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The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” focuses on just a few crucial years at the beginning of the songwriter’s career, from 1961, when he relocated to New York from Minnesota, up through his plugged-in heresy at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. In that short window of time, he revolutionized the folk movement and became something of a pop phenomenon.
Playing him, appropriately, is a modern-day pop phenomenon: Timothée Chalamet. And the attention he brings thanks to his outsize celebrity seems designed to expose Dylan to a whole new audience. Dylan is as well known these days for being enigmatic as for his music. So the hullabaloo surrounding Chalamet’s performance onscreen is only one part of the strategy, going hand in hand with how he’s navigated the press tour.
On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the accuracy, and strategic inaccuracy, of Chalamet’s portrayal of Dylan; how the film outlines the creative arc of Dylan’s career; and how Chalamet is using his press tour to attract and win over an audience who might never go to see “A Complete Unknown.”
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