Interviews by Elisa Leonelli
20/01/2025
A Complete Unknown tells the beginning of Bob Dylan’s career, from his arrival in New York in January 1961, at just 19 years old, until the summer of 1965, when he wrote protest songs, and sang them accompanied only by an acoustic guitar (labeled: “this machine kills fascists”) and an harmonica, before causing a scandal at the Folk Festival in Newport on July 25, 1965, when he appeared on stage with an electric guitar (a Fender Stratocaster) and other musicians, turning himself into a rock star.
I interviewed the director and the protagonists and asked each of them similar questions with different and less explicit phrases, but with this meaning.
In what sense does the power of protest music of the 1960s about the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War still holds political significance in today’s world, with two wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza, and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States?
James Mangold, director and co-writer
The 1960s are the period when all of our modern society was formed, and even today we keep wrestling with whether we want to return to what existed before or stay with the progress that resulted. Bob Dylan said something very interesting, which is that there are actually two decades, from the late 1950s to 1965, and from 1965 to 1975, which are completely different, because the whole world changed in 1965. The acceleration of the war in Vietnam, the assassinations (of Malcolm X, 1965 and Martin Luther King, 1968) that reactivated the civil rights movement, the political changes, the arrival of Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles, rock and roll and pop charts. That rift signals the decline of folk music, of the hope that demonstrations would end the Vietnam War and free African-Americans in the south, of faith in the power of the people. This fracture towards a more cynical, dark and powerful kind of music signals the moment when the world lost the innocence of the times when musicians created protest anthems that united people to fight together to defend the ideals they believed in. Today there is a tribalism, not only in the United States but in almost every European country and in the world, which says “us against you”. This is a very volatile period, so I don’t know if music or art in general can play a positive role, but with my film I wanted to remember another moment in history.
James Mangold, Timothée Chalamet (c) Searchlight
Timothée Chalamet–Bob Dylan
I found the timeless power of Bob Dylan’s work incredible. Some songs such as “Death of Emmett Till” or “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” are specific to certain events in society of that time, but other songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “Times they are A-Changin’” are still true in the present, they have no cultural references that make them dated. To this day they remain relevant and listenable, they are understood as being related to the current moment, indicating a path to go forward, shining a light. Bob does not explain them, but simply says: “my songs talk about the human experience and what happens in the world, they are poetic lyrics put to music.” It’s a clever, self-effacing way to deny your genius.
Timothée Chalamet-Bob Dylan © Searchilight
Edward Norton–Pete Seeger
It is incontestable that Pete Seeger believed that the reason for playing his music was the mission to advance the progress of humanity. He was a musician and musicologist of folk music who since the 1930s sang and played songs as an instrument of social change. For him the two things were inextricably linked. In this sense he was different from Bob Dylan, his integrity was political, social and humanistic, while Dylan had only great artistic integrity. They are both admirable for different reasons. Back then, artists believed that their work could be a tool to change society, but now the trust of that time no longer exists in the Zeitgeist of popular culture today, so I find it nice to invite viewers to re-examine this brief moment in history. If these songs are great and have lasting power it is because they avoid simple reductive definitions, they contain multitudes of meaning within them, so they promote an active relationship instead of a passive one in the listener, and that is where their power lies.
Edward Norton-Petr Seeger (c) Searchlight
Monica Barbaro–Joan Baez
Joan Baez and I both grew up in Northern California, San Francisco area, singing the protest songs of Woody Guthrie, who was the first to write them. There existed in that place an energy that some would call hippie, wholesome and earthy. Joan was an outstanding political activist, a legendary singer and musician, an admirable artist who quickly became famous with a long career. Based on her family’s values, she had been protesting since she was 16, but in that time, from 1961 to 1965, she sang the same folk songs as before. It was precisely the arrival of Bob Dylan, this very good writer of verses that spoke of topics that were close to her heart, that inspired her to write her protest songs, and put her voice at the service of her ideas.
Monica Barbaro-Joan Baez © Searchlight
Elle Fanning–Suze Rotolo
Sylvie, based on Suze Rotolo, is the only person in this film who knew Bob Dylan before he became famous and loved him for who he was, a young boy who had just arrived in New York from Minnesota. She understood his talent and became his muse, greatly influenced his work and especially his political activism, she introduced him to the world of youth culture of the 1960s that he was not so interested in before he met Suze. In many ways, with all those young artists wandering the streets of the Greenwich Village, organizing demonstrations for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, it was a very similar moment to what is happening now with the youth movement of the new generations. The folk songs of Pete Seger and Joan Baez wanted to unite the community for social change. I draw a lot of inspiration from the photos of the young people of the time who see a better future in their eyes, I would like to return to the days of joy and freedom of the sixties.
