I'm Not There November 26, 2007

I'm glad I know a fair deal about Bob Dylan. I once saw a four hour documentary on the guy. If I hadn't seen that, for certain I would have been hopelessly lost in this movie. It doesn't even attempt to explain Bob Dylan's life in any sort of factual way. If you don't come into the movie knowing certain landmark plot points (say for instance, the significance of a motorcycle accident) then you will not have the slightest idea what is going on. The movie is a landmark experiment in the structure of a biopic. It uses five actors and one actress to portray fictionalized versions of the same man. To its credit the movie works well enough to transcend the gimmick into a theme. But its not perfect, and a movie that could have been one of the years best is only somewhat superior.
There are six stories basically. The goal I bet would be to give each one equal weight and edit flawlessly back and forth between them. They edited flawlessly but didn't succeed in making them all interesting. I'm sure everyone who sees this film will agree there is one storyline and Dylan that is far superior to the others. This is the electric Jude portrayed by Cate Blanchett in a role that is sure to be nominated. Filmed in a stark contrast black and white this story is the funniest and certainly most memorable. Blanchett is uncanny. She's even more uncanny when considering in her last movie she played Queen Elizabeth I. There are plenty of great moments.
The drawback of the other stories is that they share too many similar themes to this one. Take for instance the Ben Whishaw storyline which consists only of a press conference. There isn't enough here for a story. I think they should have split up the lines amongst the other actors.
The Heath Ledger storyline doesn't have enough dialogue in it to hold it up. It's baseless, I didn't know what to think about it.
The real shame of this movie was the misuse of the Christian Bale storyline. This described the early folk career of Bob Dylan, but it doesn't get close to it. It's told in mock documentary style. We see the man from a distance and instead get an interview with Joan Baez. I would have loved to get to know this Bob Dylan more. He did exist at one point. Instead they made this story the prelude to the Cate Blanchett story. Too bad. 
Another weird thing is that they didn't use any of Bob Dylan's really famous songs. The only ones I recognized were "Times are a Changing, Mr. Jones, and Idiot Wind." Everything else was new. I haven't the slightest idea why they didn't choose to include such classics like 'Girl From North Country, Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall, Don't Think Twice, It Aint Me Babe, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowin in the Wind, or Stuck in the Middle with you.' I don't think they would have been that distracting honestly, and the movie would have surely benefitted from them.