Searchlight Pictures
A musical biopic is never going to be completely true to life.
“We didn’t want to make a pseudo-documentary,” Mangold tellsEntertainment Weekly.
Here, Mangold breaks down some major moments in the film and how much is drawn from real life.
Credit:Searchlight Pictures
“Bob certainly arrived in New York and went to see Woody Guthrie,” Mangold says.
“That was his whole goal.
In fact, there was this beautiful object that Timothee found when he was doing research.
Edward Norton and Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.
He found a gentleman who collects Dylan paraphernalia.
“Pete Seeger served as a shelter against the storm for Bob,” notes Mangold.
Dylan tells him that he likes a bit of everything, including Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly.
Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Searchlight Pictures
“I don’t think of myself as a folk musician,” he tells Seeger.
“Pete Seeger definitely was an evangelist for folk music,” Mangold notes.
“Bob from the very beginning resisted all categorization,” the director adds.
Elle Fanning and Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Searchlight Pictures
That whole part where he is like, ‘I’m not saying I’m a folk singer.
Sylvie Russo was Dylan’s first great love
Yes…and no.
Until her memoir, Rotolo had maintained strict privacy about her memories of her time with Dylan.
Timothee Chalamet on the set of ‘A Complete Unknown’.Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
“Dylan is really interested in movies,” he notes.
I could refer to anything from Kurosawa films to Wim Wenders movies to other musical films.
He always knew exactly what I was talking about.
Boyd Holbrook in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Searchlight Pictures
He clearly enjoys taking in all this stuff.”
“The relationship of movies and rock & roll and singer-songwriters is really powerful,” he notes.
Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan were long-time pen pals
This is 100 percent true.
Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown.'.Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures
“I didn’t know anyone had them,” he explains.
“I started work on writing this movie, and I called up Jeff Rosen, Bob’s manager.
I asked him, ‘Do you have the letters that Johnny Cash wrote to Bob?’
Monica Barbaro and Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures
And he goes, ‘Oh yes.’
So, he sent them to me.
Those words are exactly those letters.
Boyd Holbrook in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Searchlight Pictures
That correspondence comes from Bob’s archives.
He did play prior to Baez, but Dylan didn’t perform his set until two days later.
The scene was already in the script that Jay Cocks wrote when Mangold came on to the project.
Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.
“It was a fabulous show, but I’m not sure Bob was on it.”
Furthermore, Seeger’s guest on this show, Jesse Moffette, is entirely an invention.
No such blues guitarist existed.
Timothee Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’.Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures
A lot of that dialogue was also taken from Dylan from a collage of other Dylan moments.”
However, Cash was not backstage to hand it to him.
The 1964 festival was the first time the two men met in person.
But was the tribalism between folk and rock music actually this intense?
In short answer, yes.
“People said that they had never seen Pete Seeger so angry,” Mangold says.
“The folk tale is that he grabbed an ax and tried to smash the mixing board.
We didn’t quite take it that far.
It is a documented fact that Al Lomax and Albert Grossman got in a fistfight backstage during the concert.
Those are not really dramatic inventions.
Even Bob Dylan refers to that night as a fiasco.
It was clearly a messy affair.”
“There’s very different testimony,” he explains.
“There was testimony that there were bottles and programs being hurled at the stage.
There were also some fans loving it.
There were also fans getting in fights with each other in the audience.
The tribalism was real, and the threat was real.”
“That came from a concert in Manchester, England,” he says.
“But it happened.
It was just a concert a little while later.
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