Song of the Day 1/5: Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro, “Girl From the North Country”
“A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Bylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet released Dec. 25, has gotten mostly good reviews, and even the critics who dismissed it praised Chalamet’s performance. As well they should – he agreed to make the film with director James Mangold five years ago, and spent the time between acting jobs learning to play guitar and harmonica well enough to do all his own singing and playing in the movie.
As you can hear in this duet with Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, Chalamet isn’t doing a strict imitation of early Dylan – every half-decent impressionist can do that – but he does emulate Dylan’s style and timbre.
Here’s his version of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Like other songs in the film, it’s shorter than Dylan’s recording. Today’s movie audiences will only sit still so long.
As a person who has only ever been lukewarm to cold on Dylan, I really enjoyed hearing the songs for the first time through the dumbstruck ears of Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Woodie Guthrie. A movie is a movie and not a documentary and this movie did everything right in my opinion. Al mentions Chalamet’s ability to emulate Dylan’s style without imitating it, but all of the performances were stellar and setting up Seeger and Johnny Cash as Dylans good godfather and bad godfather gave a riveting dramatic tension. Great film. Highest recommendation.
Agree on all points, although I may be slightly more of a Dylan fan. Saw him at Kahunaville quite a while ago now (terrible) and saw Girl from the North Country while it was on Broadway (I think it was either the last or second to last before it closed).
Definitely recommend the movie. TC is surprisingly good as Dylan.
‘Dylan at Kahunaville’.
The mind reels.
His ex lived near PS 🙂
But that ex was several exes before he ventured to Kahunaville.
Someone should make a movie on the Kahunaville Era of his career.
Dylan used to leave tickets for her family in Wilmington at every concert he played in the Philadelphia area, long after they split. She was the inspiration for “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” and other songs. Her birth name was Shirley Marlin Noznisky. Many songs from the “Blood on the Tracks” album are said to be about the break-up of their marriage, which ended in divorce in 1977.
By the way, I saw Ted Nugent at Kahunaville. But I can’t be blamed since I was working.
I went to Hebrew School with a relative of hers. Right around the time that ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ came out.
I’m wondering how the 29 year old Chalamet is going to convey the youthfulness of the early Dylan who was 20 when his first album was released. I’m sure he does an amazing acting job but I suspect that ineffable aspect will be lacking – which was a big part of Dylan’s breakout appeal. Looking forward to seeing the movie.
They actually do a great job of making him look the right age during that part of the movie. The one I had doubts about was the actor who played Johnny Cash, but the hair and makeup folks did a great job of transforming his look, too. And of course the actors nailed all the character’s mannerisms, not to mention the assistance from wardrobe.
Everyone in the cast did a wonderful job and the nearly 2.5 hours of it flew by quite fast. I found it funny that Dylan’s voice got an upgrade while Baez’s got a downgrade 😛
I happen to like Dylan’s voice but know several people who can’t stand it. No one ever disagrees on his superlative songwriting skills, however.
I continue to be surprised that there are people who can’t stand the voice of the great Song And Dance Man.
Annnd, right on time, Paste posts a list of the best Dylan songs:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/bob-dylan/bob-dylan-62-greatest-songs-of-all-time-ranked
Clickbait but, in this instance, GOOD clickbait. I’d kinda tuned Dylan out during his Born Again phase, and never tuned back in, save for the occasional song on XPN like ‘Things Have Changed’. But the commentary on these songs make me at least think that checking out “Desire”, “Infidels”, and “Time Out Of Mind” would not be a waste of my time.