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The Real Bob Dylan
Pitting Bob Dylan's screen appearances against those who've played him in movies.
“Qui êtes-vous, Monsieur Bob Dylan?”
–Jean-Pierre Léaud, in “Masculin, féminine”
Who are you, Mr. Bob Dylan? Less than two years ago, Dylanologists had a field day with “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’ smarty-pants hallucination evoking the freewheelin’ singer-songwriter’s iconic persona, unknowable as he perpetually reinvents himself. But rock ‘n’ roll’s poet laureate already had a history with film, both appearing onscreen and being portrayed by other actors. In honor of Dylan’s tough-bird, rollicking new record “Together Through Life,” I’m bringing it all back home with a re-evaluation of who fares better on film: Dylan himself, or his imposters?
Dylan as himself, “Dont Look Back” (1967) vs. Cate Blanchett as Jude, “I’m Not There” (2007)
Nobody could resist this most obvious of aesthetic match-ups, a battle between the two most sophisticated, evocative, self-mythologizing portraits of Dylan that have so far been laid to celluloid. D.A. Pennebaker’s vérité landmark trails you-know-who on his ’65 British tour, an all-access pass uncovering the great bard as a prickly, petty, cynical egomaniac who bullshits journalists, toys with Donovan and generally proves to be a guarded genius at his peak. As a gender-bent dead ringer, Blanchett’s patronizing “Dont Look Back”-era hipster, one of six Dylan avatars in Haynes’ prismatic curio, won the actress a Spirit Award. But was her entertaining transformation truly audacious, or did she get away with accolades for what two-bit comedians regularly do on open-mic night? Even if the question were tossed, her role couldn’t exist if Dylan hadn’t first been immortalized with a few dropped cue cards.
Winner: Real Bob Dylan
Dylan as Alias, “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (1973) vs. Hayden Christensen as The Musician, “Factory Girl” (2006)
Sam Peckinpah’s meditative western saga and George Hickenlooper’s trashy biopic on Edie Sedgwick both star celebrities as unreliable distillations of iconic heroes. Dylan wrote his first score for the former, then saddled up in a battered top hat as the real-life sidekick to Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), winning the outlaw’s respect by throwing a knife in a dude’s neck and carrying, while on horseback, a live turkey he’d snagged for dinner. Comparably limp and miscast, Christensen’s pseudo-Dylan is too boy-band pretty by half, affects an uninspired drawl, and had to be named Billy Quinn after Dylan’s lawyers sued (though the character is credited as “The Musician”). Even if he and co-star Sienna Miller’s sex scenes were rumored to be unsimulated, that’s far more exciting to hear than actually watching Christensen as he affects a featherweight strut or take motorcycle rides in the countryside.
Winner: Real Bob Dylan
Dylan as Jack Fate, “Masked and Anonymous” (2003) vs. Edward D. Markley as Bob Dylan, “Tunnel Vision” (1976)
The self-aware caricatures. Under the name Rene Fontaine, “Borat” director Larry Charles shares writing credit with Dylan (as Sergei Petrov) on their confounding, convoluted allegory about a pre-apocalyptic, contemporary America wracked by endless civil war. Has-been music legend Jack Fate, pulled out of prison to play a benefit concert, embodies Dylan’s mythos as a po-mo cipher (he could be the seventh character in “I’m Not There”) in a bizarre, bleak world of ideological greyness; it’s “Idiocracy” as retooled by angry conspiracy theorists. Dylan mostly sings, stares dead-eyed or half-listens to strangers preaching his own words back to him, but you have to admire his dedication to vanity. Sadly less funny, the déclassé sketch comedy flick “Tunnel Vision” (with Chevy Chase, John Candy and Al Franken) doesn’t hold up well. In a fake commercial for the “Western Unyon Marijuanagram,” spokesman and famed session musician Leon Russell (J. Michael Popovich) pitches “a unique gift idea for Valentine’s Day this year.” Russell pops a joint between his lips, and Markley’s scruffy, silent Bob leans into the frame for only a blip to provide a light and glower at the camera behind sunglasses.
Winner: Real Bob Dylan
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Tags: Bob Dylan, Cate Blanchett, D.A. Pennebaker, Don't Look Back, Edward D. Markley, Factory Girl, Hayden Christensen, I'm Not There, Larry Charles, Masked and Anonymous, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Renaldo and Clara, Ronnie Hawkins, Sam Peckinpah, Todd Haynes, Tunnel Vision
