The new trailer for A Complete Unknown just dropped. It’s a send up of the brilliant little movie Dylan once filmed for Subterranean Homesick Blues. It’s not bad but it does strike me that it isn’t quite right to see this in 2024, given that the Left is not the counterculture anymore. Dylan grated against the status quo. Timothee Chalamet doesn’t quite. And I don’t think people today really understand how dramatically things have shifted.
But it is a movie. It is an artistic expression of James Mangold’s love and appreciation for Mr. Dylan and for that it has worth. First, the trailer:
Now imagine this ripping through culture back then. It was very different.
Press materials:
New York, early 1960s. Against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and tumultuous cultural upheaval, an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, destined to change the course of American music. As he forms his most intimate relationships during his rise to fame, he grows restless with the folk movement and, refusing to be defined, makes a controversial choice that culturally reverberates worldwide. Timothée Chalamet stars and sings as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, the electric true story behind the rise of one of the most iconic singer-songwriters in history.
Directed by: James Mangold
Screenplay by: James Mangold and Jay Cocks
Produced by: Fred Berger, James Mangold, Alex Heineman,
Bob Bookman, Peter Jaysen, Alan Gasmer,
Jeff Rosen, Timothée Chalamet
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, Eriko Hatsune, Big Bill Morganfield, Will Harrison, and Scoot McNairy