A Complete Unknown: Ok Film, Wonderful Performances

 

 

 

 

A Complete Unknown (2024/25)

Directed by James Mangold

Searchlight Pictures, 141 minutes, R (language, smoking, adult situations)

★★★

 

Your hair is probably standing up from the buzz surrounding A Complete Unknown, the new biopic about Bob Dylan’s meteoric rise to fame. In 1961, he was indeed a complete unknown. He hit New York City after dropping out of college, dumping his birthname (Robert Zimmerman), and leaving Minnesota behind. In legend, he chose Dylan as his surname because his favorite poet was Dylan Thomas. The film implies this happened when he first hit the Big Apple, but records say it occurred in 1962.

 

At 19, though, Dylan’s real muse was Woody Guthrie. The film depicts Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) meeting Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in a New York City hospital–Woody suffered from Huntington’s chorea, a horrifying neurological disorder*–but  director James Mangold fudged timelines a bit. He showed Dylan meeting Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) at Guthrie’s bedside, which wasn’t so. These are among several small changes Mangold and screenplay writer Jay Cocks made when adapting Elijah Wald’s superb Dylan Goes Electric for the screen. Nonetheless, the story you see is mostly accurate.

 

Dylan burned through the Greenwich Village folk scene like a forest fire. Seeger saw Dylan as the savior of the fading folk revival movement who would make acoustic songs the voice of bohemians and the American working class. Dylan did transform American music, but not the way Pete and his wife Toshi (Erika Hatsune) had hoped. His album of traditional songs tanked, but Dylan’s next three releases and protest singles established him as the icon of a new generation. Much of Dylan’s political education came via his romance with Suze Rotolo, the redhead on the cover of The Freewheelin’  Bob Dylan. At Dylan’s request, she is called Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) in the film. I’m not sure why, given that just about everyone who follows Dylan knows that Sylvie is Suze in all but name. She was a Red Diaper Baby–her parents were communists in the 1930s–who awakened Dylan’s conscience to issues such as racial injustice, poverty, and repression; in essence, Rotolo was Dylan’s personal Port Huron Statement.

 

There is no question, though, that words and rhymes flew out of Dylan’s head at lightening speed. As we watch him pull nicotine-fueled all-nighters, those scenes reminded me of how director Milos Foreman presented Mozart’s feverish production in Amadeus. To continue that thought, Mangold’s Salieri was Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) with whom Dylan had an affair while living with Rotolo. Baez seldom wrote her own songs when she, not Dylan, was the brightest star on the stage. Their affair was both tempestuous and a clash of two egos.**

 

The movie has several dominant subthemes, the first being that young Dylan was a jerk who used people. He especially treated Sylvie/Suze shabbily, as he did Pete and Toshi–two elders who could have helped him grow up. Instead, if we believe the film, he fell in with bad boy Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) and into deep brooding. The denouement occurs at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where Dylan famously/infamously plugged in. That year he released Bringing It All Back Home, his shift away from folk music. Some of this is exaggerated. Not everyone was appalled by Dylan’s performance and, to this day, there are conflicting tales about Seeger attempting to cut Dylan’s sound cable. Another tale of a harmonica is pure Hollywood imagination. So is the film’s R rating.

 

Movies routinely resort to fantasy, elision, and simplification. You get only the barest glimpse of Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, hence you won’t learn much about key players like Barbara Bane, Theo Bikel, Mike Bloomfield, Joe Boyd, John Hammond,  Al Kooper, Maria Muldaur, or Dave Van Ronk.  Albert Grossman and Harold Leventhal are more caricatures than characters. Luckily there’s nothing hokey about the four principals. Chalamet, Norton, and Barbaro do their own singing and playing and they are amazingly good. The film and actors have already picked up awards and I suspect many more are in the offing. My vote for Best Supporting Actor goes to Norton. He knew Seeger and captures his essence to the point of inhabiting the role. I’ll leave it to you to determine if the enigmatic Dylan remains a complete unknown.

 

Rob Weir

 

*Huntington’s is a vicious disease. Like dementia it’s progressive but inconsistent. Guthrie was sometimes coherent, unlike the grunting figure shown in the film.  

 

**Baez got revenge in her composition “Diamonds and Rust.”

 

Original Sisters at the Rockwell is a Jewell

 

Anita Kunz as Fairy Tale Portrait

 

 

Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage

Anita Kunz

Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA

Through May 26, 2025

 

Illustrations of Light

Through January 4, 2026.

 

 

 

What did you do during COVID lockdown? Canadian-born illustrator Anita Kunz (b. 1956) mused over the women who have inspired her. Then she decided to paint a portrait each day of women past and present. An exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum displays 154 of Kunz’s sheroes, plus selected other work.

 

If her name seems familiar, you’ve probably seen her work in publications such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and numerous others. As an illustrator, Kunz works mostly with water colors on paper. This helped her work faster–you try doing a complete portrait a day–but what stands out in Kunz’s portraits is the uniqueness in how she captures the essence of her subjects. It helps to have a great sense of humor. In the introductory gallery we see Kunz’s puckishness on display in her art and pop culture parodies: a pieta of Olive Oyl and Popeye, John Belushi in his samurai garb, Van Gogh as Goofy, herself as Renée (not René) Magritte, and send ups of Taylor Swift, Aretha Franklin, and Reese Witherspoon.

 

Ancient Egyptian hailing a cab

Kunz as Renee Magritte

John Belushi

Spoof on Van Gogh

 

 

Her portraits are more serious, but there is a lightness to her style that illuminates each subject, even those whose lives didn’t work out as planned. Hers is an A-Y look at indomitable women from 9^th century Saint Æbbe the Younger through Malala Yousafzai. The last name is probably familiar; she’s the 15-yeard-old Afghani girl the Taliban shot in the head yet survived. Each portrait comes with a short identifying paragraph, statement of how Kunz was inspired by that individual, and the fate of the individual. Saint Æbbe, for instance, made a decision that got her and other nuns killed. She headed a Benedictine abbey in Scotland. When she heard Viking raiders were on the way, she and other nuns cut off her noses to make themselves look unattractive and avoid rape. That part worked, but the Norsemen were so appalled that they killed everyone in the abbey and burned it. It is said to be the origin of the phrase “cut off one’s nose to spite the face.” It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to infer what this says about women asserting agency over their own bodies, albeit in an extreme manner.

 

Most stories are not that gruesome. One of the joys is Kunz’s mix of names you probably know–Rachel Carson, Anne Frank, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Sojourner Truth–with those you might not: Alice Ball, Buffalo Calf, Lizzie Magee, Betty Soiskin…. And there are quite a few historical and international women: Boudicca, Jeanne de Clisson, Tomoe Gozen, Juliane Koepcke, Irena Sendler, Valentina Tereshkova….

 

oldest park ranger

Camille Claudel probably sculpted some Rodin masterpieces

Dora Maar, Picasso mistress and more?

Jeanne de Clisson, 14th c Breton pirate

Discovered a treatment for leprosy

inventor of Monopoly game stolen by a man

art patron, artist, bohemian

plugged in long before most men, precursor of rock

 

probably the one who killed Gen. Custer

 

 

Full confession: When the discussion came up about whether or not to head to the Berkshires to see this show, I was unenthused. I’ve been to many portrait galleries and, aside from playing the “Do you know who that is?” game, straight portraiture isn’t my favorite style of art. I guess I must have overdosed on famous people and Dutch burghers at some point. I was, however, so completely won over by Kunz’s work that I came home with the exhibition catalogue. Her portraits come alive, though not in  any sort of photographic way. Sorry if this sounds mysterious, but it felt as if Kunz captured a spark in each of her subjects that, in turn, illumined both spirit and historical significance.

 A small critique. The final gallery features an end-to-end multi-tiered vertical display of paintings. It was as if they were hung by a Renaissance curator. That made for clear viewing of portraits at eye level, but it was an uncomfortable way to take in those closer to the floor and a neck-craning peek at those higher up. The catalogue showed me numerous images I missed.

 

Also on display is a small exhibition titled Illustrations of Light (through January 4, 2026). Some of the world’s finest artists–Lautrec springs to mind–found that commercial art pays the bills. In the early 20^th century electric light was new and companies such as the Edison Mazda Electric Light Company had to convince a large section of the skeptical public that electric illumination was a good idea. When persuasion fails, switch to advertising. Unlike today’s trademarks and identifying logos, Edison enlisted the help of artists such as Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, and N. C. Wyeth to spruce up their profiles. Some ads put light bulbs front and center, but as this exhibit shows, quite a few created (for lack of a better word) a psychological vibe that associated electric light with modernity, a calming glow, and homespun values. I love the old Edison Mazda ads, several of which are displayed alongside the canvases from which they were extracted. I wanted this exhibit to be more extensive, but I was happy to see what I did. 

 

Parrish

Rockwell

Rockwell shows why electric is "safer"

Rockwell channels Vermeer

Dean Cromwell, science showing how elec light works

 

 

 

 

Rob Weir

Colm Toibin, Kate Atkinson, Michael Connelly, Ethan Hawke

From the Stacks I

 

I once foolishly believed that the emergence of digitization meant I could stop building skyscrapers of novels in my office and dams upon every flat-bottomed piece of furniture in the house. I love books assembled from pulped-wood, it’s just that: (a) There are only a handful of novels I’m likely to re-read and (b) I’m getting older dagnabbit and I can make the print bigger on my iPad!

 

Then two things happened. First, I started going to League of Women Voters book sales in both Amherst and Northampton: hardcovers for a buck and 50 cents for a paperback. Then, a book buyer friend offloaded cartons of preview books. Once again I suffer from piles of the non-proctological variety. Here’s a few capsules of old and new books whose reading order was determined by gravity, not gravitas.

 

 

 

I’m a Colm Tóibín fan. I wasn’t disappointed by Long Island  (2024, 296 pages) but I wasn’t blown away by it either. It’s a sequel to Brooklyn (2009) and picks up the story of Irish lass Eilis Lacey. Brooklyn is often reckoned as one of top 100 novels of the 21^st  century. If you read it or have seen the Saoirse Ronan film adaptation you might remember that Eilis was in love with barkeep Jim Farrell but the village machinations of tightknit village Enniscorthy, family tragedy, and a lack of employment opportunity sent her packing to Brooklyn with choice # 2, Italian-American plumber Tony  Fiorello. Long Island moves the clock forward 20 years. Eilis has been successful economically–as evidenced by living in the ‘burbs of Long Island–and she has two children, but the whole modern kitchen, extended Italian family, accounting job, middle-class, unfaithful husband, thing has worn thin. Especially the latter. Most of her Irish kin in America are in Birmingham, for Pete’s sake, and if truth be told, she misses her youthful free-spirited self. She opts for a reverse journey, a trip of indeterminate length to Ireland. Uh oh; you know what Thomas Wolfe said about you can’t go home again. There are lots of rels, a few old friends, and Jim is still around. Like Brooklyn, Long Island is steeped in what might be called quiet tragedy and has a delicious ending, but as is often the case of sequels Long Island sparkles, but didn’t quite catch fire. ★★★

 

 

 

That last line sums up how I felt about a new book from Kate Atkinson, another author I generally admire. I felt that her new mystery Death at the Sign of the Rook (2004, 302 pages) was more of a genteel wren than an aggressive corvid. It’s another Jackson Brodie novel and I find him too mannered. I get it that Atkinson is trying to channel Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, but if you’re going to give me another declining manor house, more upper-class toffs, stolen art work, antique guns, and people with names like Sir Lancelot Hardwick, Countess Voranskaya, Dorothy Padgett, Reggie, and Simon, at least give me some impolite murders and truly dastardly characters. This is a literary mystery and though I am impressed by that, I grew bored it. I’m sure hardcore Atkinson devotees will disagree, but I struggled to finish it. ★★

 

 

 

Now for something old. Michael Connelly is among the best mystery writers of recent memory and The Black Box (2012, 464 pages) is a gripping example of his prowess. Back in 1992, the beating of black motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police touched off riots and protests that presaged contemporary responses to police brutality. Back then, Harry Bosch was part of an LAPD Watch team that investigated the slaying of Danish journalist Anneke Jesperson,. It was never solved, and the very investigation caem under fire for its presumed white focus. Flash to 2012 and Harry now investigates “cold cases” when new evidence arises. Jesperson was slain using a very specific gun with an unusual signature. Twenty years later a new murder occurs using the same weapon. New questions arise, including why Jesperson was even in LA in 1992 given her previsit to Stuttgart, Atlanta, and San Francisco beforehand. Did LAPD ask the wrong questions in 1992? Was something non-racial occurring alongside the King riots? Harry (with assists from his daughter) seeks to build a network the stretches from Denmark to Germany to Vietnam to various U.S. cities, but that’s a widespread set of dots to connect. It also involves retired cops, corporate heavyweights (of a sort), and several very unexpected suspects. Harry needs the namesake black box that’s key to explaining what went wrong. The Black Box is complex, fast-paced, and unafraid to tackle uncomfortable realities. Loved it! ★★★★★

 

 

 

I had heard that actor Ethan Hawke was a decent writer, so I paid the end-of-the-day LoWV $5 a bag price and threw in Hawke’s Ash Wednesday (2002, 221 pages). I wouldn’t call Hawke a great stylist, but like many actors he does his homework. In 2022, he was a young whelp of 32 and something of a Generation X icon. Ash Wednesday could be seen as a dressed-down version of the role he played in the 1995 film, Before Sunrise, though no one would necessarily confuse the novel’s Christy with Julie Delpy. Both Before Sunrise and Ash Wednesday, though, are about the heat of romantic passion and the desperation felt by the realization that the respective relationships are inherently doomed. Jimmy is a working class kid who falls hard for Christy, messes things up, gets her pregnant, and gets her back by going AWOL from the Army. Theirs is a high-speed road trip romance in a souped-up Chevy Nova that begins in Albany and ends up in  Texas via New Orleans. Jimmy’s inexperienced and perhaps not all that bright and Christy is a wild child who might be bipolar. Neither is ready for adulthood. The language is rough in places, but Hawke had an ear for Gen X ‘Tude-speak. Not fine literature but a breeze of a read. ★★★ ½