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June 27, 2008
I'm Not There
Yeah, so after reading Funke's mention of the movie, I remembered how curious I was about I'm Not There. We had wanted to see it in our local warehouse turned indy movie with beer and coffee place, but it just never worked out.
Which was just as well in the long run. Tim hated it.
It was postmodern almost to the point of incoherency at points. Five actors and an actress portraying the different dimensions of Dylan's life and work. I was intrigued by the idea of it, but often it seemed to break down under the weight of its own polyphony. At some points, there was just too much going on.
The thing is, we both like movies that play with narrative. And we both adore Dylan. But...
In some ways the movie presumes too much knowledge, and then just repeats that which most Dylan fans would already know. It takes whole sections of footage used in earlier documentaries (Don't Look Back and Scorsese's No Direction Home), and then just recreates them using the different actors/actress. There didn't seem to be much new insight into the events.
What I liked? Cate Blanchett as Dylan. Actually, I thought it would be my least favorite aspect of the movie. I thought using a woman to portray Dylan was just a publicity stunt. But she was perfect. Vulnerable, opaque, defensive, complicated, yet with a child-like translucency. I think the reasons it didn't bother me to have her play him (I honestly thought it would be too distracting to have a woman play Dylan) is first of all her stunning acting job, and secondly, the familiarity I have of the use of trouser roles in operas (think Mary Martin as Peter Pan).
I also really like the sections with a young African-American boy portraying Dylan. It wove together really great bits: the influence of blues and spirituals on Dylan, his fascination with music of earlier times, his made-up biography, even the metaphor of trains and travel that permeate his music.
The soundtrack was fabulous. It pretty much stayed away from the top-ten sort of Dylan songs, and used many of his more obscure but fascinating songs.
What I hated? Richard Gere as Dylan as a cowboy in some kind of surreal universe. Very weird, and didn't seem to fit . Dylan as a pentecostal preacher spewing out some civil religion nonsense that didn't seem very Dylanesque, but perhaps they used his actual words. Not too much on his conversion experience, which I would have loved to hear more about.
I liked Scorsese's film much better. And as I thought about it, it has its own polyphony, the defensive voice of the young Dylan contrasting with the older, thoughtful Dylan peering back at his life and interpreting what he sees.
Thinking , movies , music stuff | By Tim and Jo | 1:10 PM
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Comments
I thought that I was just too ignorant of Dylan's biography to truly appreciate the film, so it's nice to know that an expert also agrees with me.
As for the Grere cowboy scenes, I was like "Ok, old-timey town...what?? Giraffes???" And then the whole sequence was completely ruined for me.
Posted by: funke at June 27, 2008 7:44 PM