As you have already been informed, I’m Not There arrives on DVD today. For those of you in the “I’m sort of interested, but not really a big Dylan fan” camp, here are a few supplemental materials that may or may not enhance your appreciation of Todd Haynes’ unconventional biopic. Put away your notebooks, there will not be a test.
As you may have gleaned, I’m Not There is a cavalcade, a kaleidoscope, a veritable cinematic smoothie blending many eras and images from Dylan’s career. Mmm…smoothie. I’m sorry, where was I? Oh, yes. Throughout the film Haynes quotes, tweaks and otherwise references a number of original sources very familiar to Dylan fans but perhaps not to neophytes. Such as:
DYLAN GOES ELECTRIC (1965)
In one of the seminal moments of Dylan’s career, the one-time pride of the Greenwich Village folk scene plugged in his guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, alienating the purists in the audience and prompting Pete Seeger to announce he’d cut the power with an axe if he had one. (Haynes has some fun with this moment.) Dylan’s evolution from earnest folkie to hipster rocker can be seen in the recent documentary The Other Side of the Mirror, which collects his Newport performances from 1963 through 1965.
EAT THE DOCUMENT (1972)
Once intended as a straightforward follow-up to D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back (which forms the basis of much of the Cate Blanchett segment of I’m Not There), this fragmented look at Dylan’s 1966 tour has no official release, but has been heavily bootlegged (and now, of course, YouTubed). Those seeking straightforward live concert footage are bound to be disappointed (though extended versions of many of the performances are available on the DVD of Martin Scorsese’s Dylan doc No Direction Home), but the film has its fascinations, notably footage of John Lennon sharing a car ride with a severely fucked-up Bobby D.
PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973)
This elegiac Sam Peckinpah western contains Dylan’s “acting” debut (as the mysterious outlaw Alias), but more importantly, his soundtrack composing debut, including the timeless “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which should always conjure images of Slim Pickens clutching his bloodied midsection. In the Richard Gere section of I’m Not There, Haynes creates a landscape of the Old Weird America that is equal parts Pat Garrett, The Basement Tapes and Dylan’s 1976 tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue. (For more on Pat Garrett, check out Tom Block’s definitive appraisal at The High Hat.)
RENALDO AND CLARA (1978)
This one is for the completists only. In fact, I thought I was a completist and I’ve never completed it. Nearly 30 years before Haynes, Dylan himself did an impressionistic take on his own legend, with the assistance of Sam Shepherd. The nearly four hour result has long been regarded as a complete debacle, but here’s your chance to get on the ground floor of the re-evaluation. The whole thing is on YouTube if you have the stamina.