BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

I'm Not There

  
 
Mug Chum
15:40 / 17.12.07
I have to first of all warn this is all a bit full of spoilers and very messy (I couldn't imagine how to talk about it otherwise since a)being too fresh in my head, b)the movie being "messy" itself, and c) me being a bit drunk when I watched). I watched it last night and it was a wonderful experience. Each actor is really amazing in this, and the editing is outstanding.

I'm not really a huge fan of Dylan's. The album I mostly can never dislike is "Time Out of Mind", but the classic ones I can mostly like a lot without ever loving them to death (and at rare times find them not entirely necessary to hear at the moment).

It's a weird stream-of-consciousness film, not really (from what I felt) just bits thrown here and there. The "changes of segments" have their drives and reasons to it (Cate says "just like a woman" and we go back to the mistreated wife alone with the kids and the exploration of the iffy ideas about women in his songs*). So it doesn't really become strictly about chronology, but mapping ideas, people and self-images in the songs (for "him", the audience listening and the audience watching). It's a mess, but with its own flow and (it appeared to me) its own logics of what'll be about (why it should or shouldn't be about), what's the meaning of the (type of) acting in something like that and what moment is a defining moment of what a person is, what should be the criteria (so there's a intertextuality in different strokes that is constant with these bio-films, all the time brought into questioning to how we define others and ourselves).

* There are some clever gender reversals that slightly touches on what the music (and the self-images) is really about. In the sense that the romantic tunes aren't really about the woman, but about woodpeckering the image of the romantic man. Or instead of the social folk songs being about the social ideas, it's really about the social revolutionary MAN (while the "judas" Jude Quinn is the androgynous Dylan, played by Blanchett). Haynes was the one who sort of brought to my attention at the age of 15 (with Velvet Goldmine) of the weird issues with women (and the chauvinistic male-ish ideas) on the 60's american hippie-ish culture and music, so I sort of feel I should watch this again many times just for that aspect of the exploration alone (but there are many other reasons to watch it again).

There's bits and pieces here and there that are just great satire of musician bio-films without falling into 'Scary Movie' territory ("Walk Hard", not that I don't want to see it or that I think it won't be great), toying with the ideas those films have on what a person and their lives is, on what the notion of identity lies, of what we're asking etc. The little "and then he met the Beatles" moment -- that every bio-film seems to have ('then he hang out with Elvis') -- is just killed in one stroke of a speedy-amphetamine scene of them "'playing swingball' on playground together". Or when (s)he meets Allen Ginsberg (another 'glamourous' "met high, famous, interesting people" moment) is just a boring & awkward little "hey..." with an awkward silence and dynamics (David Cross is great here).

The references swoosh by, from a nod in the gender reversal parts to Beatles' "Get Back" (right before they show up -- or "Hey Jude") to a B&W "Beatles Running!" from "A Hard Day's Night". The 8½ references all makes a certain sense in its mysterious stream o' consciousness dream-land/dream-logic black&white past (if only so that parts can be equivalent in some sense to us sitting and watching: the fangirl setting fire to her head, for instance; or the change to electric is Cate Blanchett taking out uzis from the guitar cases and shooting the audience!). But it also makes sense in the context of the motifs, images and situations the both films share.

And there are genuine heart-felt moments. Claire's look on her face as she watches on tv that the war is over, with the realization that the last shovel of dirt was dropped on their marriages' grave (her sadface is incredibly touching -- most parts about them is a bit heartfelt). Or the musical funeral for the girl (or Girl with capital G) in Gere's bit. Or the parts about Dylan's isolation drive.

Haynes had touched on the idea of the pop-artist-held-as-prophet being only a businessman hack ("an actor") exploiting a zeitgeist's scene previously in Velvet Goldmine. But here is a bit trickier, since the mercurial Jude character somewhat represents "Dylan the little twerp troll", the trickstah! who can't ever give a straight answer (and the Dylan-poet "Arthur Rimbaud" tells us why: fear and insecurity of being held accountable for something he said) -- or is always working on some other weird amphetamine-driven level (which at times you can understand his frustrations and bits of logic; Cate giving the microphone through the cage to -- really underated -- Bruce Greenwood kinda punches you on the head with part of it; or Jude's screams to Jesus). ps: the musical scene with Greenwood is fenomenal.

Gere's part reveals itself to be really great. Dylan's parts of wanting to be an exiled loner Billy the Kid figure away from the world's problems, while this world is about to end. It serves as this great little portrait iteration of what's going on but with some reversals, Bruce Greenwood coming back with a different-but-same role etc.

Woody's moments with Marcus Carl Franklin felt the most boring to me, but they felt like it couldn't possibly not be there, if only for the sake of the toying with the flow of identities, touching on ideas of the 'white middle/high class guilt' and singing from the underfranchised and roots-stealing aspects in the man's music. And it was worth it just for the whale/Jonah bit (and the kid is a fine actor that makes the scenes a bit more interesting).

Christian Bale is mind-blowing. Simple as that. His moments are as heart-touchingly sad as they're funny in a odd Christopher Guest sort of way (question: was Juliane Moore supposed to be a Joan Baez figure from Scorcese's documentary?).

Wishaw kicks ass, as well as Ledger. But every actor works on a different criteria (for instance, Ledger works as the romantic fuck-up, so it's more subtle and not about emulating Dylan. He's a fictional actor who played a fictional Dylan once in a fictional movie. Blanchett plays the more conventional aspect of playing someone like hollywood films usually do, so there's the emulating aspects with more subtle things, working side-by-side with what the themes and questionings behind it), so it's hard for me to judge perfectly from just one viewing.

The credits themselves (and the title appearance) feel like already playing on a few of the film's motifs. It starts with "bale", simple as that. Then the names get mixed a bit, "Cate Franklin" etc.

I can't really talk much more or else it'll be a longer post than already is. And there's a lot more to talk about in it.

So, anyone else seen it and wish to poke around it with me?

ps: and now I have a boy-crush on Cate Blanchett.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
01:11 / 18.12.07
Looking forward to seeing this - Todd Haynes' films are always interesting, even when they don't altogether work. 'Velvet Goldmine', for example, was in many ways a ridiculous movie, but it was good fun to watch. And Bob Dylan's someone who can go from genius to patchy in the flick of an album, pretty much (I'm no huge fan; I really just like the obvious ones, 'Blonde On Blonde', and 'Highway 61'; what I do like though, I think is terrific) so director and subject seem like an appropriate match. In the same way that Oliver Stone and Jim Morrison were; 'The Doors' wasn't just about what made the Doors great, it was about what made them awful, too. So it had to be long, and self-indulgent.

So, you know, high hopes for 'I'm Not There'. More once I've seen it, perhaps.
 
 
PatrickMM
02:29 / 18.12.07
I loved the movie, and wrote an extensive review on my blog. The major criticism that I've seen of the film is that it's too inside, with nothing to offer for people who aren't big Dylan fans. I'm familiar with the major mythology surrounding him, but am by no means a big fan, and I think the film as has much to offer someone who's only marginally familiar with Dylan as it does a fan.

The reason for that is that I think the film takes Dylan as a case study to explore the way we all construct different identities and struggle to reconcile the different sides of our personalities as we grow older. There's a clear progression from the kid who dreams of being a star to the ultra popular burned out celebrity to the man who just wants to be someone else, but is continually haunted by his celebrity. In that sense, I think the film does have a linear narrative, fractured though it is among the many storylines, and I think it's a narrative that has relevance for everyone, not just in relation to what happened to Dylan.

That's one of the major reasons why the film is so much more effective than a traditional biopic. It's not about becoming famous, it's about the human condition, the way our past traps us into being certain things, the way idealistic notions of youth fall away as we see our idols fall. I think one of the trailers said that we are all Dylan, and that's what I took away from the film, the universality of transient human identity.

Looking at it from an Invisibles point of view, each of the characters is a fiction suit that the central Dylan entity tries on, a world he can experience. Dylan himself is present in everything, but at the same time, is completely absent from the film.

I'd love to see the thread branch out to a general discussion of Haynes' work since I think he's one of the most challenging and stylistically assured filmmakers working today. The afforementioned Velvet Goldmine is another masterpiece, also focusing a lot on the nature of self reinvention. I'd also highly recommend Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, arguably the best short film of all time. It's not legally available, but you can download it here. It's a sometimes funny, frequently disturbing look at the life of Karen Carpenter, as told by Barbie dolls.
 
 
Mug Chum
10:22 / 19.12.07
'Velvet Goldmine', for example, was in many ways a ridiculous movie

But in parts that's what made it good and fun (like you said about The Doors). That camp quality that's not really camp. That 'gayness' (that many geeks would go "aw man, that's gay" -- meaning, "homosexual" and/or "silly"/"lame"), in the sense of 'homosexual' and 'happy' (or a liberating aspect in its uncaringness concerning the boylove). It was this weird little UFO fairy-tale abduction story appropriating the idea of modern 'fairies' to represent a musical scene. That ridiculous aspect is great considering that embarassing moment when Christian Bale yells giddily to his parents pointing at 'Bowie' in the tv, "that's me! That's me!". It's laugh-out-loud ridiculous but charming in its earnest and freeing enthusiasm (even while recognizing the cynical aspects to it, its disappointments and blindspots). It deserves its own thread, for sure.

I really liked the review in your blog, Patrick. Yours and this other one (if you can read portuguese, let me know 'cause you would like it too) were the few reviews that really kinda clicked with my viewing, and bringing up great aspects of it I hadn't realy considered.

That cyclical aspect in the boxcar ending (or maybe that 'never left' feel, always the same. Like in the lyrics of "Not Dark Yet", "I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still") is brought up neatly in the first bike shot with the last. The death and resurrection, the reinvention of his identity -- exiting through the right and coming back through the left of the screen. It's great that it has the space to include a reading of the accident/"accident" as the excuse for Dylan to exile himself, but it works independent of that in other ways while also including that - for those who don't want to bother with the little myths and stories about the guy (Jesus, sorry, this paragraph was even messier than my usual ones).

I found a dvd-quality source to download from, so I'm hoping to bring this thread up again to discuss further. My memories of the film make me love it more each second.
 
 
PatrickMM
02:54 / 22.12.07
I'd second the love for Velvet Goldmine. The film has a lot of things that we don't associate with 'quality' filmmaking, primarily the way that narrative frequently drifts into music videos. People don't associate that with substance, and that's a criticism I've seen with I'm Not There a lot. In a visual medium, the pictures have as much substance, if not more, than a dialogue scene or traditional plot.

Bale's character in Velvet Goldmine is a bit ridiculous at times, to outsider eyes, but he's ridiculous in the way that real teenagers do. That moment you talk about, with Bowie on TV, is a perfect example of something where we almost have to look away because it's too embarassingly real. With all the characters in the film, you're aware that on some level they're ridiculous, they're dressed ridiculous and buying into this fantasy that's inevitably going to break down, but at the same time, it doesn't matter. They're not worried about the future, they just want to get lost in the moment, immerse themselves in a subculture where they can be closer to how they feel on the inside. Society treats it as an adolescent desire, to dress crazy and behave outside the norm, so if you can move outside society, and remake it, you can be whatever you want.
 
 
FinderWolf
01:05 / 23.02.08
I really dug this - I thought Bale really nailed it (the way Dylan was so shy and awkward in his early interviews), and of course, so did Blanchett. Blanchett was even better than Bale.

Ledger.... was just kind of being Ledger. I was a bit underwhelmed by him here. He wasn't really playing Dylan, it seemed... although that seems to be the decision of the director (he wanted Ledger to be the 'archetypal cool handsome celebrity' to convey the universal experience of someone with that level of fame, talent, and a dose of misogyny, as opposed to doing a Dylan impression -- or perhaps just the director just meant to convey the universality of complex, troubled romantic/family relationships).

The only thing I didn't really like much at all was the Richard Gere section. a) Gere kind of sucked, just played Richard Gere, and b) the whole concept of the righteous protesting Billy the Kid outlaw just seemed cheesy & hackneyed. That sequence also went on much too long - and I really didn't need to see the Brit. TV interviewer as the evil judge or whatever the heck he was supposed to be.

Other than there Gere sequences, this was terrific. The interview sections with Blanchett, as well all the Rimbaud stuff, were terrific. The use of "Mr. Jones" was perfect. Pretty much every song was brilliantly placed in the film, and I liked that they switched back and forth from Dylan himself doing his songs to sporadic cover versions of Dylan songs by other artists.

Blanchett deserves the Oscar for this (Best Supporting). She better win! (not for Eliz, but for this)
 
 
Mug Chum
02:18 / 23.02.08
This blog post gives out a few interesting 'footnotes' that sheds little bits of light if one's more interested to dwell on the film by themselves (the same blog has a nice review too). The NY Times did a interesting article on it as well.

What strikes me the most and constantly after viewing a few more times, it's how the film doesn't have a realization -- but it begins with the idea -- that these films pretending to define people are really just about ourselves and the times they were made on (and about what standards and criterias are used as the filters -- "I'm Not There" is pretty aware that it's very much a piece of its time -- and restricted by it -- in that concept). There's some things that it shares with "Assassination of Jesse James" in that both films examine what questions (and why those questions) are made when someone undergoes "autopsy"*, and how both films dwells on the relationships (and its effects) between the idol and the worshiper.

* I find those initial shots just so freakin' cool, so "Fellini does 'The Book of The Dead', a cinematographic roswell autopsy of how/why/by-which-standards the weighing of organs is done, and it soon turns into a vague alien-metalinguistic-governmental 3rd degree with Wishaw-Rimbaud and then it goes off"

Reading Haynes' interviews (and some youtube videos) is actually very interesting on themselves (but really interesting if you saw the film). For instance, on one reason and concept behind chosing Blanchett:

you see this absolutely extreme Dylan, totally skinny, riddled on amphetamines, his hair turning into this wild cloud, and these unbelievably bizarre, dandified gestures while performing, while talking, while doing anything. And yet that's one of the most famous Bob Dylan moments, the most canonized, which means the most stripped of its genuine shock value. I felt that it needed to get that shock value put back into it and I had to do something extra to remember how strange that really would have been back in 1965 and 1966."

The film's just very rich on many points. And it has loads of flaws (but sometimes those flaws make some of the good bits -- makes it more, I don't know, vivid? -- in a similar way of Velvet Goldmine).

the whole concept of the righteous protesting Billy the Kid outlaw just seemed cheesy & hackneyed

I don't know, I thought some of those bits were somewhat between air-quotes. I mean, "Billy the kid living in a town called Riddle where is always halloween" (another outloud cheese moment is when Woody is thrown out the cart by the homeless guys after a song about the kindness of strangers is played; or when his living room scene cuts off to the phone call and we see those people just had him in as -- like Bale says -- "a good little n*****", and no real connection, alterity or change is made. Symbolic moments by using common tropes done in a corny way).
 
  
Add Your Reply