The release of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown means many viewers will be encountering the enigmatic folk singer for the first time and will be curious about the rest of his career not depicted in the James Mangold film. In a recent interview with Nardwuar, Timothée Chalamet said he’s open to reprising his role as Dylan, saying: “We could do part two and three. It depends how people react.” With a career defined by reinvention and transformation, there’s so much more to Dylan’s legacy than just the 1961 to 1965 period that Chalamet depicted.
While there are plenty of Dylan movies out there, and the power of his greatest work stands for itself, longtime listeners would be curious to see some of the lesser-known eras of the musician’s career depicted on screen. Although Dylan’s controversial decision to go electric has become an integral part of musical history, it would be fascinating to witness his born-again Christian period, many career comebacks, and even his Avengers-style musical team-up with the Traveling Wilburys seen on screen. There are many facets to Dylan’s life and legacy, and A Complete Unknown was just the tip of the iceberg.
8
The Motorcycle Accident
1966 – 1968
The ending of A Complete Unknown saw Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan riding off into the sunset on a motorcycle, which to the average viewer may appear like a tidy ending but to longtime listeners merely hinted toward a potential sequel. This was because in 1966, after years of excessive touring and frantic songwriting, Dylan was reportedly in a motorcycle accident that was said to have almost killed him (via Far Out.) While some doubt this accident even happened, Dylan used it as an excuse to dial back his life and take a break from touring, his fans, and media attention.
While the years following Dylan’s motorcycle accident are shrouded in mystery, a sequel could unpack this period where he recorded The Basement Tapes with the Band and embraced a condensed poetic style of songwriting on records like John Wesley Harding. Dylan became a father during this time as his first son, Jesse, was born in 1966, and he embraced a quieter way of life with his wife, Sara, in Woodstock, New York. A film exploring this era would be far more contemplative and introspective than A Complete Unknown, as Dylan rejected celebrity and embraced the simple things in life.
7
Country Bob
1969 – 1971
Plenty of A Complete Unknown viewers will see the film not because of their love of Bob Dylan but as fans of the director James Mangold, who previously made the acclaimed Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Considering this, it was a real treat to see Boyd Holbrook show up playing Cash, as Joaquin Phoenix was now too old to reprise his role. However, Cash’s association with Dylan did not end with the Newport Folk Festival, as the two would later work together in the late 1960s when Bob fully embraced country music on his ninth studio album, Nashville Skyline.
Dylan’s full-on country phase was a brief but fascinating era in his career, and it would be thrilling to see a director with such a strong connection to both Bob and Cash explore this period. Witnessing the behind-the-scenes circumstances that led to Dylan and Cash singing a duet of “Girl from the North Country” would be a music lover’s dream come true, and the Bootleg Series release Travelin’ Thru proves their collaborations went even further than this. Bob’s country crooning continued into albums like New Morning, and a sequel could explore how he found this new voice.
6
Bob Dylan: The Movie Star
1973
Bob Dylan was a pretty reclusive figure throughout the early 1970s, yet in 1973, he made his major film debut in Sam Peckinpah’s Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dylan’s time portraying Billy the Kid’s gang member Alias would make for an interesting film-within-a-film that gets to the heart of Dylan’s simultaneous fascination with mythmaking and avoidance of the spotlight in environments he doesn’t have complete control of. Dylan’s time working on the film already informed Richard Gere’s character in the experimental biopic I’m Not There, so it wouldn’t be the first time Hollywood has explored this era.
The production of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was plagued with difficulties as the film went over budget, the crew came down with bouts of influenza, and Peckinpah struggled with alcoholism (via The Playlist.) Seeing how Dylan and co-stars like Kris Kristofferson reacted to making this haphazard cult favorite could act as a fascinating exploration of the intersection between music and movie stars in the film industry. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was also the film that birthed the Dylan classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which adds to its esteemed legacy.
5
The Rolling Thunder Revue
1975 – 1976
After an eight-year break from touring, Bob Dylan reemerged with a major tour in 1974, but the following year took things even further as he traversed the country with a traveling musical troupe known as the Rolling Thunder Revue. This era would act as an enthralling road movie that saw Dylan performing alongside Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and countless other figures of pop, punk, and poetry. As Dylan donned white facepaint and sang with manic energy, the shows on the Rolling Thunder Revue were among the most energized and exciting of his entire career.
The acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese released the documentary Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story in 2019, which explored this era through factual and non-factual interview accounts and outtakes from Dylan’s 1978 film Renaldo and Clara.
A movie of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour would also include the recording processes of classic albums like Blood on the Tracks and Desire. While this was an exciting musical time, it was also a period of personal crisis for Dylan as his marriage to Sara Lownds disintegrated, and he poured all that emotion into his music. During this time, Dylan also reunited with his protest music roots with the song “Hurricane” and staged benefit concerts to aid the legal case of the wrongfully convicted and imprisoned boxer Rubin Carter, which would add cinematic gravitas to this story.
4
Born Again Bob
1979 – 1981
Bob Dylan is an artist who has transformed his career countless times, but one period that left many listeners scratching their heads was when he became a full-blown born-again Christian in the late 1970s. This kicked off with the incredible gospel blues album Slow Train Coming, whose Jesus-loving themes continued with a trilogy of records, including Saved and Shot of Love. During this time, Dylan would go on long biblical rants during his live shows and stopped playing any music that didn’t spread his message of the importance of God and the Bible.
This fascinating time in Dylan’s life is shrouded in mystery, as in subsequent years he’s been notably tight-lipped about religious viewpoints, and many listeners question if he’s still as devout as during this brief and passionate time. A movie exploring these years could unpack the mystery of Dylan’s spirituality and could even include the time he claimed to have met a vision of Jesus Christ in a hotel room in Tucson, Arizona (via Forbes.) As a musician who has dealt with messianic-like admiration from his fans, a movie about Dylan’s born-again period could explore his legacy in a new way.
3
Losing His Way In The 1980s
1985 – 1988
Many beloved musicians of the 1960s experienced a creative crisis in the 1980s, as the dawn of New Wave, synth-pop, and post-punk meant they felt like relics of a bygone era. This was certainly the case for Bob Dylan, whose poetic lyricism was watered down by overproduced and dated recording styles. The changing tides of fashion meant that Dylan felt out of place as he tried to keep up with trends through pop singles like “Tight Connection to My Heart” and disappointing self-referential movie roles like Hearts of Fire, where he played a washup rock star well past his prime.
While the Dylan seen in A Complete Unknown had the entire world looking to him for answers, during the 1980s his work felt less urgent, and the mainstream had dismissed him as washed up. This downtrodden era would make for an excellent movie, and the once-proclaimed voice of his generation no longer felt relevant amid the individualism and hedonistic lifestyles of celebrity culture during the Reagan administration. While Dylan managed to bounce back, this movie would show that even musician geniuses have a few missteps every now and then.
2
The Traveling Wilburys
1988 – 1991
Were Timothée Chalamet to continue playing Bob Dylan in sequels that explore the ups and downs of the artist’s varied career, one exciting route this cinematic universe would lead to is an Avengers-style team-up starring the Traveling Wilburys. This fascinating supergroup brought together legends like the Beatles’ George Harrison, ELO’s Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and, of course, Dylan. As perhaps the biggest supergroup of all time, the Traveling Wilburys helped renew Bob creatively as he started having fun with music again and embraced being an equal member of a band for the first time since his teens.
With classic singles like “Handle with Care,” Dylan’s time in the Traveling Wilburys kickstarted a creative renewal that saw the release of his major comeback album, Oh Mercy, in 1989. Dylan wrote at length about the recording of this album in his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, so there’s a firsthand account to adapt a potential film version of this time in his life. By closing out the 1980s with an incredible creative collaboration and one of his greatest albums, Dylan proved once again that he always bounces back.
1
Not Dark Yet
1997
While Bob Dylan became increasingly guarded about his personal life in his later years, a film exploring his Time Out of Mind album would act as the perfect premise to explore his current elder statesman persona. This record featured some of the greatest writing as Dylan looked death straight in the eye and gave audiences the first of many albums that have been interpreted as a final farewell. Time Out of Mind was a late-career triumph that won the Grammy for Album of the Year, but it was also released right as Dylan went through a near-death experience.
Having been hospitalized with a near-fatal heart infection shortly before the album’s release (via LA Times), Time Out of Mind had an apocalyptic feeling about it. Witnessing the behind-the-scenes circumstances of Dylan finding a new voice and style to pursue his eternal creative process would be the perfect way to bookend his determination not to be pigeonholed by audience expectations in A Complete Unknown. The enigmatic presence of Bob Dylan means it’s practically impossible to capture his complexity in one feature film, yet this would provide a glimpse into his later, more reclusive years.
Sources: Nardwuar, Far Out, The Playlist, Forbes, LA Times
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A Complete Unknown
BiographyDramaMusic
A Complete Unknown is a biographical movie that follows a young Bob Dylan as he integrates with New York and catches the eye of the folk singers in the area, eventually propelling him into stardom.
Release Date
December 25, 2024
Runtime
140 minutes
Main Genre
Biography
Cast
Timothée Chalamet
, Edward Norton
, Elle Fanning
, Monica Barbaro
, Nick Offerman
, Boyd Holbrook
, P.J. Byrne
, Scoot McNairy
, Dan Fogler
, Will Harrison
, Charlie Tahan
, Jon Gennari
, Norbert Leo Butz
Character(s)
Bob Dylan
, Pete Seeger
, Sylvie Russo
, Joan Baez
, Alan Lomax
, Johnny Cash
, Harold Levanthal
, Woody Guthrie
, Albert Grossman
, Bob Neuwirth
, Al Kooper
, Stage Manager
Director
James Mangold
Writers
Jay Cocks
, James Mangold
Studio(s)
Searchlight Pictures
, The Picture Company
, Automatik Entertainment
Distributor(s)
Searchlight Pictures
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