Because I Have Known You, ... | "A Complete Unknown"

[cahwyguy]

What, you were expecting Wicked?

Nah, Bob Dylan has been a much more pervasive influence in my life, from my brother playing Peter, Paul, and Mary on his guitar, to my uncle playing folk music. In fact, if you look at my music collection, you’ll two primary genres: folk music, of all varieties, and cast albums.

True, we were deeply disappointed in the Bob Dylan musical, Girl From The North Country, but we shall not speak of that anymore. This was not Girl From The North Country.  That was a depressing mess. This was a wonderful motion picture.

And because it was a motion picture, I don’t have the burden of detailing everything about the story or the cast. I can just point you to IMDB, and give you my impressions.

First: The story. This is the period of Dylan with which I am most familiar. Not only from the Dylan-lore, but from the stories told by his contemporaries whom I still listen to and see: Noel Paul Stookey, Tom Paxton, and others. The movie captures the Greenwich Village folk scene, and most of the people I expected to see, and name drops most of them. I knew who Albert Grossman was before he even showed up. I knew the names and the music: Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Odetta, and others. The movie had that authentic feel, and the characterizations seemed spot on. Of PP&M, they really only emphasized Peter Yarrow’s role (and, alas, Yarrow is on his last days right now, dealing with bladder cancer); you had two glimpses of Mary and I think only one of Noel Paul.

I knew some of Dylan’s story from that time, but not all of it. I know that the Suzie character is a composite, but I didn’t know about his relationship with Joan Baez. I was disappointed that some of the folks I expected to see weren’t mentioned (or at least name-dropped), but perhaps they were coming in as he was moving out of the folk world (I’m thinking in particular of folks like Tom Paxton or Mississippi John Hurt). Other folks we might have heard from were more on the traditional folk side or slightly before Dylan’s time (the Weavers and the Limeliters would be good examples there). I originally had Dave Von Ronk on the list, but it turns out the character was in the movie.  I didn’t recognize Norbert Leo Butz as Alan Lomax (and both Noel Paul and Mary’s performers were uncredited, and only Noel Paul’s made it to IMDB).

But the story held my attention and was interesting.

The performances were spot on. Timothée Chalamet was remarkable. I saw him on Colbert, and he mentioned he had been working on this role for five years, and all the music was live-sung. I’m super impressed with him, first with his great job on Wonka, and now this. He is an extremely talented young man, a very strong musician, and he captured Dylan’s voice and mannerisms well. Ed Norton was also extremely strong as Pete Seeger, and he captured the character as I knew him well. Nick Pupo looked like the young Peter Yarrow, but didn’t quite have the same voice. Monica Barbaro was a strong Joan Baez; again, she nailed the voice. Boyd Holbrook was a bit of a caricature of Johnny Cash: he had the voice, but not the depth. But that wasn’t critical to the movie.

Should you go see this: If you like folk music, yes. I was thinking about this in relationship to other early folk stories: 2003’s A Mighty Wind and 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis. The latter two are fictionalized, but do a good job of presenting the folk scene. This comes closer to presenting it as it was. I think, of the three, this might be the best.

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