Todd Haynes: "Don't understand my movie? Piss off."

I’m Not There is a challenging film, illuminating to Dylan fans and completely impenetrable to those who know nothing about the greatest American songwriter of all-time. The film is a loose biopic of Dylan, jumping across different periods of his life with six different actors playing the singer, most notably Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, and Christian Bale.

Blanchett plays the most recognizable version of Dylan, the electric troubadour that blazed audiences in 1965 and 1966, donned in black shades and a leather jacket while running around England. Bale is the confused folkie breaking his way onto the scene in the early ‘60s and quickly becoming disillusioned with the scene, while Ledger is the successful actor with a troubled family life who gets his start by playing Bale’s character in a movie. Sound confusing? It is. No one’s real names are used in this movie other than Allen Ginsburg – you have to infer that Charlotte Gainsbourg is playing Sara, Dylan’s first wife, and that Julianne Moore is playing Joan Baez, one of his first loves.

Then, some parts are just confusing. Richard Gere plays Billy the Kid (!), the outlaw who is laying low after a showdown with Pat Garrett, the sheriff who chased him. Now, here’s where knowledge of Dylan comes in handy, because Dylanites will recognize these names, as Dylan scored the music to the Sam Peckinpah film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The metaphor is simple: at that point in his life, Dylan was hiding from the spotlight, releasing disappointing albums that seemed phoned-in, much like Billy the Kid is trying not to get found out by Johnny Law. But in the film, Billy eventually has to confront society, much like Dylan did. This only dawned on me ten minutes after the movie ended, and I’m a giant Dylan fan – again, not for the casual fan.

The dialogue is a little clunky at times, and director Todd Haynes somewhat annoyingly romanticizes Dylan at times. It’s clear he greatly reveres Dylan, but lines like, “I know more about you then you’ll ever know about me!” sound canned. There’s also the problem of the movie’s insular nature – if you’re not a Dylan fan, this movie will make no sense to you. That’s got to be a problem.

The best parts about this movie are the opening sequence and the soundtrack. The movie balances Dylan tunes and Dylan covers from the official CD release, with artists from Sonic Youth (check out bassist Kim Gordon making an appearance, by the way) to Cat Power to Stephen Malkmus to the Hold Steady. In one of the movie’s few song sequences, there’s a phenomenal version of “Going to Acapulco” as performed by Jim James of My Morning Jacket and Calexico. It’s better than the original and got me to Borders to try and buy the soundtrack, which I failed to do. Check it out at the myspace for the movie, which you can Google.

If you are a Dylan fan, you should see this movie. If you’re not, then you can see it anyways, but don’t be put off by the references you won’t understand and the songs you don’t know. Just take it as an opportunity to brush up on some Bobby.

Better than: Walk the Line

Worse than: No Direction Home