As someone who has always filled his head with more Beatles than Dylan, I might be at a disadvantage when it comes to appreciating director Todd Hayne’s cerebral and bold project. This Bob Dylan “biopic” I’m Not There is no more a straight biopic than Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe is a documentary about the ’60s. Much in the same way Dylan incessantly refused definition, the movie defies genre convention through its variety of filming styles and fragmented stories. It focuses on deconstructing the ideas and myths surrounding Dylan. The piece jumps arbitrarily between six different incarnations of the storyteller at different points in his life, all carrying different names and all played by different actors. In doing so, Haynes alienates viewers from the man while strangely bringing them closer to him as a kind of everyman. The soundtrack of Dylan’s music—at times original recordings, at other points covers by the cast—is purposefully the only unifying element in the film, bridging the gaps between Haynes’ intense abstractions.
The merry-go-round of actors include: Marcus Carl Franklin as an 11-year-old black boy hitching the rails with his guitar and mature lyrical prowess; Ben Whishaw as a Dylan-esque poet spouting philosophies in an interrogation room; Christian Bale as a folk troubadour, burdened by the expectations of social protest and leadership; Heath Ledger as a romantically tormented, egotistical actor whose career is launched by portraying Bale’s character; Cate Blanchett as a transcendent embodiment of Dylan in his post-Newport Festival, fan-loathed electric days; and finally Richard Gere as allegorical, turn-of-the-century cowboy Billy the Kid, protecting his small town of Riddle from threatening highway developers. Such a rich cast of characters keeps the audience from ever settling comfortably into a coherent narrative whole.
Both Ledger and Bale deliver heartbreaking, engaging performances of their respective incarnations of Dylan, further solidifying their place as elite character actors. To say Blanchett is brilliant would render this review redundant next to every other since the film’s premiere; not to say so would be negligent.
Her Dylan (dubbed Jude Quinn) is hauntingly captivating as she simultaneously manages to seduce and repel the audience, presenting an amiable and infuriating Dylan dealing with commercial success and controversy while on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Rather than try to forcibly capture the character, Blanchett embraces being a representation of his multifaceted and elusive self. Her staggered poetry and caustic remarks are delivered with a delicate neurosis. Within her role, Blanchett succeeds in what Haynes endeavours to do with his whole cast: he displays the mystery and ambiguity of Dylan’s identity. The real Dylan has always been this elusive, moving from role to role with the ease of an actor, probing the notion of an inherently authentic self.
As the audience is sporadically guided through the famous man’s life, there are both poignant and hilarious stops along the way. Bruce Greenwood makes a great turn as Dylan’s nemesis British reporter—the basis of “Ballad of a Thin Man”—whose verbal sparring with Blanchett is compelling. Dylan’s encounters with hyper-eccentric poet Allen Ginsberg, played by David Cross, and The Beatles, shown here as mop-topped little boys with munchkin voices, are also quite amusing.
The allegorical Western bogs the film down as boring, superfluous and downright infuriating with its drawn-out apocalyptic melodrama and too many children in creepy costumes. I’m Not There still manages to maintain a puzzling momentum—no doubt aided by intriguing cinematography and Haynes’ at times jarring direction.
Thematically, I’m Not There effectively abstains from imposing a fallacious consistency upon such an erratic person as Dylan. While talking to the New York Times last year, the late Heath Ledger argued, “Bob Dylan himself defies description, and …Todd was aiming to represent him. He was not trying to sum him up or define him.” By design, Haynes takes the audience on a journey through the masks that Dylan wore with a playfulness that, for the most part, keeps you engaged. Essentially I’m Not There is a work of postmodern deconstruction. Dylan provides Haynes the perfect subject through which he can examine the nature of the decentralized self and the infinitely receding masks of identity. Coinciding with the movie’s lyric-born title, Haynes seems intent on exploring Gertrude Stein’s famous quote that there isn’t any “there there.” The film even playfully toys with semiotics—the study of signs and their arbitrary connection to what they signify in reality. Indeed, when asked what the only thing left in the world was, Ledger’s character slyly responds, “sign language.” Such a theoretical focus results in the film’s potential to be used as a study in the world of academia. Simultaneously this threatens to alienate the passive viewer, making the movie frustrating and inaccessible. Haynes may not be without a sense of irony: just like Dylan himself, he gives us something to engage with, wrestle with, and, ultimately, something none of us could ever really understand.
I’m Not There runs tonight at The Screening Room at 9:30 p.m.
The film is also showing at Festival Cinemas Fox Theatre in Toronto.
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