The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken

I was going to write about "I'm Not There" this morning along with Juno, since they were the two films I watched on Wednesday, but I figured I had gone on long enough about Juno, as I do tend to ramble if you haven't noticed, and had to get going out into the freezing cold to go watch the Bears game.

I'm even sort of frustrated writing this about the film, but was what Todd Hayne's made really necessary?

I keep trying to think that maybe I just didn't get it or something, but I honestly just think there isn't much to get.

What I get, and I'm no Dylan expert:
Bob Dylan is pretty damn enigmatic, and throughout his career (or more specifically from his 60's folk protest singer days to his 80s found Jesus days) he remained elusive by simply refusing to assume a single identity. From a young folk singer who lied about where he was from and loved and admired Woody Guthrie, here played by Marcus Carl Franklin, a young black boy "named" Woody Guthrie, to an up and coming star in the New York folk scene falling in love and then struggling with failed relationships and divorce (Joan Baez, Suze Rotlo-the girl on the cover of Free Wheelin', Sara), here played by Heath Ledger as Robbie Clark, an actor instead of a musician, to the androgynous Dylan that went electric hopped up on amphetamines in 1966 and toyed with reporters that tried so hard to pin him down in "Don't Look Back", played by Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, to the post-motorcycle accident Dylan who missed Woodstock living in the country played by Richard Gere as Billy the Kid (how clever that Dylan acted in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), to the Dylan that found Jesus played by Christian Bale as Jack Rollins.

While the film interestingly takes these points in Dylan's life and career, assigns them to individual characters, and jumbles things around a bit, it becomes a difficult not to see the film as an artful and admirable experiment, but one that isn't ultimately very worthwhile. That's not to say that I wish the film was more biographical. There honestly doesn't seem much more that can be known about Dylan unless he is actually going to decide to say more. The problem with the film is actually that it seems to regurgitate what we already do know.

Most critics are discussing Cate Blanchett's performance as the high point of the film, and, while I find it admirable how she is totally lost in the part, to say that she isn't just playing an extrapolated version of the Dylan in "Don't Look Back" (and somehow intertwined with Fellini's 8 1/2) is delusional, and is pretty exemplary of what's wrong with the movie in the first place. Either it's supposed to actually be about Bob Dylan, in a biographical sense, or it's not, but the film just straddles that line a little too much.

What really stood out for me as the high point of the film, rather than Cate Blanchett, were the portions of the film with Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Robbie and Claire. Maybe I am just a sucker for a crumbling romance, but there are few women as naturally beautiful as Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Heath Ledger gives the best performance of the film of someone who isn't just trying to emulate the physicality of Dylan. There is a real struggle in Robbie's desire to want to be a good husband and father despite his tendencies, and a real sadness when even with a stewardess with him in his hotel room, he is truly alone without his family.

Writing about it, I guess because it at least feels like there's so much to discuss, it's worth seeing (maybe I even have to see it again), but right now, I just think time spent watching "Don't Look Back" or "No Direction Home" is time better spent.