Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan Biopic Is Fixing A Criticism Of This 11-Year-Old Oscar Isaac Movie

Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown can enhance one common complaint about a celebrated Greenwich Village folk scene film from 2013. Chalamet will star as the iconic singer/songwriter Bob Dylan before he rose to superstardom as the groundbreaking face of contemporary American music in the early 1960s. Fresh off the box office success of 2023’s Wonka and 2024’s Dune: Part Two, Chalamet is poised to keep the momentum going in the upcoming biopic, which is directed by 2-time Academy Award nominee James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, Logan, Walk the Line).

Mangold wrote the screenplay for A Complete Unknown along with Academy Award nominee Jay Cocks, who wrote the scripts for several Martin Scorsese films such as The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), and Silence (2016). Cocks is also credited for his rewrites on two of the most legendary films ever made, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) and James Cameron’s Titanic (1997). Chalamet will star alongside an impressive cast in A Complete Unknown, led by Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbook’s Johnny Cash, and Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger, all of whom played a real-life integral part in Dylan’s life.

A Complete Unknown Portrays The Village Scene Differently Compared To Inside Llewyn Davis

The upcoming Dylan biopic will be a success story while Inside Lleywn Davis is quite tragic

Based on the limited information currently available on A Complete Unknown through its recently released first-look trailer, the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic looks to be taking more of an inspirational approach to the iconic 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene through the eyes of the massively successful and talented Dylan. It appears that A Complete Unknown will be a stark tonal contrast to the Coen Brothers’ celebrated film that focused on the same period in music history, 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis. Rather than chronicle the rise of a real-life folk hero such as Dylan, the Coen Brothers invented Llewyn Davis as one of the folk hopefuls whose dreams were never realized.

Inside Llewyn Davis.was a critical hit, earning an impressive 92% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. A common criticism of the film, however, was that it was overtly depressing and did a great job of capturing the grim realities of an otherwise bustling creative scene. A Complete Unknown looks to rewrite the notion that the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene was only full of heartache, pain, lost causes, and loose ends, all themes that plagued the haunted life and music career of the disgruntled yet fictional Llewyn Davis, portrayed expertly by Oscar Issac.

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How Inside Llewyn Davis & A Complete Unknown Are Similar

They both exist deep in the heart of the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene

The most obvious difference between the two 1960s New York City folk singer films is that one is a biopic while the other is a complete work of fiction. Inside Llewyn Davis, however, was made with a sharp authenticity that is accompanied by a slate of original songs by T Bone Burnett, who played in Bob Dylan’s band in the 1970s. The Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack sounds like it could truly have been written and performed in that time period. Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver’s characters are also meant to explore some of the other popular music genres of the time, such as pop jingles and Western ballads.

Bob Dylan is even briefly portrayed in Inside Llewyn Davis but only to highlight how far away Llewyn was from having that intangible “IT” factor that Dylan so effortlessly possessed. Since Inside Llewyn Davis is a Coen Brothers film, some of its scenes tend to drift into the realm of tangents, while Mangold’s biopic is expected to follow a much more rigid structure based on his previous works and the significance of the content. Inside Llewyn Davis represents the hundreds of talented folk dreamers who had wished to become the voice of a generation, while A Complete Unknown will actually depict a true success story of an incomparable legend in the making.

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Inside Llewyn Davis Is The Perfect Film To Watch While Waiting For A Complete Unknown

The film authentically captures the 1960s folk scene despite having fictional characters

While watching Cate Blanchett portray Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ 2007 biopic I’m Not There is a given, Inside Llewyn Davis is actually the best primer movie to gear up for A Complete Unknown. Like most Coen Brothers movies, Inside Llewyn Davis is deeply immersive and imaginative, expressing real human sentiments and struggles in a completely authentic and iconic slice of history. There is arguably no other film that better portrays the feeling of being in a tiny crowded Greenwich bar in 1961 listening to the up-and-coming folk scene of the time. Inside Llewyn Davis is nearly everything one could want from a Bob Dylan film without actually centering around the real-life icon.

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A Complete Unknown

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.

Studio(s)

Searchlight Pictures , The Picture Company , Automatik Entertainment

Distributor(s)

Searchlight Pictures

Main Genre

Biography

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