I'M NOT THERE (2007) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Todd Haynes
Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger,
Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw,
Bruce Greenwood, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julianne Moore
Some of the many sides of Bob Dylan, a fractured, impressionistic portrait with six different actors playing various Dylan personas, real or imagined. There's Christian Bale as Jack Rollins, a surly folk singer who can't handle the demands of fame. Heath Ledger as a boorish actor playing Rollins in an early-'60s film. Ben Whishaw as Arthur Rimbaud. Marcus Carl Franklin as Woody Guthrie. Richard Gere as an aging Billy the Kid. The most literal, and the most compulsively watchable, is Cate Blanchett as Dylan circa 1965, fingernails, frizzed hair, shades and all, chain smoking, flying on amphetamines, impish, jittery, egocentric and a near-total asshole. How much of Bob Dylan any of it captures is open to debate, and I'm not sure it matters. A hundred different filmmakers could make a hundred different Dylan movies, and all of them would get at some part of the truth (or none at all), while the shape shifter himself slips away on the next available boxcar. That's kind of what "I'm Not There" is getting at. The real Bob Dylan wouldn't want it any other way.
