his role in A Complete Unknown to the growing list of reasons why he’s criminally underrated.

I consider myself quite a big fan of Johnny Cash, but the knowledge I have about him is pretty much limited to his own career and music. So it came as quite a shock to learn that Cash and Dylan were little pen pals, sending letters back and forth to each other.

A favourite phrase of Cash’s in the letters to Dylan was “track some mud on the carpet,” meaning to do what you think is right, and leave a real impression. Big fan of that too now, and might start using it myself.

I must say though, the portrayal of Cash in A Complete Unknown felt a little weird. Boyd Holbrook felt like he was acting as quite a sleazy character. To be fair to him, Cash was almost always either high or drunk in the 60s, so it’s not too far from reality.

I do think though that you’re never really going to get a better Cash – save the man himself – than Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal in Walk the Line. His performance, to me, was so perfect, so spot on, that nobody else is going to come close.

As I said, I went into this not knowing anything about Bob Dylan. Has this converted me into a fan though? Honestly, no. And that’s for one key reason.

The goddamn harmonica. That instrument is truly awful. I hate it with a burning passion. And the sound of it screeching into your ears at the same decibel level as a fighter jet wasn’t a great experience. This isn’t hyperbole, at one point I thought I’d gone a bit deaf.

There’s a scene where Dylan goes to an open mic in a church, and after he’s done his thing on the stage, he watches a blues band perform. A member of the band is also playing the harmonica, and he’s actually playing it pretty nicely.

I think that if I were the director of this film, I’d have had to stray away from the truth a little bit, adding a few minutes to allow Dylan the chance to ask the blues guy for harmonica lessons. Maybe a nice montage, some backing music, and boom, hey presto, the harmonica isn’t a piece of shit any more.

Or even, for some dramatic effect, a scene where Dylan, after hearing this guy in the blues band play the harmonica and not making it sound like a cat being tortured, gets disheartened and ends up throwing the fucking thing into the Hudson River. Everything else stays the same, just the harmonica is gone.

Either of those options would bump the film up a few points in the ratings, I’m sure. Take notes, directors.

But yeah, harmonica aside, A Complete Unknown is very good. Would recommend watching at home where you can turn the volume down slightly.