I'm Not There

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Rating – Anything from 1 to 5


Directed by Todd Haynes

Written by Todd Haynes and Oren Moverman

Starring Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore and Kris Kristofferson (narrator)


An interpretation of the life of Bob Dylan is told through a series of fractured scenes, with six different actors portraying characters meant to represent different phases of his life and work.

Any attempt to produce a bog-standard biopic of Bob Dylan would undoubtedly be doomed to failure, not least because he remains an enigma, despite the numerous books and hundreds of articles that have been written about him. On those terms, Todd Haynes’ approach makes a lot of sense and to a degree it does get to the heart of the apparent complexity and mystery of the man. Having said that, reaction to the film will entirely depend on whether viewers consider it to be a bold artistic statement or a piece of pretentious psuedo-intellectual claptrap. I find myself caught between the two, but veering towards the latter.

Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin and Ben Whishaw portray Dylan. I did not particularly like Ledger’s portrayal, which deals with Dylan’s marriage to Sarah Lownds, who is represented by the character played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Ledger’s performance sometimes seemed more like an impersonation of Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in the film ‘Walk The Line’.

Christian Bale, playing the early 1960s Greenwich Village troubadour and the late 1970s “Born Again” Dylan, was, I thought, absolutely atrocious.

Cate Blanchett gives the performance that received most attention, playing Jude Quinn, a representation of Dylan in his 1965-6 “electric” phase. These sequences are clearly based on the famous D A Pennebaker documentary film ‘Don’t Look Back’, although the narrative is stretched to make room for Michelle Williams, playing a character based on Edie Sedgwick, who was allegedly the subject of Dylan’s song ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, something certainly not confirmed by Dylan himself. Blanchett plays Dylan as a seriously wired speed freak. I did laugh out loud at a cameo appearance by “The Beatles” in these scenes – and by the first appearance of “Allen Ginsberg” (played by David Cross).

I rather liked the scenes featuring Richard Gere, playing Billy the Kid, representing Dylan’s time in Woodstock following his motorcycle accident in 1966, and also alluding to the film ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’.

I genuinely did like some bits of the film, which is very well made and unquestionably an interesting idea. Haynes clearly knows his subject, but I remain none the wiser if he particularly likes Dylan or not. Sometimes it seemed as if he were trying to wipe away the intellectual pretension that surrounds most study of the man by creating his own, which struck me as rather arrogant and pointless. The widespread praise for the performance of Cate Blanchett is understandable and warranted, but ultimately I really didn’t like the film much at all.

The film is clever, although I think it tries to be too clever and too oblique much of the time. To make any sense of it at all, it is necessary to be very familiar with Dylan’s life and work. Without that knowledge, it is simply meaningless.

‘I’m Not There’ has a 78% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 144 reviews. It had a worldwide box office gross a little under $11.5 million, which I think is rather impressive for such an unusual film. Previous films made by Todd Haynes include ‘Velvet Goldmine’ (a film about a fictional character based on ‘Ziggy Stardust’ era David Bowie) and ‘Far from Heaven’, an interesting if rather over-stylised film about racism in 1950s suburban America. That film starred Julianne Moore, who appears in ‘I’m Not There’, playing a character intended to represent Joan Baez.



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