I’m Not There (2007)

135 Minutes

Directed By: Todd Haynes

Written By: Oren Moverman and Todd Haynes

Staring: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Marcus Carl Franklin, and Kris Kristofferson

I accept chaos. I don’t know whether it accepts me. -Arthur

Review

I’m Not There, a film featuring a perspective of the life of Bob Dylan is six different bodies, was a film that may have gone unnoticed by the general public until a ton of noise was made over the performance of Cate Blanchett being one of the incarnations referred to as “Jude”, who suffered the most controversy as he went electric.  The film was pretentious, and felt a little snobby at times, but it had it’s moments of brilliant conception, interesting perspective, but lacked a genuine feel.  It often felt contrived and failed to connect in spite of the good performances.

I’m Not There features six different interpretations of Bob Dylan at different points in his life.  It depicts his life as an actor, a folk singer, an electrified troubadour, Rimbaud, Billy the Kid, and Woody Guthrie in the bodies of different actors with the soundtrack of his music behind each of their adventures.  In no particular order we get to see soliloquies, interviews, his marriage, and his infidelity. At some point each character hits a point where they manifest into another. Jack eventually finds Jesus and becomes a recluse; the charismatic Robbie falls in love then abandons his wife. Woody, a lad escaped from foster care, a vagabond travels and sings across the U.S.  Billy wakes up in a world he doesn’t quite understand, threatened by a six-lane highway and Rimbaud just talks throughout. Jude gets booed and challenged by fans and critics who feel he’s sold out.

It was a cool concept that was truly original in it’s formulation, though it wasn’t executed to it’s potential, or maybe it just couldn’t have been.  There was too much focus on the constant shifting from character, to musical tirade, to random shots.  It lacked a platform and felt as though it was more of a personal indulgence rather than a constant performance.  If director Todd Haynes could have balanced that, and still made the story interesting to watch it would have mattered, but it was often banal and Bob Dylan is anything but banal.  Where it did succeed was at capturing the essence of the mysterious Dylan and the peculiarmetamorphosis that was his life.

Even though Blanchett’s performance was acknowledged by even the Academy for it’s quality I was vastly underwhelmed.  She did a fine job, but it was apparent she was always trying to push her voice to sound both like a man, an American, and Bob Dylan.  It was just too much and instead the focus was on her acting instead of her role as “Jude” and telling the story.  Ledger,Whishaw, Franklin, and Gere also all played their roles well enough, but it was Christian Bales performance that was most resounding.  There was a reason each of these actors were chosen for the person and the place of Dylan’s life they were representing, but there was an authenticity to Bale’s performance as Jack and The Pastor.  I actually believed his interpretation, and when he was onscreen the film had twice as much integrity.

It wasn’t an awful movie by any stretch of the imagination and probably did a fair job of depicting the chaos of being in Bob Dylan’s head, it just didn’t work as an entertaining film.  The best part of the movie was the music.  If not for the music and the occasional Bale interlude I may have dozed off at points.  It was worth watching out of blatant curiosity but beyond that it wasn’t substantial by any means.  Huge Dylan fans may find a special love for this movie but beyond that I don’t believe it will have a much wider appeal.i