A Complete Unknown

[Zeppie2022]

Posted: 1/4/25 at 10:12am

My wife and I went to see the movie "A Complete Unknown" last night and really enjoyed it. This is the Bob Dylan biography movie, and it covered the years 1961-1965 when Dylan came on the folk scene in the Village of NYC. Standout performance by Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. He did all the singing and playing of instruments and nailed it IMO without appearing like he was doing impersonation of Dylan. Other standouts to us were Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) and Ed Norton (Pete Seeger).

If you are not that familiar with the life of Bob Dylan, this movie gives you condensed version of the early years. Dylan comes to NYC from Minnesota and hooks up with Pete Seeger. Seeger sees immediately that this kid can be the young face of the folk music scene. Dylan writes his early hits and hooks up with Joan Baez in a up and down relationship. Dylan has GF who is an artist, but she believes Dylan has a "thing" for Baez, which is correct. One of the best scenes in the movie is Baez and Dylan singing early version of "Blowing in The Wind". Movie shows Dylan playing at several festivals leading up to the dramatic appearance when Dylan goes "electric". For hard core Dylan fans, the movie embellishes a few things and arranges history a bit to make the movie flow better. Exp - There were no times Dylan visited a dying Woodie Guthrie in the hospital, but those scenes make Seeger more central to the story.

Overall, I would recommend the movie. Good music/story from the early 60's and some excellent acting performances.

Updated On: 1/4/25 at 10:12 AM

[Zeppie2022]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:22am

Nice to see the movie did quite well with Oscar nominations which included "Best Picture" and three acting nominations.