Last week, Peggy and I saw “A Complete Unknown.” It’s that Bob Dylan biopic that everyone’s talking about. Timothee Chalamet deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Bob Dylan. He captures the man’s spirit – creative, charismatic, moody, mysterious, unpredictable, and quietly headstrong. He even manages to embody Dylan’s distinctive voice, along with his guitar playing and singing style.
I also loved Ed Norton’s saintly Pete Seeger, and Monica Barbaro as the beautiful Joan Baez. However, Elle Fanning’s depiction of Suze Rotolo (fictionalized as Sylvie Russo in the film) was perhaps most moving of all. Her wordless expressions of vulnerability, love, understated jealousy, and disappointment in the face of Dylan’s other love interests were perceptive, touching and sad.
But for me, the film conveyed much more than accurate information about an iconic artist and celebrity. It represented a kind of time travel to an era of deep personal challenge. It made me review my personal experiences of Bob Dylan. It was one of those wonderful trips down memory lane.
I mean, as someone roughly Dylan’s age (he’s 83; I’m 84), the film evoked treasured memories of a Golden Age promise and hope and of an incomparable artist who helped define it like no other.
And then even more importantly for me as one concerned with spiritual growth, freedom, and autonomy, I found the film insightful, instructive and encouraging.
Let me start with a few snapshot memories and then move on to the lessons of “A Complete Unknown.”
Time Travel
My first awareness of Bob Dylan dawned in around 1961 when I was studying for the Catholic priesthood. I was finishing my philosophy degree at St. Columban’s Major Seminary in Milton Massachusetts. That was during the folk music revival that set the scene for the emergence of Dylan along with Baez, Peter Paul and Mary, The Kingston Trio, The Brothers Four and so many other groups and artists. The revival had all of us learning to play the guitar and singing “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
Anyway, I was in the seminary’s community room one evening watching one of the many folk music shows of the time on our group’s 21-inch black and white TV. Maybe it was “Hootenanny; I don’t remember. But suddenly there appeared on screen this skinny kid with a harp rack around his neck (the first time I saw one). His voice and demeanor were like nothing I had seen before. I don’t remember his song, but his voice was unforgettable – unpretentious, and raspy. He mumbled the words in a way that made them almost unintelligible. I had never heard anything like that. Of course, it was Bob Dylan.
That summer I was visiting my brother who said, “Hey Mike, you’ve got to hear this.” He then played for me in its entirety his 33 1/3 vinyl recording of “The Free-Wheelin’ Boy Dylan.” This time I listened to the words and marveled at their strange, captivating beauty along with Dylan’s unique vocalization. I remember hearing for the first time “Girl from the North Country,” “Oxford Town,” “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War,” and “Talking World War III Blues.” It was then that I realized for the first time what an important artist Bob Dylan is.
My assessment was confirmed, I remember, by a Time Magazine story that appeared shortly afterwards. It said that Bob Dylan was perhaps the greatest American poet of the 20th century – a judgment definitively reiterated years later (2016) when he received the Nobel Prize in literature.
I was hooked – a Bob Dylan fan for life. And this even though (like Pete Seeger) I was disappointed by Dylan’s electrification and somehow even more so by his Jesus period. At the time, Dylan’s going electric appeared to be a sellout. It also signaled the end of the folk era I came to treasure so dearly. I was sad about that.
As for the Jesus period (1978-’81), it too signified a selling out of sorts. And as a Catholic theologian, I’m not sure why I saw it that way. Maybe it too seemed a normalization of someone I admired as creatively offbeat. Nevertheless, I’ve since come to appreciate the artistry, beauty, and sheer rock genius of that phase of Dylan’s life too. “Saved” along with “You Gotta Serve Somebody” are prime examples of all that. (See for yourself. Play the video at the top of this blog entry.)
Then, two years ago during an extended stay in Granada Spain, I formed a friendship with an Italian Bob Dylan scholar, Francesco Adreani. Like me he had integrated himself into a group of cave-dwelling street musicians. Cesco (as we called him) shared a 40-page essay he’d written called “Tutte Le Strade Portano a Desolation Row” (All Roads Lead to Desolation Row.”) It was a marvelous read. It connected Dylan with Tarot and astrology as well as with the author’s personal experiences. I remember spending my last Granada afternoon with my brilliant friend in the Alhambra garden smoking weed and discussing “Desolation Row” stanza by stanza.
Finally (still in Granada) there was an unforgettable Dylan moment I shared with my sweet 15-year-old granddaughter. It happened that towards the end of our shared year in Spain, Bob Dylan gave a concert in the Alhambra. And my daughter made it possible for her daughter and me to attend. Talk about unforgettable! My granddaughter said I was smiling from ear to ear during the entire event.
As for Dylan that night . . .. No guitar, no harmonica, only piano. Not a word addressed to the audience except something like “Isn’t this a wonderful place to be?” But then song after wonderful song delivered in Dylan’s inimitable way – still raspy with words almost unintelligible. (Afterwards, Cesco asked me what I thought of “Every Grain of Sand.” And I had no response because I didn’t realize Dylan had sung it.) But what an unforgettable experience with my granddaughter and Bob Dylan!
Moral of the Story
Yes, Bob Dylan was an important part of my life.
Yet there’s so much more to say about his impact on the most formative span of my 84 years (my 20s and 30s). Along with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and the others, he gave language to the hope so many of us experienced during the 1960s and early ‘70s.
That was the time of the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Liberation, the Native American Freedom Drive, Prisoners’ Rights demonstrations, and Gay Liberation. It was a time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-’65) and hopeful reform in the Catholic Church where I had just been ordained a priest. It was an era of awakening, protest, resistance, and great literature and music. How I miss all of that. How I long for its revival. It was all absolutely formative.
In that context, Bob Dylan helped an entire generation find our voices. Unlike Joan Baez with her quasi-operatic tone and range, his singing voice was ordinary to mediocre to poor. But it was his and he made no apologies for it. It was revolutionary. It was meaningful. And in the end, it was beautiful.
If Bob Dylan could sing like that, anyone could. In fact, soon everyone was singing like that. I’m talking about masters like John Prine and Bruce Springsteen. I’m talking about guitar hacks like me. Bob Dylan encouraged (i.e. gave courage to) us all to discern what was blowin’ in the wind in times that were truly a-changin’.
But Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan is far more even than that. He speaks to our very processes of becoming who we really are. In “A Complete Unknown,” Dylan comes across as a kind of mystic whose authenticity, autonomy, and creativity meant more to him than anyone’s stultifying but seductive adulation. It meant more than the approval of rightfully sanctified pillars of the folk music establishment like Seegar, Baez, and even Woody Guthrie.
All of this was epitomized in the film’s climax at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when by going electric, Dylan offended so many of those who fawned over him along with everyone who mattered in his musical world. But he was ahead of his time. He recognized that (as his later Oscar winning song put it) “Things Have Changed.” The folk revival was over. It was time to move on.
And move on he did.
However, his transition was not just the expression of one artist’s commitment to his own creative daimon.
It was a statement about life itself. Change is inevitable, it says, though most find it uncomfortable and resist it mightily. The matrix of public expectation is claustrophobic and takes great courage to escape. It requires endurance in the face of slings and arrows often launched even by pillars of the community, family members, experts, and loved ones.
None of us should forget that.
With all that in mind, don’t miss “A Complete Unknown.” It’s a great movie that recalls an unforgettable era. It’s a teachable moment too.
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