criterionforum.org

Posted: **Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:44 pm**

Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes upcoming film, I'm Not There.

Among the six other actors(!) featured as Dylan are Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere. That's right, Batman and The Joker will play Dylan in the same film.

Posted: **Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:12 pm**

I had heard that Julianne Moore, too, will play Dylan (along with a large female black soul singer)... it's also the only Dylan Biopic that he's supporting.

Posted: **Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:50 pm**

Moore is in it, but she's not one of the Dylans. From Celluloid Dreams' site:

Oscar-nominated writer-director Todd Haynes brings us the ultimate film on the most influential artist of the 20th Century, Bob Dylan. Dylan changed the face of popular music in the mid 1960s and continues to influence todayÃs musicians, poets, lyricists and culture. Taking inspiration from his ever changing career, "I'm Not There" is an interwoven series of stories taking place in America in the 60s and 70s. Each expressing an aspect of Dylan's mercurial personality and each story is to be filmed differently, in a style appropriate to its theme: Woody (an 11 year old black boy, always on the run), Robbie (a womanising performer, always on the road - played by Heath Ledger), Jude (the young androgynous rock star - Cate Blanchett), John/Jack (a folk idol who reinvents himself as an evangelist - Christian Bale), and Billy (the famous outlaw, miraculously alive but growing old - Richard Gere). Five different actors play six different "Dylanesque" characters. The actors are female as well as male, black as well as white, and range in age from a child of 11 to a mature man in his late 50s. Linking these stories is the music of Dylan himself either as the original songs or cover versions. It begins with DylanÃs anthem to restlessness, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", utilizing the songs in roughly chronological order, and ends most appropriately with the iconographic international hit, "Like a Rolling Stone".

Incidentally, Ledger replaced Colin Farrell.

Posted: **Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:07 am**

No one can ever accuse Todd of playing it safe

Posted: **Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:57 pm**

Polybius wrote:No one can ever accuse Todd of playing it safe

Heh!

Love Dylan, love Haynes, love the idea for this film... in fact, "I'm not there" is one of my most-loved of all Dylan songs, although I confess I can't decipher even half the lyrics. Unless I'm mistaken, "I'm not there" has never received an official release, and although I love my basement tapes bootlegs, I wonder if it might find its way onto a soundtrack album? (Or if a "soundtrack album" is even appropriate for this movie?)

Posted: **Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:14 pm**

I'm not a huge Dylan fan, but I wish they kept the full working title: I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan.

Posted: **Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:34 pm**

Rich Malloy wrote: Love Dylan, love Haynes, love the idea for this film... in fact, "I'm not there" is one of my most-loved of all Dylan songs, although I confess I can't decipher even half the lyrics. Unless I'm mistaken, "I'm not there" has never received an official release, and although I love my basement tapes bootlegs, I wonder if it might find its way onto a soundtrack album? (Or if a "soundtrack album" is even appropriate for this movie?)

Absolutely. I'm Not There (1956) is one of Dylan's absolute finest moments, and if this film provides the platform for its official release it will be a major event whatever the quality of the movie.

I have great faith in Haynes with this project, however. His pop music films to date have been some of the smartest I've seen, though as Haynes-on-Pop goes, the Dylan film would have to be pretty amazing to top Superstar.

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:31 pm**

Todd NEVER plays it safe.

There's a lot of misinformation about this film. No one actually "plays" Bob Dylan. The actors inhabit characters who relate to certain aspects of Dylan's life history -- as do the scenes they appear in. That's one of the reasons it's called I'm Not There.

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:32 pm**

I'm actually slightly disappointed the actors are (apparently) being made up to look like Dylan -- without knowing much beyond the short summary quoted above, it somehow seems truer to the spirit of the project that the actors wouldn't physically resemble Dylan. That said, all we have is one photo of Cate, so I am jumping to conclusions here (I certainly can't imagine they'd have a black kid resemble Dylan -- what are they gonna use, whiteface?).

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:14 pm**

I'm not sure if you're being both knowing and fanciful in your response, but "whiteface" certainly would be appropriate. I'm always drawn to those images of Dylan in whiteface (75-76?), though it seems less some sort of reverse-minstrelsy, and more like a persona-negating Geisha type thing.

Or maybe it was just in response to the popularity of KISS. Seriously.

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:53 pm**

all we have is one photo of Cate, so I am jumping to conclusions here

Indeed you are.

Posted: **Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:01 am**

I opened myself up for that one by not saying "I am jumping to conclusions here." No shame in it, that's what we do best 'round these parts.

Posted: **Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:33 pm**

Over the past few months my fondness for Bob Dylan grew to heights I didn't realize would happen between me and a musical artist. I found myself getting any and every bootleg that was pre-1978. Not that 1978 was a bad year, it was good to see Bob become more vocal at his concerts and begin telling stories with his songs more often, though I could do without the backup singers. The Rolling Thunder Revue concerts mainly became my obsession. Bob's continuous song arranging and voice to me reached its zenith when he began this tour.

I'm wondering about this Haynes idea how he will work in the important people in Bob's life in various stages. If he will play straight people like Allen Ginsberg and Joan Baez by having characters act like them and be like them or if they will also be of different race/gender. The character's names obviously allude to the key stages in his life (Jude-Judas), Billy (Pat Garrett), Woody (Guthrie) and there is always influences in all of these different moments which perhaps the characters names just point out in general. It seems to make a film with all these stages you'd need many many hours. I am in agreement into liking the idea though and glad Bob is on board.

Posted: **Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:34 pm**

Floyd wrote:Over the past few months my fondness for Bob Dylan grew to heights I didn't realize would happen between me and a musical artist.

Same here, I finally saw the new DVD of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and I've been obsessively picking up everything Bob Dylan, including that doc Scorsese did.

Posted: **Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:39 pm**

Eat the Document is quite good, and if you have the stamina Renaldo and Clara is not without interest.

Posted: **Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:41 pm**

Floyd wrote:Over the past few months my fondness for Bob Dylan grew to heights I didn't realize would happen between me and a musical artist. I found myself getting any and every bootleg that was pre-1978.

Have you gotten hold of the one entitled "Plymouth Rock"? One of my faves!

Posted: **Wed Sep 13, 2006 8:32 am**

His new album is certainly among his best.

I can't wait for this film!

Posted: **Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:35 pm**

planetjake wrote:His new album is certainly among his best.

I cannot disagree more. I don't think he's really done anything worthwhile since the mid seventies... but I'm a bit of a curmudgeon, so don't mind me.

Posted: **Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:07 am**

Images of Heath Ledger (?), Richard Gere, and another of Cate Blanchett as Dylan (or facets of him, or whateverthefuck they are).

Posted: **Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:27 am**

Leave it to Cate though to pull off what is probably the most realistic portrayal of Dylan in the film. Hell, in the stills I've seen, she's the only one who actually sort of looks like him.

Posted: **Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:29 am**

I have to say that this film sounds ridiculous and I predict a total artistic and commercial failure although I do admire Todd Haynes (he was after all the executive producer of last year's best film, Old Joy)

Posted: **Sun Jan 21, 2007 10:59 pm**

"Straight people like Allen Ginsberg"??

Ha ha. This could either be really good or completely horrible. I'm a big Dylan fan myself but have no problems with a film interpreting different aspects of his persona. Just so long as there's lots of music and at least one rapid-fire annihilation of a journalist included I'll be OK with it.

Posted: **Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:54 pm**

I think the "heath ledger" picture is really Jim James (My Morning Jacket) & Calexico (those two or three guys). Sounds like a party.

Posted: **Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:09 am**

(Dave how many are there already?)

So many husbands, so little time.

Posted: **Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:10 am**

I'm a big Dylan fan myself but have no problems with a film interpreting different aspects of his persona. Just so long as there's lots of music and at least one rapid-fire annihilation of a journalist included I'll be OK with it.

Dylan has given Todd permission to use the entire catalogue however he sees fit.

criterionforum.org

I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007)