I’m Not There **** (2007, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, Bruce Greenwood) – Classic Movie Review 3288

After nearly five decades of recording music, singer songwriter Bob Dylan has reinvented himself numerous times, metamorphosing from folk troubadour to protest singer to electric rocker to born again Christian and beyond. Yet for all the words he has written and which have been written about him, he remains pretty much an enigma to the world at large.

This oddball pseudo-documentary biopic from director Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Carol) is neither an exploration of his life nor a celebration of his music, but rather an exploration of his unending mystique. It flits back and forth in time to critical moments in Dylan’s career, ruminating on aspects of his character and his career and life decisions.

To add to the film’s attractive weirdness, five different actors – and one actress, Cate Blanchett – impersonate aspects of the great Bob. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin are the actors in question: they all do a good job, but, bizarrely, not a good as Blanchett, who won a Golden Globe for her tour-de-force, lookalike turn – yes she really does look like him!

You do have to know a bit about Dylan to fathom out what the heck’s going on half the time and you probably have to like him and his music to watch it at all: it’s unlikely to convert anyone to the cause. Nevertheless, this stylish and imaginative freewheeling toast to the great man is a truly clever and unique movie that handsomely rewards a second viewing.

Of the non-Dylan players, Bruce Greenwood gives a showstopping turn as a BBC interviewer.

The screenplay is by Todd Haynes and Oren Moverman, based on Haynes’s story. The narrator is the voice of Kris Kristofferson, who worked with Dylan on Sam Peckinpah’s Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in 1973.

Todd Haynes and Cate Blanchett reunited for Carol in 2015.

Tragically, it proved the last but one completed film of Heath Ledger 1979–2008, before The Dark Knight.

http://derekwinnert.com/carol-2015-cate-blanchett-rooney-mara-sarah-paulson-kyle-chandler-movie-review/

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3288

Link to home page for more reviews derekwinnert.com