A Complete Unknown (2024) Oscar nominated gem from James Mangold
“You’re kind of an asshole, Bob”
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Woody Guthrie” and so begins A Complete Unknown with the first of multiple and varied uses of the Woody Guthrie classic “Dusty Old Dust (So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh)” and after very brief opening credits we cut to “1961” and an immediate introduction to a young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) writing in his notebook in the cramped confines of a car boot before being dropped off in New York and “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN” is displayed in the centre of the screen. We follow the thin, skeletal frame of Bob carrying a guitar case and a small yellow backpack through the busy streets of New York as he first passes a street musician outside a bakery before stopping at the record store next door and as a zoom close up aptly demonstrates, pictures of his earliest musical influences Lead Belly, Pete Seeger and, with a latter camera move, Woody Guthrie. We cut to Bob quietly sitting at the counter of a cafe as his and our focus is drawn to a conversation at a nearby table on the merits or otherwise of country music amid a rising challenge from the folk scene as Bob retrieves a newspaper cutting from his wallet confirming the hospitalisation of Woody Guthrie. Asking the owner for directions to the hospital mentioned within the newspaper article he is rather abruptly informed by a bearded man I believe to be his future on/off friend and fellow folk singer Dave van Ronk (although I could be wrong!) that the hospital is in New Jersey, with Bob exclaiming in exasperation “Christ. I just came from New Jersey”.
We cut to a courtroom scene and the beginnings of a back and forth legal dispute between a Judge (resplendent in an eye patch over one eye and the Stars and Stripes of the American flag over his left shoulder) and “Pete Seeger” (Edward Norton) pleading his innocence to any wrongdoing and having never been “subversive” against the country of his birth. Indignant, and refusing to name names or answer the Judge’s questions even under the threat of a subpoena, Pete exclaims “I’m here because a second rate politician from Louisiana decided that he don’t like a song I sang, or maybe he don’t like some of the folks I might have sung it to” before quoting his “good friend” Woody Guthrie and “a song can only do good”. As the song in question, and for which he’s in “hot water”, is a “patriotic song”, Pete reaches for his banjo and suggests he play it for the Judge so he can hear the offending words for himself before passing a final judgement. With the crowd in the public gallery roaring their approval the Judge slams his gavel on the judicial bench refusing to hear Pete’s song but undeterred, we now cut to Pete on the courthouse steps singing “This Land is Your Land” for a small crowd of reporters and supporters and as the camera retreats from the scene and the song comes to an end, we cut to the arrival of a yellow taxi outside a large hospital. With next to no money Bob pays the driver what he has before entering the hospital and slowly walking the yellow and green coloured corridors until he hears the faint strains of a banjo and “Dusty Old Dust (So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh)”.
Brilliantly and almost immediately, Mangold’s camera captures the past, present and future of America’s folk music scene with an angle from the bed of “Woody Guthrie” (Scoot McNairy) capturing his good friend Pete Seeger and a somewhat star struck Bob Dylan standing tentatively in the doorway. Invited in, Bob nervously removes his hat and after acknowledging Pete’s introduction of both himself and Woody, Bob replies in kind with first “Bobby” and then “Dylan” and after a struggling and wordless Woody points at his guitar case, Bob replies he writes and sings his own songs and had to hitchhike to see his hero and pay his respects as Woody’s songs “struck me to the ground” and hopefully by meeting him he’ll “maybe catch a spark”. Woody now struggles to reach for a card on his bedside table before passing it to Bob, reading on one side “Woody — The Dustiest of the Dustbowlers” and on the reverse: “I ain’t dead yet”.
Laughing at this continuing joke dreamt up by both himself and Pete, Woody begins to cough as he taps Bob’s guitar case and after attending to his great friend, Pete confirms to Bob with a broad smile that Woody would love to hear him sing and play his guitar. As Woody continues to cough, Pete’s smiles vanish in concern for his friend and as he helps him drink a sip of water, the camera first retreats behind Bob as he prepares his guitar in readiness to play and then in front as he proudly announces he wrote “Song to Woody” in his honour. Mangold’s camera now moves to each man in turn, from Bob and “Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song” to Pete’s original appreciation of Bob’s guitar playing and then huge smiles, and finally to Woody, looking as alive as you’ll see in the entire film to come, relaxed, at peace, humbled and proud and with Bob concluding his song to him, he bangs the bedside table with four, slow thumps…
My cinematic love affair for the creations of American filmmaker James Mangold stretches back over a quarter of a century to his second film Copland in 1997 and although I’ve still to see his debut film Heavy two years earlier and my comedy muscle needs more than Kate and Leopold and the awful Knight and Day that bookend the first decade of the 21st Century, his lucky 13th all time feature length release A Complete Unknown continues in his rich vein of great storytelling on the big screen. I could name many and/or all of the incredible films he’s helmed in his 30 year career with favourites Girl, Interrupted (1999), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Logan (2017) and Ford v Ferrari (2019) particular standouts, but the easy and obvious companion piece to A Complete Unknown here is the arguably better and more accomplished (but perhaps that’s the Johnny Cash fan in me speaking) Walk The Line from 2005. Thus it pleases me greatly to see “The Man in Black” represented here in the guise of Boyd Holbrook’s performance as well as the obvious parallels between the relationship of Johnny and June Cash with Bob and girlfriend “Sylvie” (stellar performance from Elle Fanning) Bob’s relationship with “Joan Baez” (a quite brilliant Monica Barbaro) and the correspondence shared between Johnny and Bob and Johnny’s oft suggestion his new friend leave a mark on the world and “track some mud on the carpet”.
The obvious admission to make is I’m not a huge Bob Dylan fan but an admirer of his music and artwork and as such, I can’t pass any further or obvious comment on any historical inaccuracies and will thus leave these to more learned people than I and his legion of devotional fans. What I can comment upon and greatly admire is the scope of the film which runs ostensibly between the years of 1961 and 1964 and Bob’s early forays into the New York folk scene and “playing for the basket” in Gaslight Cafe’s (see Dave Van Ronk from earlier and the folk music scene so brilliantly brought to life in the Coen Brothers classic Inside Llewyn Davis), early appearances and performances in churches and folk festivals and the backdrop of Bob’s life at the time as the world of JFK and his assassination bookends the Cuban Missile Crisis and the crippling uncertainty of a wider world on the brink of nuclear annihilation and Bob’s singing of “Masters of War” (my favourite song of his) at the Gaslight Cafe. Although the film accelerates into the year of 1965 in the second half and firmly stays there with Bob no longer a complete unknown but a vaunted superstar steering his ambitions away from folk and into more electric and group collaborations rather than as a singular solo artist, I adored Mangold’s constant juxtaposition of Dylan’s songs to reflect not only the time period but of the constantly changing and difficult to like person behind the song. Be it “Masters of War” as above or “The Times They Are A Changin” to Pete Seeger’s delight and to Sylvie’s despair as to the state of their relationship. “Highway 61” is brilliantly used as a showcase for a different Dylan moving in a different direction. “It Ain’t Me, Babe” at the Newport Folk Festival of 1965 and Joan Baez angrily stating to the man in and out of her life before the song to “just fuck off and sing” (and Mangold’s camera capturing an electrifying performance as well as crushing close-ups on Sylvie and her acknowledgement that her relationship with Bob was finally over) to “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and a final rendition of “Song to Woody” and a final goodbye to his hero.
A Complete Unknown is a magnificent film full to the brim of incredible performances from an ensemble cast headlined of course by Timothée Chalamet as Bob and Oscar nominated alongside Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez. A long time fan of Scoot McNairy I may be, but he does so much in a wordless, heartbreaking portrayal of Woody Guthrie too. A film of transition and transaction, of moving on and following the muse of genius and wherever she takes you. Of arrogance and narcissism and believing in yourself, your art, vision and your life’s work and calling. Of broken hearts and broken relationships, and broken promises along a Highway 61 containing a largely unlikeable character who seemingly took his friend’s advice to track some of life’s mud on the carpet along the way.
Highly recommended.
Here are your Oscar winners this coming Sunday:
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
Thanks for this excellent review Stephen, I will def see Complete Unknown
Btw watched The Master for the first time yesterday
I was absolutely awestruck
Even joined Philip Seymour Hoffman
In song
Last night!