I saw A Complete Unknown twice the past few days, on Christmas day and two days later. I enjoyed it. In writing about it here, however, I decided not to summarize the story or analyze the details. Instead, I thought I'd share a few links that may be helpful to newcomers to the Dylan fold, of interest to veteran fans and useful for moviegoers who wish to go deeper on their Dylan adventure.
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Let's start with Olof Björner's Bob Dylan Yearly Chronicles, a compendium of dates and details, songcharts, recording sessions and other stats. Björner (1942-2023) was a Swedish researcher, renowned for his extensive documentation of Dylan's live performances and recording sessions. Björner's work significantly contributed to Dylan scholarship, making him one of the most cited experts on Dylan's career.
Since A Complete Unknown covers Dylan's life from his January 1961 arrival in New York City to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, you may enjoy reading through Björner's extensive documentation from his period.
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Boblinks.com is a website dedicated to providing Bob Dylan concert info and links to other Dylan-related sites. The home page says it all: This page is dedicated to providing Bob Dylan concert information and links to other Bob Dylan related sites. If you want to see where Dylan has performed, what fans said or what songs he performed on that date, this is the place. The founder/webmaster of this site is Bill Pagel, a memoribilia collector and archivist who just happens to own both homes that young Bobby Zimmerman grew up in here in the Northland. Each is being meticulously restored to its original period decor.
expectingrain.com is a wonderful mashup of articles about Dylan, Dylan influences and more. The founder and webmaster is Karl Erik Andersen, whom you can read about here.
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The co-producers of this film were Jeff Rosen and James Mangold, who was also director. When I saw that Mangold had directer 3:10 to Yuma, Logan and Ford v Ferrari, my expectations jumped up another notch.
For those unfamiliar, Rosen has been Bob Dylan's manager since 1989, playing a significant role in managing Dylan's career, including overseeing his business and music publishing enterprises. He's also been involved in the curation of Dylan's archives, music licensing, and the management of Dylan's extensive music catalog. He's known for keeping a low profile, the spotlight turned toward our Nobel laureate and national treasure.
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A few more links of interest.
What were Dylan's first months in the Big Apple really like? A film like this compresses four years of history into a little over two hours, so many events are alluded to rather than explicitly pointed out. Peter McKenzie's Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day brings illumination to some events of this period.
A Visit with Peter McKenzie, Author of Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day (Part One)
Talking New York, Dylan and More with Peter McKenzie (Part II)
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The film's crescendo takes place at the 1965 Newport Follk Festival, and guess what? There's actual footage of that historic performance. Here's "Maggie's Farm." The way Mangold set this up in the film brought a whole new meaning to the song we've all become so familiar with.
Here's the actual encore from Dylan's cosing set at Newport 1965, a fitting epitaph to this chapter of Dylan's career. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue":
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