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bob dylan
In the New Dylan Biopic, Context Is the ‘Complete Unknown’
The film would have benefited from showing what was happening, both in Greenwich Village and around the country, that led Bob Dylan to write startling songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” that became overnight anthems.
Jan 05, 2025
Along with many of my generation (that ridiculous word “boomers”) I both looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. The writing was crisp, the scenery was great, the acting was tremendous, and with a couple of exceptions (I’ll get into that) the scenes were all right on target. He even threw in several Easter Eggs for those of us with a bit too much obsessive knowledge of Bob Dylan’s history–like seeing Al Kooper, who had never played keyboards, sit down at the organ in the studio and pick out what became an iconic riff in “Like a Rolling Stone.” A pleasing, exciting romp through an incredible, unequaled moment when, as Dylan so succinctly put it, the times were most definitely changing.
So why, as the credits rolled to a blast of “Like a Rolling Stone” that I swore was Dylan’s version—Timothée Chalamet really was that good–was I not fulfilled? Why did it feel akin to eating a pastrami sandwich on white bread? And my wife Maryann, who at a decade younger than me didn’t experience those years as I had, left with the same feeling. What was missing?
And then it hit. Context.
As the dawn of a new fascism looms, one that will potentially render the repression of the 1950s the good old days, the need to break free of the stifling “way things are” and create a new, liberating path full of both promise and danger is more urgent than ever.
Where did those early songs come from? Did they just pop into Dylan’s head from nowhere? What was happening, both in Greenwich Village and more significantly around the country, that led him to write startling songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” that became overnight anthems? When, as depicted in the film, Dylan sang “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for the very first time, his young audience instantly latched on to it and went nuts, loudly and joyously singing along. Why? Was he telling them something they didn’t already know? Or was he giving voice to their lives as they were living them at that moment?
Okay, this may seem obvious. After all, everyone “knows” that the 60s were a time of youthful rebellion and upheaval. So what else is new? Does a film about Dylan really need to spell that out? And as far as the politics so many of his songs were infused with, isn’t it enough that the film depicted him singing at the 1963 March on Washington?
I would contend that it’s not nearly enough, because it doesn’t get close to what drove Dylan to write songs like “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” and “The Death of Emmet Till,” to name just a few. No, I’m not arguing that the film should have been a history lesson about the 60s, but I believe it would have better served both Dylan and the audience had it set the stage more clearly with what was explosively emerging in the dawn of that decade, because in fact this is not so obvious, especially to younger audiences.
To get that sense, I went back to Suze Rotolo’s wonderful memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time. Rotolo, was Dylan’s girlfriend from shortly after he arrived in New York. In the film she is given the name Sylvie Russo (interestingly at Dylan’s insistence, to protect her privacy. She died in 2011). Their relationship, which lasted four years, is beautifully depicted in the film, including the fact that, despite his growing relationship with Joan Baez, he never stopped loving her. And the film does briefly allude to her political influence on his writing. But there are two key points in her memoir that are sorely missing in the film, I think to its detriment.
The first is the nature of the Greenwich Village that Dylan walked into in that winter of 1961. Rotolo goes into vivid detail about the cultural and political cauldron bubbling up there. Here is her description of a typical Sunday in Washington Square Park:
The atmosphere… was lively. Groups of musicians would play and sing anything from old folk songs to bluegrass. Old Italian men from the neighborhood played their folk music on mandolins. Everyone played around the fountain, and people would wander from group to group, listening and maybe singing along. There were poets reading their poems and political types handing out fliers for Trotskyist, Communist, or anarchist meetings and hawking their newspapers… Everything overlapped nicely.
Just a 30 second walk in the park through Dylan’s eyes would have added an element that was missing.
And that was just the start. Along with the folk clubs that were depicted in the film, there was the burgeoning avant garde theater and film scenes. Clubs featured jazz and the beat poets. Musicians, not just folk, were drawn there from all across the country. Every night, folks would gather in various apartments to share songs and debate philosophy and politics. All of this, Rotolo makes clear, Dylan dove into and hungrily absorbed everything around him. He was not alone. He was being influenced by others, and he in turn influenced them. As he himself wrote, revolution was in the air.
A vivid example of this is one of his most political songs, “When the Ship Comes In.” He wrote it after attending a particularly striking and powerful version of the song “Pirate Jenny” from Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. In that song, the maid Jenny sings about her fantasy of leading a pirate ship into harbor to wreak revenge on the bourgeoise “gentlemen” who treat her like a piece of dirt. Dylan turned that concept into a truly uplifting depiction of revolution:
Oh, the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin’
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it’s for real
The hour that the ship comes in.
Then they’ll raise their hands,
Sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands
But we’ll shout from the bow your days are numbered
And like Pharoah’s tribe they’ll be drownded in the tide
And like Goliath they’ll be conquered.
This does bring up one particular objection I have to the film. In it, the only time we hear that song is when he is singing it under duress at a fundraising party. It’s clear that by now he hates having to perform it and all of his songs up to that point, and the scene marks his break with the past and headlong dive into the future. The scene itself is an accurate depiction of Dylan’s growing rebellion against both the rigid strictures of the folk music world and the political messages they now expected him to include in every song. But without a strong sense of why he wrote it in the first place, we’re left with an incomplete picture of what was driving him all along.
And that brings up the question of how well, or weakly, the film depicts the times he was in the midst of and responding to. Rotolo paints a vivid picture of the fear that dominated every aspect of American life in the 1950s—the ubiquitous shadows of an impending nuclear war, combined with the grinding repression of the “Red scare” witch hunts, were everywhere. Hundreds were persecuted and jailed, with Pete Seeger on the top of the list. That the film opens with Seeger’s sentencing is to its credit. The intensity and ubiquity of that repression was a huge part of what those who flocked to Greenwich Village were rebelling against, often at great cost. Dylan nailed the paranoia permeating society hilariously with his “Talkin’ World War III Blues” on the Freewheelin’ album.
But what was increasingly taking center stage in the early 1960s, and deeply influencing Dylan, was the civil rights movement. All too often, and unfortunately in this film as well, that movement is squashed down to the March on Washington and maybe one or two other big events. But none of that gives a sense of how dramatic, dangerous, and explosive events from 1960 to 1964 were in a South where lynchings were still commonplace.
Take a look at just a few of those events:
- February 1, 1960–Four African American college students sit down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and are viciously beaten while the cameras rolled;
- 1961–Black and white students, known as “Freedom Riders,” are brutally beaten and their busses burned as they attempt to ride integrated busses through the South;
- May 2, 1963–1,000 Black school children are attacked with fire hoses and police dogs as they attempt to march for school integration in Birmingham, Alabama;
- June 12, 1963–Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is gunned down outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi;
- September 15, 1963–A bomb kills four children and injures dozens at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; and
- June 21, 1964–Three Civil Rights Movement workers—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—are kidnapped and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.
Imagine how all of those things hit young people straining against the heavy 50s repression still hanging over their heads, and you get a sense of how wildly liberating Dylan’s songs were.
My point here is not that this film is in any way required to “educate” the audience about all this, but the problem is this—it’s one thing to know the facts, and it’s something altogether different to feel their impact at the time and in the historical context they happened. It’s that feeling that is crucial for really understanding (getting a feel for, so to speak) what was driving young people, and especially Dylan, to reach with all their hearts and souls for a new society.
That is why he wrote “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and that is why it became an anthem. How much stronger A Complete Unknown would have been had the filmmakers found the ways to channel that feeling.
To get why this matters you only have to take a cursory look at our world today. As the dawn of a new fascism looms, one that will potentially render the repression of the 1950s the good old days, the need to break free of the stifling “way things are” and create a new, liberating path full of both promise and danger is more urgent than ever. There is and will only ever be one Bob Dylan, but to quote Joe Strummer, the future is unwritten.
The upshot? Go see A Complete Unknown, then take a deep dive into the decade that created Dylan. Lots to learn there.
PS: The film perpetuates the myth that Pete Seeger was furious at Dylan for insisting on doing his electrified set at the 1965 Newport Film Festival and looked for an axe to chop of the electrified sound. As Seeger himself has said multiple times, he had no problem with what Dylan was doing, and loved the songs he played, especially “Maggie’s Farm.” But the quality of the sound system he was using was so terrible that it created distortion and made it virtually impossible to hear the music, and that was what he was furious about. Quite a difference.
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Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Founding Bassist, Dies at 84
Bob Dylan once called Lesh "one of the most skilled bassists you'll ever hear in subtlety and invention" and "a postmodern jazz musical rock-and-roll dynamo."
Oct 25, 2024
Phil Lesh—co-founder and bassist of the iconic California-born counterculture band the Grateful Dead—"passed peacefully" on Friday morning, according to a post on his Instagram account.
"He was surrounded by his family and full of love," the post continued. "Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love."
Lesh revealed in 2015 that he was battling bladder cancer, although his cause of death has not yet been made public.
Along with lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir, keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and drummer Bill Kreutzmann, Lesh founded the Grateful Dead in Palo Alto, California in 1965. The band debuted at one of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests that same year. By 1966, the Dead were prolific performers at psychedelic events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
As Rolling Stonereported Friday:
From the time of the Dead's earliest incarnation as the Warlocks, Lesh enjoyed an intimate three-decade-long partnership with lead guitarist Jerry Garcia. He also claimed responsibility for their long-form improvisation inclinations, electronic experiments, and nightly free-form "space" interludes. After the group dissolved in 1995 due to Garcia's death, Lesh went on to become an active keeper of its live flame in various configurations with former band members and in several iterations of Phil Lesh and Friends. The latter included numerous guests from the extended multigenerational improvised-rock community.
The Grateful Dead played "electric chamber music," according to Lesh, whose primary influence as a bassist was Johann Sebastian Bach's style of counterpoint (the relationship of two independent yet interdependent musical voices). When not dropping his infamous "bass bombs," he played his instrument as though it were a low guitar, usually with a pick, and often like a lead instrument.
"When Phil's happening the band's happening," Garcia once said of Lesh.
Among the Dead songs co-written by Lesh—a classically trained musician—are "Box of Rain" and "Unbroken Chain"—both widely considered psychedelic masterpieces.
In his 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan called Lesh "one of the most skilled bassists you'll ever hear in subtlety and invention" and "a postmodern jazz musical rock-and-roll dynamo."
Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, his sons Brian and Grahame, and his grandson, Levon.
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Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Advocate for Justice, Dies at 76
Wrongly convicted of murder by an all-white, famous ex-boxer became advocate for other prisoners
Apr 20, 2014
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, the famous professional boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder by an all-white jury in 1967 but later exonerated, has died in Toronto at the age of 76.
"If I find a heaven after this life, I'll be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years... To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all."
--Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter (1937-2014)
His death was confirmed by family friends close to the man whose journey of racially-charged imprisonment helped fuel the prisoner rights movement while becoming the subject of books, a famous Bob Dylan 70's protest song, and a feature Hollywood film.
According to the Associated Press:
He had been stricken with prostate cancer in Toronto, the New Jersey native's adopted home. John Artis, a longtime friend and caregiver, told The Canadian Press that Carter died in his sleep.
Carter spent 19 years in prison for three murders at a tavern in Paterson, N.J., in 1966. He was convicted alongside Artis in 1967 and again in a new trial in 1976.
Carter was freed in November 1985 when his convictions were set aside after years of appeals and public advocacy. His ordeal and the alleged racial motivations behind it were publicized in Bob Dylan's 1975 song "Hurricane," several books and a 1999 film starring Denzel Washington, who received an Academy Award nomination for playing the boxer turned prisoner.
Following his ultimate and final release from prison, Carter dedicated much of his life to helping other prisoners, working with the Canada-based Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted for which he served as executive director from 1999 to 2005.
In a statement, the AIDWYC expressed being "deeply saddened" by Carter's passing but celebrated his commitment to the cause of justice:
Rubin made it his life's mission to help others who had been wrongly convicted after his own exoneration for crimes he did not commit, but for which he spent 19 years in prison. Rubin's celebrity status as a championship boxer and his wrongful conviction generated significant media attention worldwide which helped draw attention to his work in Canada with AIDWYC. Rubin spent many years supporting the work of AIDWYC by reviewing cases, attending inquiries, participating in press conferences, supporting the wrongly convicted (both in Canada and abroad), and encouraging important changes in the Canadian and American criminal justice related to wrongful convictions. Rubin was the "face" of AIDWYC for many years and was devoted to raising awareness of these grave injustices. Rubin promoted and participated in every AIDWYC event and brought worldwide attention to our mission.
Rubin will be remembered by those at AIDWYC who were fortunate enough to have worked with him as a truly courageous man who fought tirelessly to free others who had suffered the same fate as he. We are honoured that Rubin played a significant role in the history of our organization. We will continue to fight against wrongful convictions, a battle that Rubin valiantly fought until the day he died.
Rest in peace Rubin, your battle is over but you will never be forgotten.
In an op-ed earlier this year--written from what he described as his literal "deathbed"--Carter said that his "single regret in life is that David McCallum of Brooklyn -- a man incarcerated in 1985, the same year I was released, and represented by Innocence International since 2004 -- is still in prison."
On McCallum's case and his own wrongful conviction, Carter wrote:
I was freed from a living hell by the brave Judge H. Lee Sarokin, after I was given help from dedicated people who did so for no payment beyond the thanks I was able to give.
McCallum was incarcerated two weeks after I was released, reborn into the miracle of this world. Now I'm looking death straight in the eye; he's got me on the ropes, but I won't back down.
I ask Thompson to look straight in the eye of truth, a tougher customer than death, and not back down either.
Just as my own verdict "was predicated on racism rather than reason and on concealment rather than disclosure," as Sarokin wrote, so too was McCallum's. My aim in helping this fine man is to pay it forward, to give the help that I received as a wrongly convicted man to another who needs such help now.
If I find a heaven after this life, I'll be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years.
To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all.
The Bob Dylan version of the Rubin Carter story--titled "Hurricane" and released on his 1976 album Desire--helped the story rise to national prominence:
Bob Dylan - Hurricane 1975 [Live]Bob Dylan - Hurricane 1975 [Live]
And the film "Hurricane," starring Denzel Washington, was released in 1999:
The Hurricane (9/10) Movie CLIP - Rubin's Final Plea (1999) HDThe Hurricane movie clips: https://j.mp/15vNM9N BUY THE MOVIE: https://amzn.to/trwOw0 Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW ...
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