A Complete Unknown (2024)

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Obnoxious folksinger encounters hijinks in New York and Rhode Island.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Am I the only person who saw this?!?

--Solid performances and music performances. I liked whathisname as Pete Seeger especially, Bob's women somewhat less.
--Didn't reveal enough of what made Dylan good. It was just like, he's a good songwriter, what more do you want?
--Usual biopic issues of compressed timelines, etc

[metirish]

I'll try and get to this, but, this forum has fallen on its arse since Vic Sage exited stage left

[Frayed Knot]

I saw it shortly after its XMas day debut.

And enjoyed it.
Did it break any new ground, or did I learn something I didn't already know? No & No.
But it was well done acting and singing-wise, and the story it told was relatively accurate.
It's an Oscar nomination, at least, for Chalamet. Bio Pics tend to almost invite those and he certainly didn't blow the opportunity.

The timeline is from Bobby first showing up in NYC through his 'Going Electric' at the Newport Folk Festival which famously angered many of the folkie purists.
The only name-changed-to-protect-the-innocent was the Greenwich Village girlfriend, reportedly at the request of Dylan himself as she wasn't a public person aside from her relationship with him. But the character is Suze Rotolo in everything but name. The daughter of immigrant Italian communists, she knew the Village and woke him up to many of the social issues of the day that were quickly absorbed into his writings.

Most of the other actors were unknown to me aside from Edward Norton as Pete Seeger (not tall or thin enough but he had Pete's speaking voice down pat) or barely known to me, Elle Fanning* as Suze Rotolo/Sylvie Russo. Other expected characters such as Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Albert Grossman, Dave Van Ronk and others weave in and out of the story.


"Get out there are track some mud on the carpet" -- Johnny Cash






* btw, Elle and Dakota Fanning's father: https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... nnin001ste

[Edgy MD]

I'm pretty skeptical, both about the proliferating glut of musician biopics and about the proliferating glut of Timothee Chalomet roles, so I'm not sure I could give this one a fair read.

[cal sharpie]

I saw it on Christmas Day.

Some of the deliberate changes were irksome: Pete Seegar was not present when Bob visited Woody Guthrie; "Judas" was shouted in the UK not at Newport, Suze (Sylvie inthe move) was not at Newport, etc.

That being said, I thought it was very good and I'm saying that as a serious Dylan fan for about 50 years. Chalamet (yes, probably an obnoxious person but a good actor); and Edward Norton as Seegar were both excellent. I too am generally opposed to musical biopics, I thought the Queen and the Elvis ones were total wastes of time and I was skeptical about this but I have to say it did capture early-period Dylan in a good way.

4 stars.

[whippoorwill]

Yes enough already with Timothee C

[Edgy MD]

[Frayed Knot]

Having never seen Chalamet in anything else prior to this (that I know of anyway) I have zero opinion into whether
he's a great guy or an asshole off camera. Nor am I all Chalamet'd out the way some of you seem be.

[Frayed Knot]

Sudden thought as we're on the eve of the Oscars here.

There's a small part as a black bluesman named Brownie McGhee in COMPLETE UNKNOWN. He was the guy on the public TV piece with Pete Seeger and Dylan. There's nothing wrong with the part as I guess it's meant to show how 'folkie' Dylan had always had at least one foot in R&R/blues and would therefore never be as 'pure' as the folk crowd wanted.
But the part seemed maybe a bit too big to me and not really necessary for the story. Other characters with larger connections to Bob in that era (Dave Van Ronk for instance) were on screen but with much smaller parts and not even identified by name. And it's not like the thought that Dylan was never the wholly committed Folkie some fans wanted him to be wasn't conveyed in numerous other ways in the flick. So while I'm going to assume that the Dylan/McGhee TV meeting actually took place, was there any other connection between the two that made his character relevant?

And then it hit me. Did they write in this part because, without one, there would have been no significant speaking parts for black actors and therefore, by the rules Hollywood put in several years ago, no possibility of an Oscar nomination much less a potential win?

[Edgy MD]

Imma guess definitely maybe?

[MFS62]

I liked whathisname as Pete Seeger especially,

His name is Edward Norton and I'm rooting for him to finally get the Best Supporting Actor award because I believe he really got screwed out of the award for his performance in Primal Fear.

Later

[MFS62]

I liked whathisname as Pete Seeger especially,

His name is Edward Norton and I'm rooting for him to finally get the Best Supporting Actor award because I believe he really got screwed out of the award for his performance in Primal Fear.

Later

RATS!
Later