I'm Not There

I went to see I'm Not There today; I was determined to see it before it disappeared from the big screen, as, for me, the prospect of seeing Dylan's life portrayed on screen was irresistable. I'd read the reviews, which were mixed. This always makes me want to go and see a film even more, as I'm intrigued by films that elicit a variety of responses.
Well, I wasn't disappointed; I'd read an interview with Todd Haynes, the director, and seen a few of his other film, so knew that Dylan would be in good hands, He's clearly felt that himself, as he's refused previous offers to portray him on screen. In addition, one of my favourite actors, Christian Bale, was one of the six people portraying Dylan, and I'll go and see practically anything he's in.
On one level, the film's a chaotic shambles, as it flits backwards and forwards between the various Dylans. It's basic structure consists of depicting Dylan's life in six chapters, played by, in chronological order, Marcus Carl Franklin, a 13-year-old black boy, who plays the young Dylan hitching his way out of Minnesota; Bale, who plays the protest singing Dylan; Ben Whishaw who Dylan as he moves away from the political, to the personal; Blanchett plays him as he rejects the acoustic for the electric - the 'Judas' Dylan; Heath Ledger (rather confusingly) plays him as a movie actor with a dark side, misogynist, selfish and reactionary; Richard Gere plays the Dylan who famously disappeared to 'get it together in the country', and Bale (again) plays the preaching, born-again Christian Dylan. And, to make things even more confusing, none of the characters are called Dylan; they are, respectively, Woody, Jack Rollins, Arthur Rimbaud, Jude, Robbie, and Billy. Bale's preacher-Dylan I assume, was Jack Rollins, a few years later.
All the performers are fantastic, but Blanchett's, understandably, I suppose, has gathered up most of the publicity. Ledger did really well, portraying Dylan at his most unsympathetic, and Bale - well...he did his own singing (of course he would) in both of his incarnations, but was also utterly convincing. His preacher-Dylan section was only a short sequence but I found it extaordinarily powerful. He was in a small, down-at-heel hall somewhere in the sticks, preaching to a small congregation; inattentive children played at the back, and he had a rather perfunctory gospel choir behind him. He preached the usual born-againstuff, then began to sing, and, suddenly, he sprang to life, and his stature and authority shone through. Here, Bale captured perfectly Dylan's essential charisma.
Of course, much has been written about this film - I suppose what it's really saying is that Dylan's life and career; its almost mythic qualities - I mean, who could possibly invent the story of e Jewish teenager growing up in a small town in Minnesota, borrowing the name of a Welsh poet, taking on the persona of a dustbowl troubadour and conquering the coffe houses of New York? And then recreate himself again, several times over. He's a deejay now, producing a brilliant programme every week of his own choice of music - Radio 2 broadcast it, and it's unmissable.
There was an excellent article recently in the New York Times which encapsulated him perfectly, describing his personality as 'inclusive as Walt Whitman's' and 'as unsettlingly splintered as Herman Melville's Confidence Man'. Dylan is 'vulnerable to misunderstanding', but also 'actively solicits it'.
As the article puts it, the film 'hurls a Molotov cocktail through the facade of the Hollywood biopic factory' - I couldn't possibly have put it better, and wonder if the genre will ever, can ever be the same.
Talking of Whitman, in Simon Barnes' recent book, The Meaning of Sport (excellent), he quotes Whitman:-

'Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself
(I am large, I contain multitudes)

I copied this quote down, I liked it so much, and then was delighted to find it a few days later in Philip French's review of I'm Not There. It encapsulates Dylan perfectly, and French spotted it right away. It's funny, but at the very end, Haynes seems to acknowledge that it's impossible for anyone else to do full justice to Dylan, and the man himself appears, in a clip from the film Eat the Document. It's some footage from 1966, in which he, playfully and inventively, improvises on his harmonica.
One last thing - Haynes' command of cinematic styles is well-known; his confident reworking, visually and thematically, of the 50s domestic melodrama, in Far From Heaven, was justly praised. He's done it again here, perfectly recreating the look of each period as it appeared on screens and in photographs. His films seem to luxuriate in being films, if you get my meaning.
I intend to acquire this on DVD as I know I need to see it several times. I have to say I loved it, and can't keep it out of my head.