Yahoo Lifestyle How Realistic Is ‘A Complete Unknown’? We Found the Original Bob Dylan Moments It Replicates to Confirm
If you haven't seen the new Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown by now, surely you've at least caught a moment from the truly unpredictable press tour that its star, Timothée Chalamet has been on to promote it. (If not, just know that his chaotic interview with Britney Broski was a highlight. As was the 13-minute Instagram livestream where he watched a Bob Dylan compilation in an empty warehouse.) But when a biopic's subject praises the film, like Bob Dylan did earlier this month, is any further promotion necessary? I think not!
Plus, Bob's been more than just A Complete Unknown's cheerleader. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Timothée revealed that the music legend also reviewed the film's script, provided feedback, and even has an executive producer credit on the film. Celebrity biopics love taking creative liberties, but with input from Mr. Dylan himself, it should come as no surprise that there are tons of moments in the movie that were recreated exactly (or nearly exactly) as they took place in real life. And since everyone loves to see some receipts, we dug to find some of the iconic original moments—so you can judge for yourself just how well the replications were handled. Check them out below.
***Spoilers ahead!***
Bob's letters with Johnny Cash
The movie covers Bob's relationship with an iconic pen pal—country music star Johnny Cash. The two exchange several letters throughout the film before meeting face-to-face for the first time at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. This all (mostly) happened! Johnny confirmed they wrote to each other in his 1997 memoir Cash: An Autobiography. But according to Bob's 2003 eulogy for Johnny, the two likely met in 1962 or 1963—not at the 1964 festival. AJ Weberman, a notorious "Dylanoligist" who's studied and written about him at length, even claims to have found an unfinished draft of one of these letters (see above). He retrieved this artifact by...digging through Bob's garbage.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover
In the film, we see the ups and downs of Bob's relationship with political activist Sylvie Russo (played by Elle Fanning). Sylvie's character is actually based on Bob's real-life ex/muse Suze Rotolo. A Complete Unknown's director James Mangold told Rolling Stone that the film's name change for the character was made at Bob's request.
“It was a character who I felt—and I think Bob very much agreed when we talked early on — was the only one who wasn’t a celebrity and an icon in and of themselves with a kind of public persona [...] there was just a feeling for Bob of not subjecting her to that."
But one of the most obvious clues that Suze = Sylvie? Her character's appearance on Bob's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover. One of the movie's scenes shows the couple being photographed for the same cover that Suze Rotolo notably appeared on back in 1963.
Bob's duet with Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival
Another relationship that played a huge role in A Complete Unknown was Bob's sometimes creative sometimes romantic partnership with fellow folk star Joan Baez (played by Monica Barbaro). Back in the day, the two were involved, and the affair did go down while Bob was still with Suze (drama!). They also hit the stage together often. One of those times was at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, where they performed Bob's song "It Ain't Me Babe" as a duet. The movie shows them doing this (with tons of tension) at the 1965 festival instead. But whether or not Suze Rotolo tearfully watched this duo sing from the wings of the stage like Sylvie did is yet to be confirmed. (It's the movie's most heartbreaking moment! Fight me on that.)
The "Judas" moment
Most of the film's third act focuses on Bob's controversial turn into performing with electric instruments. In the movie and real life, many of his fans saw this as a betrayal of his folk roots, and that frustration was dramatically portrayed during a hectic scene at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when one of the jeering crowd members called Bob "Judas." This scene was actually a combination of two different dramatic electric performances Bob did. He did his first-ever live performance with electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, but the whole Judas situation went down at a 1966 show in Manchester, England. (And he handled the backlash just as casually as he was shown to in the movie. Watch for yourself above.)
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