The idea of Bob Dylan that I come away with from most books and docs about him is that he’s freaky little chaos demon who is really great at songs. And that fame is a mindf*ck.
I don’t get the need to “figure him out” beyond that and I’m personally glad this movie wasn’t another needlessly weird attempt at doing that.
Basically, I loved this! It was really well done, especially the performances by Chalamet, Norton, & Barbaro.
Also, Timothée Chalamet…
I was not interested in this or planning to see it until I saw Jamelle Bouie’s intriguing mini review on Bluesky a couple weeks ago. I’m glad he changed my mind because it’s excellent, even though it was incredibly stressful to watch. I think the unsettling vibes it left me with are going to stick around for a while. People who need everything to be baby food will probably hate it and/or use the vagueness of it all to project a lot of dumb crap onto it. But that’s on them, not the movie.
I’ve watched this twice and truly can not believe it’s 3.5 hours long. It rolls along and kept me engaged the entire time even on my second viewing. It’s not a perfect movie… I would have loved a lot more of Molly and the relationship with her sisters and less of Leo and his scrunchy face type of dramatic acting. But Lily Gladstone is stunning in every scene and De Niro really nailed the “respectable” villain. Incredible supporting cast. It’s beautifully shot and I love the score. It quickly secured its place in my personal Scorsese top five.
