A Complete Unknown (2024)
Directed by James Mangold
New York, early 1960s. Against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and tumultuous cultural upheaval, an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, destined to change the course of American music.
45 connections found
View:
45 films that influenced A Complete Unknown
What critics say influenced A Complete Unknown
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
The worst scene in the Coen brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis is vastly superior to the best scene in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown…
The film begins as sort of a poor man’sInside Llewyn Davis (2013), with the only thing missing being the black and white aspect.
Still, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to view the superior Bob Dylan film as the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis, a very loose, embellished biopic of overshadowed folk musician Dave Van Ronk, in which Dylan only cameos briefly and mostly off-screen at the very end.
…evoking the Coen brothers’ Dylan-adjacent Inside Llewyn Davis…
…his Dune father might’ve gotten closer even if he only portrayed a Dylan wannabe in Inside Llewlyn Davis…
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
…the 2007 film Walk Hard made fun of the formula so much it ruined the genre forever…
…the music biopic parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the standard by which all music biopics must now be judged…
So much so that the 2007 film Walk Hard, made fun of the formula so much it ruined the genre forever.
Based on the trailer, many expressed concern that it would succumb to biopic cliches a la ‘Walk Hard.’
Although it’s refreshing that the film doesn’t take us all the way back to Dylan’s Minnesota roots to analyze his childhood traumas and go full Walk Hard “Dewey, I’m cut in half pretty bad,”…
…the self-congratulatory “Bohemian Rhapsody”…
…such as 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody…
However, some films still missed the joke and went ahead and followed the formula anyway, such as 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Unlike say Bohemian Rhapsody, we end on a low rather than a high…
Like the most tired musician dramas (Bohemian Rhapsody, Bob Marley: One Love, etc.), A Complete Unknown feels like skimming through Dylan’s Wikipedia page.
When the god-awful Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) announced to the entertainment world that music biopics are now in vogue…
Other movies like Rocketman, Elvis, hell, and even Better Man, take bold risks to handle their figures and tell stories that fit their personalities and lives.
A recent biopic that worked was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. The film captured the very essence of what Elvis was about.
A Complete Unknown isn’t as repulsively distasteful as Bohemian Rhapsody or Elvis (2022), but it has inherited some of their worst traits.
Baz Luhrmann's unapologetically bonkers "Elvis" is a hoot…
If you remember, in Elvis, Presley was told not to perform his hits in front of a sold-out crowd and ended up doing it anyway. This moment was the turning point in the performance that led to Butler garnering award recognition.
A recent biopic that worked was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.
Advertisement
James Mangold’s direction reflects those latter traits – spellbound by Dylan’s talent but not going overboard the way the recent musical biopic Better Man frequently did.
…the monkey business of the Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man”…
Other movies like Rocketman, Elvis, hell, and even Better Man, take bold risks to handle their figures and tell stories that fit their personalities and lives.
…como podría ser el caso de «Better Man» (2024), el film que cuenta la historia de la estrella británica, Robbie Williams, con el detalle de que está personificado por un mono generado por computadora…
…you could have a CGI monkey like Robbie Williams in Better Man…
Mientras propuestas más arriesgadas como Better Man o Kneecap buscan jugar con la ficción, la fantasía y el absurdo, evitando el clásico y soporífero formato del biopic musical…
From the surreal “Rocketman,” that turned Elton John’s life into pop art…
Other movies like Rocketman, Elvis, hell, and even Better Man, take bold risks to handle their figures and tell stories that fit their personalities and lives.
…estará a la par de la creatividad de su figura o que será una especie de viaje cósmico al estilo Rocketman…
Taron Egerton was a best-worst case scenario for Elton John’s Rocketman…
There’s been the occasional standout, like 2019’s Rocketman.
Dexter Fletcher's Elton John musical "Rocketman" is surprisingly sturdy…
Todd Haynes’s metaphoric retelling of the “Like a Rolling Stones” singer’s life.
…the only other dramatic approach has come from Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007), with six actors including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger all portraying different aspects of his public persona…
…and I’m Not There, a mind-bending experimental film by Todd Haynes that shatters every single trope of the genre…
Director Todd Haynes explored Dylan’s impenetrable persona more effectively in 2007’s I’m Not There by having multiple actors portray Dylan in stylistically diverse vignettes to ultimately capture the sprawl of the man’s cultural footprint.
It’s only real downside, though, is the fact that Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is already the quintessential Bob Dylan biopic. Because at least that film fully embraces what makes Dylan, Dylan.
…not for him the sort of multifaceted portrait that Todd Haynes attempted—none too successfully—by having Dylan played by no fewer than six actors in his experimental, episodic “I’m Not There” (2207).
…think Ray (2004), Walk the Line (2005), and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)…
It became the same in every musical biopic movie, think Ray (2004), Walk the Line (2005), and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
…specifically lambasted the then-recent films "Ray," Taylor Hackford's flick about Ray Charles…
"A Complete Unknown" feels a bit like a forced biographical film without the substance and prolonged nature of similar movies like "Walk the Line" and "Ray."
Ever since the one-two punch of Ray and Walk the Line in the early 2000s…
Advertisement
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Themes Visuals
…el propio Martin Scorsese le dedicó dos largometrajes de no ficción, «No Direction Home» -2005- y «Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese» -2019…
Scorsese’s wildly-entertaining Rolling Thunder Revue highlighted and evangelised a more obscure and fascinating period in his career…
Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese” (2019)…
Alternatively, look at Martin Scorsese ’s rollicking documentary Rolling Thunder Revue , his most recent and maybe best Dylan movie.
Martin Scorsese’s documentary, “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” (2005), is considered the definitive work on the 1961-1966 period…
…try Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan…
The film is one of the better music biopics I’ve ever seen (since Walk the Line, if I’m being honest)…
It became the same in every musical biopic movie, think Ray (2004), Walk the Line (2005), and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
It is fascinating to compare A Complete Unknown with Mangold’s earlier film Walk the Line (2005), which tracked the life of Johnny Cash from childhood to mid-career in a far more conventional manner.
…algunas escenas cantando junto a Chalamet que evocan la química de Joaquin Phoenix y Reese Witherspoon en 'En la cuerda floja' (2005), biopic de Johnny Cash rodado por Mangold…
A pivotal moment in which Dylan and Baez flirtatiously perform “It Ain’t Me Babe” while Russo knowingly observes their chemistry is nearly identical to a scene from director-screenwriter James Mangold’s 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, further suggesting a film on autopilot.
Mangold (“Walk the Line”) is operating in familiar territory…