2007, USA/Germany
Biography, Drama, Fantasy, Music, Romance
How can one man embody the voice of an entire generation? Director Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Velvet Goldmine) implies that it is an impossible task as he explores the sextography of the multiple incarnations of Bob Dylan.
I'm Not There makes no attempt at denying the reference, though none of the six characters bare his name. Haynes notes the inspiration at the start of the film and ends it with a tight close-up of the man behind the myth. Lovers, musicians and managers are all duly noted under aliases, but they act more as chronological tools than factual markers. Much like the tale of bluesman Robert Johnson, Dylan’s life is best told as pop culture folklore, burying the truths that the media attempted to unearth.
Like a song that reinvents itself with each telling, Haynes distances reality by filtering one life through the eyes of many. As the characters travel by car or horseback, the camera focuses on the faces in the crowd who are constantly keeping watch on the folk hero, whether he is being admired or disdained.
Man (Christian Bale) or woman (Cate Blanchett), young or old (Richard Gere), black (Marcus Carl Franklin) or white, narrator (Ben Whishaw) or actor learning a role (Heath Ledger), the various viewpoints assure that no storyline is incongruous. By avoiding the boring biopic template, Haynes brilliantly explores each life with a kaleidoscope instead of a microscope.
Initially each role is thrown across the screen like a wave of random memories, slowing until each is allowed to crash against the shore to deposit its distinct artifacts. Ultimately, as water from the same body of water, the tide turns each by the same moon.
As a black boy channeling the hardships of Woody Guthrie, Dylan’s ghost attempts to find a modern voice after shedding a life lived and extinguished. When he finds his own audience in another incarnation, he cannot handle the fame and evolves from preacher of song to minister of religion. Swallowed by a whale much like Jonah, it is fitting that he becomes such a profit.
The oldest representation lives in a literal manifestation of the fable, a town called Riddle that is in danger of being destroyed in the name of progress and abandoned at the hint of fear. With so many searching for cold, hard facts, they risk destroying the mystery that first attracted them to this misappointed delegate of the people.
Art imitates life and vice versa, as a film actor recreates the life of one of Haynes’ characters, and a film in which the real Dylan acted (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) comes to life through a recluse cowboy. Moments from the don’t-call-it-folk documentary, Dont Look Back, seep onto the screen, intertwined with imaginative thoughts previously concealed.
Though the storyteller tries to distance himself from his songs, he is stuck in an endless cycle of reinterpretation as he jumps from one track to the next. At least under Haynes’ guidance, the hero is able to journey down six different paths -- expanding upon the myth of a living legend.