Review of I'm Not There (2007) by Grëg W — 04 Sep 2009

A tough film to really follow, even if you're a fan of bob dylan. you really have to know what each story's message is trying to get across. there are five different portrayals of dylan, while the film focuses on the two main stories, that of jack rollins (christian bale) and jude quinn (cate blanchett).

jack rollins portrays dylan in his earlier albums which were more folk and acoustic oriented, and served as an influence to many folk musicians, including an in-movie character robbie clark (heath ledger), who stars in a biographical film based on rollins life, and in turn becomes just as famous as the fictional star he portrays.

rollins later becomes a pastor and starts making gospel music, a reference to dylan's turning point when he converted to christianity. through rollins' stories, most of it is narrated by a fictional friend of his, alice fabian (julianne moore), who is a portrayal of joan baez, one of dylan's close musical accompanists.

then comes the second major character jude quinn, who is the portrayal of dylan in his wild rock star days, which inspired many rock and roll artists after him. his switch to electric guitar, his chaotic media appearances, and his controversial concerts were all captured with cate blanchett's portrayal of those days, which earned her an oscar nomination.

I was very confused to hear that a beautiful woman such as blanchett was going to be playing an incredibly influential rock star such as dylan, but surprisingly and to my delight, it worked well and was completely believable.

her performance really takes off and should be well noted in scenes like when quinn is getting interviewed and keeps responding with ironic remarks, or the scene where he shows up at the media party drunk.

that being said, the another portrayal of dylan appears in the form of billy the kid (richard gere) in the wild west, which wasn't really very interesting to me, but reflected on dylan's appearance in the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid".

the last and least frequent portrayal is of arthur rimbaud (ben whishaw), which is also very interesting, but I wanted more from him. his role was of a man being questioned by an unseen authority, and all his responses were dylan's quotes.

marcus carl franklin portrays dylan's inspiration woody guthrie, who served as his musical god for most of his career. all in all, a lot of people will not understand this movie. it is strictly for the music and movie hardcore fans.

I enjoyed it thoroughly though.