Todd Haynes' latest film, I'm Not There,"" is about Bob Dylan. Well, most of them. To be exact, it's about seven Dylans, as played by six different actors. Ignoring structural conventions, Haynes tells the story of Bob Dylan during his peak of cultural influence - the 1960s and '70s - through real, false and rumored accounts. With six different actors playing the different public personas of Dylan, the film jumps back and forth between the various events in his life and phases of his personal development.
Instead of being confusing or pretentious, this strategy actually tells the story of Dylan more thoughtfully and clearly than ever before. Oddly enough, ""I'm Not There"" feels more truthful than Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan documentary. ""No Direction Home"" boasted candid reflections by close friends and the man himself, but by giving us such a straightforward, truthful account of the iconic folksinger/rock star, Scorsese failed to tell the most important thing about Bob Dylan: the legend. Dylan's subtle, caustic treatment of the press; his leather-clad, drug-fueled ""fuck you"" to the folk music scene and the image of him wafting around the earth, curly hair frizzed to the sky while mumbling densely poetic, meaningless phrases and chain-smoking ... these are the images and the stories that have kept Dylan alive as a figure to be channeled, imitated and worshiped over the years.
This is exactly the story that Haynes' film brings to life. He gives us Marcus Carl Franklin, a small black child who hoofs around pretending he's Woody Guthrie, which serves as a metaphor for the early years of Dylan when his persona and art were not lifted from one nother. Then there's Christian Bale as Jack the protest singer and - oyears later - oJohn the born-again Christian. The choice to have one actor playing Dylan the protestor and Dylan the preacher makes an interesting claim that at these phases in his life, Dylan's art and concerns were not entirely his own - they were submerged within established, formulaic communities that claimed to have all the answers.
Heath Ledger plays a James Dean-esque movie star who falls in love with a Sara-like character, marries her and then watches his relationship collapse as he insults, ignores and cheats on her almost without knowing why.
Ben Whishaw, as Dylan the impossible interviewee, and Richard Gere, as Dylan the hiding outlaw, make important but less memorable impressions.
Cate Blanchett plays Jude, the summation of Dylan circa 1966: pissing off folkies, tormenting and being tormented by the press, messing around with Edie Sedgwick and hanging with Ginsberg and the Beatles. Blanchett not only steals the show but puts nearly every performance of the year so far to shame. She is Dylan sucking on a cig while trying to convince everyone he cares about no one, Dylan plugging in and destroying the folk counterculture and Dylan with poofy hair and flailing hands giving that wry grin and refusing to talk straight about anything.
Blanchett brilliantly reveals how Dylan's persona at the time was part of his failed attempt to stay amused at the increasingly demented lifestyle stardom had afforded him. After a minute you forget a woman is playing Dylan, and after three minutes you forget it's an act at all. Blanchett becomes the controversy, the humor and the anger that comprised Dylan's most famous persona, and to watch her is almost as much fun as listening to the classic Dylan songs of that era. If she doesn't win the Oscar, it's time to start ignoring that entire awards show.
There's so much to be said about this film - the electric acting, the experimental structuring, the masterful directing and, of course, the genius music. But in the end the best thing that can be said about ""I'm Not There"" is that it has provided the first fully-realized, illuminating and invigorating story of what Dylan was and what he meant during the period of his greatest influence. This is a film to watch over and over.
