‘A Complete Unknown’ director James Mangold reveals first conversation with Bob Dylan
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(Credits: Searchlight Pictures)
Following the release of the first trailer of A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, director James Mangold has lifted the lid on the production and revealed the first question Dylan asked him about the movie.
The first look at the upcoming movie sees Chalamet sing like Dylan and look the part as a young version of the legendary singer-songwriter. It also shows Edward Norton portrays Pete Seeger, and Elle Fanning playing Dylan’s love interest, Sylvie Russo, based on Suze Rotolo. The cast also features Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Buzt and Scoot McNairy.
A Complete Unknown is set to arrive in cinemas in the United Kingdom in January, 2025, but will be released in the United States a month earlier. The project has been a labour of love for Mangold, who is adamant that the movie is unlike other biopics, such as Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman.
The movie follows Dylan as he makes his way in New York after moving from Minnesota as a 19-year-old in 1961 and the unlikely road ahead that awaits him. As the trailer hints, A Complete Unknown charts his sharp rise from obscurity to musical messiah, inspiring a generation with his heartfelt protest songs before culminating with his controversial performance at Newport Folk Festival in 1965 that saw him go electric.
Speaking on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Mangold noted of A Complete Unknown: “I am not here to say I am making the Jon Meacham definitive biography, that’s not my job. My job is to kind of explore the specific aspect in Bob’s life and the people around him and this moment in America, to be honest, this ground zero in New York.”
The director then revealed his first conversation with Dylan about the movie, “It’s really interesting, y’know Bob, one of the early things, the first time that I sat down with him, and it was such an interesting question because he said, ‘What’s this movie about, Jim?’”
Mangold continued: “I didn’t have an answer, but what sprang out of me was, ‘It’s about a guy who is choking to death in Minnesota and leaves behind all his friends and family, reinvents himself in a brand new place, makes new friends, builds a new family, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again and runs away. He smiled, and said, ‘I like that’. Essentially, that’s what I’m telling because you need a north star.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Mangold explained why Dylan is such a complex character to tackle, forcing him to buck the trends of music biopics. In a bid to stay true to Dylan’s elusive nature, he admitted, “I didn’t want to turn Bob Dylan into a simple character with a simple thing to unlock that then makes you go, ‘Ah, now I get him’. I don’t think that’s possible having got to know him. I also think it’s pretty clear that he’s spent most of his life trying to avoid that exact act by anybody.”
While Mangold admits that he did go down that route on the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line, he said this was due to Cash being “defined by his upbringing”, “the loss of his brother” and “addiction”, which wasn’t applicable to Dylan’s story.
Therefore, as a director, Mangold decided to make A Complete Unknown more of an “ensemble piece” and although it “follows Bob”, the filmmaker admitted, “I’m much more interested in the wake that this person has left on others as much as I’m interested in unpacking who he is in some kind of conventional movie Freudian way.”
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