Yeah, their storyline is probably my favorite in the film, and it’s probably mainly due to this sequence.
Stupid double posts.
and possibly because this segment is mainly taken from (“referencing”) Godard films
Antoine, you’ve led me to a new topic! I’ll search around for not only films about filmmaking but I want another film that is as loaded with references, not just 60s filmmaking, that I’m Not There was.
I’m Not There was certainly ambitious in trying to be inclusive of a lot of things that “identify” Bob Dylan and his mythos, a sort of Derridean “I am the writing of Derrida, Derrida is more than the man” approach to biography. As a result, it had a lot for audiences to arbitrarily attach to, by which I mean there were many hooks but not everyone could be expected to grasp all of them—I certainly do not know enough about Bob Dylan to know exactly what all the references were to.
Thus I think it is to the credit of this movie’s editing that the overall piece works as a whole. I would have liked it to be shorter but again, looking at the many different hooks, I don’t know enough which ones are meaningful or not. I reacted more viscerally to the visuals of the Cate Blanchett segments, and I think there’s a sort of inevitability towards preferences of this person versus that person, this realization versus that one, that distracts from the fact that each segment is also edited to accompany the performance involved. So much more like a collection of short movies about Bob Dylan, in a blender, than a consistent structure over all. It’s been a long time but I actually wouldn’t mind watching it again, though the first time I saw it I didn’t think I would want to.
—PolarisDiB
Todd greatly appreciates the Derrida comparasion I’m sure, olarisDiB.
“I’m Not There” is far and away his most experimental film. It deals largely with events that took place when he was a toddler (Like Goerge Clooney, Todd was born in 1961) Yet he captures the look and feel of the era quite beautifully — especially in th way he “samples” “8 1/2” in the Cate Blanchett scenes.
Particularly intriguing—and rather astute, I think—is the way that Haynes associates the various film styles to correspond with the various phases and eras of Dylan’s career. I recall an interview with him in which he explicitly states that this was intention.
Some of the associations/matchups are quite logical; associating Fellini with Dylan’s crazed, surrealistic period is quite correct. It’s known that Dylan was to some extent a fan of Fellini((even name-checking La Dolce Vita in a 1964 song), and some of the mid-sixties lyrics display a spirit, tone, and content that easily rings as Felliniesque.
A more reaching but ultimately appropriate pair-up that Haynes makes is one that he specified in the aforementioned interview; the correspondence between what he referred to as the “leftist” Hollywood films of the mid-century(particularly Kazan, and Grapes of Wrath)and the Americana-rich social crusading of Dylan’s protest days. I had read this before seeing the film, and then recalled it quite strongly and immediately when Haynes actually lifts dialogue from Kazan’s A Face in The Crowd in one of the ‘Woody Guthrie’ sequences.
And just for the record, I currently cannot appear to locate this interview I refer to. I’ll try to load it up later, if I can find it.
The theatrical showing was probably the best way to experience this movie, but for a different reason than just the immersiveness of the big screen. No, in this case more people were aware of their seats then pulled in, but it was important because of the concert-like qualities it had—people would, in their own way, “cheer” when a recognizable “hit” would go on, only in this case they wouldn’t shout or wave their arms, just bend forward eagerly in their seat, and the hit was a reference or a facet of Dylan that they related to.
I am not a fan of Bob Dylan, so let me put that aside, but his is a career I like hearing about mostly because of how often he’d change his sound and upset people over it. People would go in with preconceived notions of what they were going to get from a Dylan concert, and would end up griping and complaining because he played them whatever music he happened to be exploring at the time. I think the cards were stacked against Haynes in this case, because how do you make a movie that Dylan fans would agree is THE Dylan movie? Well, via the way that has been discussed here. I have not known conversation amongst Dylan fans to be all about, “Oh and did you see I’m Not There? AMAZING, isn’t it?” but I have known the DVD to sit quietly on their shelves, unremarked upon during Dylan-centric conversation. I think this is one movie that everyone can have their own relationship to.
Again, I had never really wanted see it again after the first time, but lately it’s been on my mind. I feel it’s probably good for a revisit.
—PolarisDiB
“I am not a fan of Bob Dylan”
Do you think that opens the film up for you or closes it off? I’m just curious because I get the sense from the film that it’s not only about “Dylan was many people” but also about “Many people were/are Bob Dylan” (including Haynes himself) . . . and Rimbaud and Woody Guthrie and Billy the Kid and Edie Sedgewick and Bobby Seale and Huey Newton . . .
As I said before, I think it makes me miss a few of the hooks/allusions, but it’s pretty easy to see what Haynes is trying to do as a whole. Some of it went over my head but the unique nature of the movie as a whole gave me enough to think about.
I think if I were neither into Bob Dylan, nor into movies, then it would be closed off.
—PolarisDiB
In many ways, Hayne’s entire filmography (outside of Safe, and maybe Dottie Gets Spanked) has been an active remixing of older aesthetics, from the monster-movie/Cocteau stylings of Poison to the Roeg riffing in Velvet Goldmine to the intense mixing in I’m Not There. He’s an expert at appropriating film styles in order to present a picture of times that can’t be understood outside of cinema.
I think I’m too into Dylan to really appreciate the film.
Any significant amount of insight into the man makes the games this movie plays seem rather superficial. Particularly the use of his lyrics as dialog in ways that don’t really make sense when one considers what Dylan intended them to mean. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but in the Blanchett scene, they use “Just Like A Woman” as a quip, a zinger really, in a way that is totally at odds with the vulnerability Dylan portrays with the lyric in the song, and it just comes off as phony, as does much of the movie).
I need to give the film another chance, but I remember thinking that the film’s understanding of Dylan seems to stem more from hollow generalization than any real insight.
Matt Honovic
To the tune of “I Want You,” this simple music video of the sweet romance Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg have is one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever seen. What first got my attention was the editing of the sex scene when they attacked each other. The almost messy, but very stylized quick shots of limbs, nipples, elbows… it all evoked a feeling in me and as an editor, I wished I had made this movie.
Even after this, with just a happy, up-beat song playing, they were able to easily fast forward the best parts of this couple’s relationship (my favorite being him trying to ride the motorcycle).