Bob Dylan doesn’t want us to get to know him, so we don’t. And yet, we do get to know the world he sees. “A Complete Unknown” is a biopic completely told through Dylan’s stubborn eyes and stubborn mind; it doesn’t try to assert an impression of Dylan, but rather, lets him do the talking (and the non-talking as well). The film does what any music biopic sets out to achieve: help the audience appreciate the artist. You’re surely bound to want to go home and pick up the untouched guitar lying in the corner of your basement, write a lyric or two, or even just Google “Bob Dylan” and try to figure out the mystery man for yourself — an achievement you’ll find no success in after watching this film, for that would defeat the title, of course.
Since “A Complete Unknown” is told unapologetically through Dylan’s point of view, the development and characterization of other characters is naturally, intentionally sacrificed. The film doesn’t glorify Dylan as a person and the audience is sure to see his abrasiveness. Sylvie Russo, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, all friends and important people in the story of the artist, are played how Dylan saw them: people he (kind of) loved but eventually outgrew. They were placeholders in his life that served a purpose until they were pushed away into the shaded wings of Dylan’s mind to make more room for his amplified self. Love, admiration and appreciation didn’t stick around long — the spotlight of the singer’s mind was always himself.
Instead of immortalizing Dylan as a glorified figure on a pedestal, “A Complete Unknown” immortalizes him as a figure on a pedestal you just might want to pelt with some rotten tomatoes. Dylan, unlike his talent, was easy to dislike. “A Complete Unknown” doesn’t shy away from his raspy, hard edges, though it still emphasizes his legendary ascent in and disruption of the folk music world. We’re amazed at his evolution, his lyricism, his nimble guitar picking, but we see through prodigy and into the progeny of genius. Dylan’s not a nice guy, and he doesn’t really care; he’s just fine going on knowing he doesn’t devote time or space to anything or anyone other than him and his music. We’re allowed into the audience of Dylan’s brain, but not onto the stage itself. We can spectate, but we can’t get too close. It’s frustrating and it’s also how everyone else around him felt. With the pseudo father-son relationship between Dylan and Seeger that we were rooting for, the cord is unplugged, and Seeger’s left knowing Dylan isn’t the same scrawny Bobby he took in back in the early ’60s. Dylan goes electric, and his sound doesn’t reach us the same way anymore. There’s fire and rebelliousness in his chords and his voice; there’s stomp in his boots. The famous singer takes a perfectly counterculture ride away from his old-school folk roots in the film’s last scene, and we realize we don’t know any more about this man than we did when we met him two hours ago.
In some ways, “A Complete Unknown” is an oh-so-typical biopic. We follow an artist’s seemingly overnight rise to stardom and musical evolution, listen to a medley of the classic hits, and trace failed relationships with the private and the public. But, instead of following Dylan’s descent or final days, the film appropriately leaves us on a cliffhanger. We can hear his mumbling drawl telling us to take his music or leave it. You can be in the front row clapping and nodding along to something new, or you can throw trash at him from your spot on the lawn. There’s no time to mourn old folk; you gotta roll into rock. And it might be a little loud.
“A Complete Unknown” is left incomplete in the end, without the closure of death or a final concert scene customary of other music biopics, so maybe it does feel a bit unfinished. But the film doesn’t set out to “finish” Dylan. It doesn’t attempt to capture too much, nor does it fail by focusing on too little of Dylan’s life. Each song has its own space in Dylan’s growing repertoire, marking new changes in his world and his musicianship. A career spanning over 40 albums is impossible to present in two hours, musically or biographically, so no Dylan biopic would ever be representative enough of his legacy to please any self-proclaimed “Dylanologists” or “Bobcats” or music history puritans. Any film that tried to cater so much to nitpicking crowds would fail at maintaining Dylans’s anti-people-pleaser essence. This is why we watch fame chase Dylan, not the other way around. We know he wants to make it big, but we never watch him grovel at the feet of record labels. He lets his music sing for him, and he sings for his music, not his fans. This is why we don’t closely track the reasons girls scream at his taxi car, why his songs resonate so deeply with young folk in bars. We, like Dylan, are just along for the ride. We turn our backs on the too-eager press and turn our heads to new musicians and empty studios instead. Rebellion isn’t handed to us in the forms of peace signs, flower garlands, drugs and posters, but in Dylan’s silent, then electric rejection of controlling tradition.