I'm Not There (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

A complete waste of time. I watched this once and Im selling to my local used record shop. (Hopefully they'll give me at least $2.00) I bought it for $6.99 at Best Buy. Wonder why they dropped the price from 19.99 to 6.99? I dearly love Bob Dylan's catalog and can't believe he approved this mess. Pawning this off to Dylan's fan base is disgusting, I will be very wary of any future related Bob purchases I work too hard for the money. He's lost it completely this time.

I really liked this film. It reminded me of a Bob Dylan song in that it danced around an idea and it's subject and just touched on it enough to make you understand... but when it's over you know there are layers you didn't yet fully grasp. That is what good poetry is as well. Really good poetry doesn't tell you everything in one reading, it's purpose and meaning, if it's good, is layered and requires coming back several times.

****1/2 2007. Written and directed by Todd Haynes. Three prizes in Venice and a Golden Globe earned by Cate Blanchett (Supporting role). Different actors to play the same complex character. Highly recommended if you know the main facts about Bob Dylan's life such as his moto accident, his relation with Joan Baez, Blonde on Blonde's electrical revolution, his conversion to catholicism or Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Two-Disc Special Edition). After the masterpiece Far from Heaven, Todd Haynes delivers, with I'M NOT THERE, another essential movie.

A DVD zone your library.

This is not a documentary or an insider's take on the life of Bob Dylan. Instead, it is a movie based on Dylan's personalities, the characters in his songs, the legends, the myths, the lies about Dylan, some truths perhaps, and rarely gets into the history or Dylan's impact on pop culture and rock adn roll. This is simply a beautiful art film in many ways. If you want a documentary on Dylan, this is not it. Instead, this is simply a mostly fictional cross section between what the media has made of Dylan, what the fans think of Dylan and how Haynes sees Dylan. The soundtrack to this movie, covers of Dylan's songs both popular and obscure, is really wonderful. Cate Blanchett is amazing in this film. When I first saw her, I said oh yes, that's her...but a few seconds later I totally forgot it was Blanchett playing Dylan. She was very convincing as Dylan.

Convoluted and questioning, I'M NOT THERE is an insiders take on the life of poet/singer Bob Dylan. And what I mean by "insiders" is that if you're not in-the-know of what Bob Dylan was like and how his life meted itself out, you'll probably be scratching your head rather than applauding (with one notable exception which we'll cover in a moment).

Six separate actors (and an actress) portray Dylan as he remakes himself during times of tumult and exacerbation. The first is young black (yes, black) Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin), a train-jumping blues-boy who tries to focus on music of the past rather than the present. When he fails to make it, he must move on and reinvent himself. And the incarnations are many and bewildering (not unlike the man himself). From the pensive Jack (Christian Bale, 3:10 to Yuma), to the brutally uncompromising Robbie (Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight), to the solemn Billy (Richard Gere, The Flock), Dylan's music changed with his personae, and a barrage of his songs carry throughout the production.

The big failing of I'm Not There, though, is it's pacing, it's unfocused time-line, and the inability of many watchers to understand where, how, and when we are. Although this style was also a plus in that it created an original format (like Dylan himself), it leant itself to extreme confusion. I hope some people out there aren't watching and positively reviewing this movie simply because they don't want to be seen as "musically uneducated" or "art handicapped." Sometimes the "I don't understand what this was so it must be good" attitude pops up at times like these. But sometimes confusion is simply that: confusion.

But there is a shining moment that stands out amidst these bizarre sequences, and that radiant star is Cate Blanchett (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) as the uneffeminate Jude (Dylan's drug infested wonderlust time). Blanchett's performance was striking in that one never questions her masculinity nor her Dylanesque personae. Her win at the Golden Globes (2008) for Best Supporting Actress was no surprise, nor was her nomination in the same category at the Oscars. Nor her many, many, many, many wins at film festivals across the globe.

I'm giving the film a positive rating based on Blanchett's astounding performance, which blew my mind. I know. I know. I've "got a lot of nerve."