ASMA KHALID, HOST:
The origin story of Bob Dylan gets the big-screen treatment with the release this week of "A Complete Unknown," the new movie starring Timothee Chalamet.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A COMPLETE UNKNOWN")
TIMOTHEE CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan) Two hundred people in that room, and each one wants me to be somebody else. They should just let me be.
WILL HARRISON: (As Bob Neuwirth) Let you be what?
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan) Whatever it is they don't want me to be.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KHALID: In recent years, we have seen a flurry of music biopics - not all of them great, according to Stephen Thompson of NPR Music. He caught an early screening of this new Dylan film, and he is here to talk about it with us. Hey, there.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Hey, Asma.
KHALID: So what'd you think?
THOMPSON: Well, I think it's effectively made, and I think it avoids a lot of the worst flaws in the biopic structure. The main thing it gets right - I think the performances are largely really effective. We'll get to Timothee Chalamet in a second, but I like his work here quite a bit. There are some great supporting performances, particularly from Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Rebecca (ph) Barbaro as Joan Baez. I think those performances and those real-life people who represent different kinds of idealism. I think they're really important to undercutting the things about Bob Dylan as a person that are less than ideal. It's not a perfect movie. There are cliches - lots of lingering shots of wet-eyed women watching...
KHALID: (Laughter).
THOMPSON: ...Him perform, that sort of thing. But it's very smart to focus on a small sliver of Dylan's career instead of trying for one of these cradle-to-grave filmed Wikipedia entries that we sometimes get in this genre.
KHALID: OK, so you said Timothee Chalamet's performance was quite effective. Because sometimes, in these biopics, an actor can come across like he or she is doing an impression of a famous person...
THOMPSON: Oh, yeah.
KHALID: ...Rather than becoming the character.
THOMPSON: Yeah, I'm glad you bring this up. I think what works about this performance is that he's not doing a note-for-note, tick-for-tick Dylan impersonation, which I appreciate. He's more going for the general vibe. There's a sullenness to the performance. You see the selfishness of a young genius who thinks he's got the world on his shoulders. You can understand why people are drawn to him. You can understand how he drives people away. And I think, in a way, it's kind of a full-circle performance for Timothee Chalamet. If you think about the character he played in "Lady Bird" back in 2017 - one of his breakthrough performances - he's playing this kind of self-absorbed, unformed twerp. And I think he's using a lot of that energy here while still kind of conveying what's electrifying about this guy and his talent.
KHALID: OK, so I am very curious here. Was he actually singing? Do you hear his voice here?
THOMPSON: Yes.
KHALID: OK.
THOMPSON: And, in fact, the soundtrack, you know, is full of all these Dylan songs, and they are performed by Timothee Chalamet.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY")
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan, singing) If you're traveling in the north country fair, where the winds hit heavy on the borderline...
THOMPSON: The four main actors who are playing singers here - Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Barbaro as Joan Baez, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash - they're all doing all their own singing here. And I think, you know, they're not perfect imitations, but they're capturing the vibe.
KHALID: I've got to imagine, as an actor, as an actress, this feels like a really impossible task. I mean, I recently saw - it came out a couple of years ago, but I recently saw it - the movie about Aretha Franklin that starred Jennifer Hudson.
THOMPSON: Oh, yeah (laughter).
KHALID: Like, how does someone become Aretha Franklin? How does someone become that voice, that person? It feels like, as a genre, these are just really hard things to pull off.
THOMPSON: Yeah. And I think that "Respect," that Aretha Franklin movie - it really kind of falls into the category of the filmed Wikipedia entry. That's the kind of movie, for me - when I think about biopics and what doesn't work about them, that's the kind of movie I think about, where you, like, have a great actor at the center. You have a great singer at the center. Jennifer Hudson's a fantastic singer.
KHALID: Amazing, yeah.
THOMPSON: But she's not going to sound like Aretha. Nobody sounds like Aretha Franklin, and that's kind of the point. And that's one of the central challenges of some of these films.
KHALID: What makes one work? What doesn't make one work? I mean, what is missing when you get a dud?
THOMPSON: Well, I think there are so many ways to mess up this genre. You get the VH1 "Behind The Music" problem, where there's such a familiar arc. Everybody knows that arc by now. Sometimes you get the cinematic equivalent of, like, a jukebox musical, where you've got these recreations of songs and impersonations, but there's not much else to say beyond that, which I don't think is an issue with "A Complete Unknown." And sometimes, the only thing worse than an unauthorized biography is an authorized biography. Sometimes these movies get really tainted by the agendas of the people who've signed off on having their story told. This is one of the things that, for me, completely ruined "Bohemian Rhapsody," the Queen movie. You just have the fingerprints of the surviving members of Queen all over that movie.
KHALID: OK. So what makes a really great biopic? Who got it right?
THOMPSON: Well, I think some are just made in interesting ways. I mean, Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" is kind of a mess, but it's so great-looking and stylishly made.
KHALID: He does that with so many of his films, yeah.
THOMPSON: Yeah. It kind of couldn't help but be fun to watch, even though it's deeply flawed. Some use kind of unusual, even experimental techniques to break out of these formulas. There's another movie about Bob Dylan called "I'm Not There" that is taking a much more experimental approach to him. There are - six different actors portray him. A movie like "Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould," where the structure of the film is really inventive, and so you're not just getting this point-by-point recitation of somebody's career. And some of them are just so well-acted that they can transcend the formulas. You know, some of these movies, you know, get brought up in the Oscar conversation. I would bring up a movie like "What's Love Got To Do With It" about Tina Turner, where you just have those electrifying performances at the center.
KHALID: So before I let you go, I have to ask - is there a musician or a band that has not gotten their moment on the Hollywood screen but you think is tailor-made for a movie?
THOMPSON: Oh, my - Asma, are you asking me to suggest...
KHALID: (Laughter) More.
THOMPSON: ...More biopics? I feel like - I'm terrified, like, if I suggest someone, I'm going to inadvertently will more biopics...
KHALID: (Laughter).
THOMPSON: ...Into existence, so I'm going to say there is no one left.
KHALID: All right.
THOMPSON: Hollywood, if you are listening, we did Bob Marley. We did Aretha Franklin. We did Amy Winehouse. We are fresh out of musicians. So "A Complete Unknown" - it's a good movie, but there can be no more biopics about musicians. This is the last one.
KHALID: All right. With that bit of advice, I'm going to leave you there.
(LAUGHTER)
KHALID: That's Stephen Thompson of NPR Music and POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR talking about the new Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown." Thanks so much, Stephen.
THOMPSON: Thank you, Asma.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan, singing) How does it feel? How does it feel? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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