Movie Review - 'I'm Not There'

I'm Not There

Starring Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Christian Bale
Directed by Todd Haynes
Rated R

Long before Madonna reinvented reinventing yourself, the most significant artists of the 1960s changed their image as often as their shirts. The Beatles and Bob Dylan rarely presented the same public personae or musical sound from one year to the next, but while the impact of the Beatles was largely external, Dylan’s transformations were internal, changing himself when it suited him, perhaps as a survival instinct.

After all, it’s not hard to believe the former Robert Zimmerman never wanted to be “Bob Dylan,” whoever that is in your mind.

Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is a film as individual as its inspiration. Realizing the story about “Bob Dylan” is more interesting than the story about Bob Dylan, Haynes has cast multiple actors to portray variations on Dylan’s chameleon-like personality.

Cate Blanchett is the Dylan clone being talked about the most, and for understandable reasons. She’s playing a he and she is probably the greatest actor alive at the moment. But Blanchett isn’t a prop. She exists as Dylan at a pivotal, world shaking time in his life, from the moment he turned his back on the folk movement he popularized on the east coast to when he became a more substantive recording artist and performer.

Did this version of Dylan need to be female? Yes, because she’s playing the most vulnerable person we meet, taken advantage of by the media and counterculture of the 1960s. It’s an easier distinction to make when the character is less masculine.

Christian Bale portrays Dylan as a rough-around-the-edges folk singer starting to find his way, Richard Gere does so as the reclusive artist who wants to bury his past, and 11-year-old Marcus Carl Franklin plays a thoroughly convincing Dylan as the awakening artist, finding himself in the songs of an older generation.

Heath Ledger doesn’t even play a version of Dylan, exactly, but rather an actor who played another of the Dylan-esque creations in a movie, although he is intended to play the Dylan for whom real life is his greatest obstacle.

I’m Not There clearly works if you’re up on your Dylan and the phases of his iconic career. If not, the film is so devoid of context that it might be one of your most frustrating experiences at the movies this year. There’s no way into this for newcomers, which is the film’s most pronounced fault, although it has several. But as a meditation on fame through the many eyes of someone who tried to avoid it at every turn, I’m Not There is classic Dylan.