NOWHERE MAN - I'm Not There @ Film Forum

Todd Haynes' new feature film, I'm Not There, can add its title to the recent string of cinematic nostalgia for New York City (his grainy vision of Greenwich Village in the early 60's is superb). But add to that a nostalgia for London in the Swinging Sixties and California in the Seventies during the Vietnam War. Haynes showed us in his last film, Far From Heaven, that period work is a snap for him. Haynes' idea here is create as unconventional bio-pic about America's most unconventional of icons, Bob Dylan. What we come out with is The Velvet Goldmine with music rights.

Well, maybe a bit more.

Well, maybe quite a bit more.

I am not now nor ever have been a Bob Dylan fan. His vocal timbre has always caused my molars to clench. But he has written a good hook now and then. And others simply adore him. Often, during the course to this two hour and fifteen minute epic, I found myself tapping along, laughing out loud, and routing for our "hero" in all of his guises.

By this I mean that Haynes has divided up Mr. Dylan's life into six different personae. The film is "narrated" by Arthur (Ben Wishaw), a poet whose responses to a faceless inquisitor comment on the arc and action of the films narrative. We first meet Woody, who represents the pre-New York City fiction that Dylan peddled on the streets there, and is played by the young, black actor Marcus Carl Franklin. This is followed by Jack, the successful protest singer played by Christian Bale. Jack's life is chronicled in lofty documentary style with many talking heads giving their thoughts and feelings on those time. Chief among these is Alice Fabian, a fictionalized Joan Baez, played with nice subtlety by Julianne Moore. The Jack character re-emerges later in the film transformed into Pastor John, representing Dylan's repentant Christian Revival period.

We also have Jude, played winningly by Cate Blanchett, who represents Dylan in his 1960's post-folk, electric, in-your-face period. Shot in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Edward Lachman, Haynes makes these scenes a loving homage to Fellini's 8 1/2, another film which studies the conflicts of the artist, both internal and external. Blanchett looks gaunt and fragile, chewing her nails and rubbing her eyes, but never too tired to put up a fight. Jude plays his electrified London concert on a stage backed with an enormous American flag. As his fans complain and boo, he shouts out "This is American music"! Which just brought to mind Gertrude Stein's comment on America, "There is no there there".

In Jude we see the first fires of an artist facing failure, both personal and physical. This is further explored in the character of Robbie, a New York actor play by Heath Ledger. Jack's performance in a 1965 film biography of the now vanished Jack has brought him fame but not happiness. Robbie's troubled ten-year relationship with his wife Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is chronicled from sweet beginning to its bitter end, all against the backdrop of Vietnam War television broadcasts.

Then we have Billy, nee "The Kid", gone into hiding from the world, only to re-emerge to help save the Halloween-loving town of Riddle, MO from the railroad and his supposed slayer Pat Garrett. Garrett is played by a wonderfully by a wizened Bruce Greenwood, who in the black and white scenes also plays Mr. Jones, a tidy, tight BBC culture critic who plagues and berates Jude. Billy is played by Richard Gere with an earnest earthiness, as well as a putty nose which makes him look a lot like Steven Spielberg. Forced to leave town, Billy hitches a ride on a passing locomotive, the same transport we first met Woody on. He even finds Woody's guitar case in his boxcar. And so Haynes has brought us full circle, Dylan rising like a Phoenix from the ashes. A very tidy package. Perhaps too tidy for this notorious shape shifter. So Haynes provides us with afinal image of the subject of his film. The "real" Dylan, close-up and back lit, wailing away on guitar and harmonica. I don't think I'll ever look at that face the same way again.

Just don't ask me to listen to any of his albums, thank you!

I'm Not There, a film by Todd Haynes, will be presented on two screens at Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St, New York, NY for two weeks beginning Wednesday, November 21, 2007. Click on the link above for tickets and screening times.