A Complete Unknown, the movie about the years when Bob Dylan burst into public consciousness in the 1960s, came out on Christmas Day.
It is a story about one man who dealt with the singular talent he was given, but its lessons are relevant to anyone gifted by God — which is everyone.
The movie was eagerly awaited in Catholic circles, where Dylan has fans in high places.
Bishop Robert Barron sees a lot in Dylan’s songs and calls him “one of my heroes,” while stressing that he is talking about Dylan the artist, not the man with a checkered past.
St. John Paul II admired the singer enough to invite him to a Vatican event in 1997 where he offered his own interpretation of Dylan’s most famous song. The Pope said “Blowin’ in the Wind” is about the wind of the Holy Spirit and that the question “how many roads must a man walk down?” has an answer: “There is only one road for man, and it is Christ, who says ‘I am the way.’”
As I've pointed out before, Dylan is a major reason that I’m Catholic. But one writer recently suggested that Dylan himself had become Catholic, citing a 2012 Rolling Stone interview in which Dylan spoke about “transfiguration” and said, “You can go and learn about it from the Catholic Church, you can learn about it in some old mystical books, but it’s a real concept.”
The Vatican has kept a proper distance from the singer though. In 2015, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published a dissenting editorial when Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature, suggesting that the prize should be reserved for more substantial literary works. But the paper added: “Perhaps [Dylan’s] greatest talent is found in his iron will to remain outside the logic of show business, while remaining a great star.”
That is the talent the new movie focuses on.
A Complete Unknown (rated R mainly for profanity) tells the story of Bob Dylan’s fame and his decision to leave folk music for rock music.
Dylan’s enormous talent is undeniable. In a few years, he wrote several timeless songs, including “The Times They Are A-Changing,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” A Dylan biopic was inevitable after the success of acclaimed films about Elton John, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.
This one was even more anticipated because it stars Timothee Chalamet, who is hitting a high point of popularity right now. Even more intriguingly, because the original filming plans were scrapped during the pandemic, Chalamet spent years perfecting his ability to sing and play guitar like Bob Dylan.
Leonardo DiCaprio gave Chalamet some advice on his movie career — “no hard drugs, no superhero movies.” This film steers clear of even the appearance of violating the first of these rules, sweeping Dylan’s drug use under the rug, but it comes close to violating the second because it presents Dylan’s talent as practically super-human.
Maybe it’s right about that. Dylan saw his gift as a blessing from God.
Louie Kemp is a childhood friend of Dylan’s who has worked with him throughout his career. In a Duluth public radio interview about the movie, he described how the singer sees his talent.
“We used to have long conversations about this. He knows what he has is a gift from God and he’s the conduit,” Kemp said. “He doesn’t feel that he should be taking the credit for it. He feels that the credit should go to God, that he’s been blessed.”
When you think of his talent as being God given, a lot of Dylan’s choices in the movie make sense.
The folk music scene was ready to put Dylan on a pedestal, to make him “voice of a generation.” Dylan rejected the worship and the worshippers. Think of it as his version of “He must increase; I must decrease.” The movie’s Dylan would rather be “a complete unknown” who is true to his gift than a celebrity who isn’t.
He would also rather have friends than followers.
Friends receive you and appreciate knowing who you really are. Followers revere you and revolt when you disappoint their expectations. And as Dylan sings in the movie, “All I really want to do is be friends with you.”
The movie’s director, James Mangold, said in an interview that the real Bob Dylan told him that his switch to electric was as much about loneliness as anything else.
“It’s lonely being that kind of singer-songwriter,” Mangold said. Dylan wanted the kind of friendship and camaraderie he saw in Buddy Holly’s band when he watched them as a teenager.
“There is something very pure about jamming and collaborating with other musicians,” Mangold said. “There’s nothing anyone wants from each other than the chords and the beat.”
That is a great lesson to take from the film.
In the film, Dylan does great good for society by using his gift to serve the common good, but does great harm to himself when he chooses selfishness over love.
We each have a gift and our discovery of our vocation is our discovery of how we can use that gift for others — and how we each ultimately are singing for an audience of one: The giver of every gift, God.
