On ‘A Complete Unknown’ & the Myth of Male Genius 

The one time I saw Bob Dylan play live he was terrible but it didn’t seem to matter, everyone else lapped it up and the guy next to me nearly got thrown out for standing on his chair and yelling ‘LEGEND’ between every song. After that I promised never to pay money to see an old narcissist deliberately sing his own songs out of time and tune, all in the name of artistic independence or some other male bullshit. 

I do love Dylan’s old music but since I obviously wasn’t a diehard, I went to see ‘A Complete Unknown’ without any real expectations. I left both impressed and irritated. 

Firstly, the good. The music, which is why we were all there, was fantastic, as were the central actors. Chamalet’s good looks and charisma helped me excuse him when occasionally his speaking voice veered towards the laughable.

The film also helped me understand why Bob Dylan still plays live in such an inexplicable way, the ‘going electric’ controversy just one example of how he has continually fucked things up for the cause of individualism. I was also impressed by how the film showed the stifling nature of genre conventions – it was a compelling argument for creative freedom and experimentation. 

However what really bothered was the way the filmmakers deliberately framed the story to perpetuate the myth of the male genius. So much of the film was fictionalised in a way to glamourise the worst kind of misogynist behaviour – cheating, lying, using people for fame, just generally being an asshole towards women. Surely even Dylan himself wasn’t this bad in real life? 

But my main complaint was how Joan Baez was portrayed in the film. Dylan is shown to be superior to Baez in terms of musical and songwriting talent. He’s naturally gifted, she ‘tries too hard’.

The film doesn’t give Baez any real credit for her talent, or her politics, at all. Bob dismisses her music – he’s shown to be only interested in her looks and fame. By making this version of Dylan look down on Baez’s music it encourages the audience into the same mindset towards women. 

There’s also no context of her career which shows singing with Dylan was actually quite a radical choice and her way of pushing folk music forward. By singing his songs and dating him she deliberately mixed some of his rebel, weirdo spirit into her public image, which had always been so angelic. 

 There’s a moment in when Bob is on stage with Joan and he refuses to sing ‘Blowin in the Wind’. He’s sick of the song, of suckcess, of Joan’s square energy. He just wants to destroy things because he can’t take the pressure and hates being in a cage and maybe it’s more fun to just burn everything down and see what’s left. He walks off stage and leaves Joan among the ashes. Ever the saint, she sings the song solo for the appreciative crowd. 

I doubt if that moment even happened like that but it’s presented in a way as to make him look heroic. Here’s the rebel with a cause – the future of music. To me it just looked like a perfect example of how men get to do whatever they want and leave women to clean up their mess.

What the film also doesn’t show is that Dylan and Baez really loved each other. The film isn’t interested in their real relationship, which lasted years, at all. Instead ‘A Complete Unknown’ has Joan mainly acting jealous of him for writing good songs and being such a ‘genius’ (when at the time she had never even tried to be a songwriter). 

At least Joan can hope that one day they make a movie that gives her real story the centre of attention it deserves (I’ve previously written a list of women, including Joan, who deserve their own biopics). The actress playing Baez, Monica Barbaro, was excellent and deserves another chance to really tell Joan’s story. This film will definitely encourage others to seek out her music and life story. The other two ‘girlfriends’ in the movie are so heavily fictionalised that they didn’t really exist at all.

What’s so frustrating about ‘A Complete Unknown’ was how intoxicating the portrayal was, how by casting a good looking young heartthrob you could see exactly why men in the music industry have gotten away with being that selfish for so long and how people watching might want this version of narcissistic masculinity to continue. 

So yes when Pete Seeger (who to me is a true hero, even if this film tried to make him out to be a corny has-been) went running over to the sound desk and for a moment considered taking the axe to the whole Bob Dylan nonsense, part of me couldn’t help but cheer him on. 

That might be sacrilege to some but I bet everyone who goes to see Bob Dylan, even now decades later, just wants him to pick up the guitar and sing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ like it sounds on the record. 

So maybe ‘A Complete Unknown’ proved to me that I am just too much of a feminist, folk music loving square to ever really be a true Dylan fan. You just hope the young audience, who this film is more likely aimed at, can take what’s good about this version of Dylan’s character and leave the rest behind in the last century where it belongs.