Wiggly Socks Movie Reviews

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

The film opens with very young black boy (Marcus Carl Franklin) who claims he is Woody Guthrie and plays fantastic guitar while singing protest songs from the thirties. He does not mind being out of date.

Before you can start comprehending how this describes Dylan, other incarnations appear: Jack (Christian Bale) a Greenwich Village folk singer, an upcoming actor Robbie (Heath Leger) who meets beautiful French girl Claire, gets married, has two kids and a divorce, Jude (Cate Blanchett) a singer, who switches from folk music with classical guitar to electric one and rock (and somehow embodies the utter indifference to others that supposedly marked the idols of the sixties and seventies who truly did believe themselves to be better than anybody else ever born), then Richard Gere shows up as Billy the Kid in a Western, then comes Dylan (Ben Whishaw) who is being interviewed about his career as a political song writer and singer and, when his beliefs are doubted, becomes more and more annoyed and contemptuous of his journalist-doubter, and then Christian Bale appears as born again Christian, Pastor Jack, which, I guess, is a transformation of his first appearance.

None of these people is shown in an ongoing story, all stories are intercut and the resulting visual and narrative chaos is somehow the point of the film.

It is never explained how are all these people tied to each other and to Dylan. One presumes that each of them portrays some aspect of Bob Dylan, who as a whole is still not really there.
I don’t know Bob Dylan and have no idea if his personality is really this complicated or so compartmentalized.

Part of the story is narrated by a folk singer Alice Fabian (Julianne Moore) based on Joan Baez, who thought that Dylan, whom she helped to start, betrayed her. Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a portrait of Dylan’s first wife, Sara. Allen Ginsberg (David Cross) is himself.
Robert Allen Zimmerman, who became the Bob Dylan we know, did convert to Christianity. He had a part in Sam Peckinpah’ Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, not as Billy though. But these landmarks will leave confused all but those who know a lot about Dylan and his life. Without substantial knowledge, you will not be able to decipher the supposedly helpful messages about multifaceted person living in the times that were colorful, plentiful for some, and given almost totally to self obsession and self-satisfaction. In addition to this aspect of the past, Dylan is said to be intensely private and deceptive when people are trying to pry into the “real” Dylan, whoever he might be.

Supposedly Dylan had traveled from Minnesota to Greenwich Village and claimed that he was the heir of Woody Guthrie. But a documentary “The Ballad of Ramblin’Jack (2000) claims that Dylan copied Guthrie’s original heir, Ramblin’Jack Elliot.

Dylan had authorized the use of his music, and the music is good and helpful in watching the often-baffling movie. The picture jumps in time, in between styles and their excesses (from musicians with machine guns to motorbikes to open coffins and the Beatles), between black and white and color, yet within each segment it is stylistically pure. Each segment is also logical and has a story to tell. Compartments, again. Together all those visual boxes form a pastiche that uncovers as much of the living Dylan as it covers up. He is still not there. It must please him.

Oscar should go to production designer Judy Backer who made Montreal area to look like real Paris, London and US, as well as to costume designer John Dunn who brought back the various eras with makeup, hair and all that. Marcus Carl Franklin, as the 11 years old Guthrie, was fantastic, and has a great future. Charlotte Gainsbourg was very good Claire from the young and innocent painter to the disappointed wife. All others had a consistent box to work with and did so well.

Directed by Todd Haynes. Screenplay, Haynes, Oren Moverman; story, Haynes, inspired by the music and life of Bob Dylan.

Jack/Pastor John - Christian Bale
Jude - Cate Blanchett
Woody - Marcus Carl Franklin
Billy - Richard Gere
Robbie - Heath Ledger
Arthur - Ben Whishaw
Claire - Charlotte Gainsbourg
Allen Ginsberg - David Cross
Journalist - Bruce Greenwood
Alice Fabian - Julianne Moore
Coco Rivington - Michelle Williams