Review
Culture
Film & TV
Music
5 min read

A complete unknown: the enigma of Bob Dylan

Chalamet commands but this biopic denies the audience its aha moment.

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A hunched man wearing dark glasses and a dark suit, walks down a New York Street at night, with his hands in his pockets.
Searchlight Pictures.

Crafting a biopic about Bob Dylan is no easy task. Known for his reclusive nature, Dylan has long avoided public introspection, rarely granting interviews and keeping a tight grip on his privacy. Enter A Complete Unknown, a film whose title is cleverly lifted from the iconic lyric from Dylan’s legendary song, 'Like a Rolling Stone'. For many, Dylan remains a complete unknown beyond his music. This film takes on the daunting challenge of unravelling, or at least presenting, Dylan’s story for a new generation.  

For Generation Z, Dylan’s genius is perhaps a distant echo, so casting Timothée Chalamet—a Gen Z cultural icon—as the main role is a masterstroke. Known for his standout roles in Dune and Wonka, Chalamet commands the attention of younger audiences, making Dylan’s story accessible and intriguing to a demographic otherwise unfamiliar with the folk legend. 

Chalamet’s dedication to the role is impressive. During the extended production, delayed by COVID, he taught himself to play the guitar, harmonica, and sing live. His performance is more than an imitation - it’s a striking incarnation of Dylan’s enigmatic persona. Through Chalamet, the audience is transported to a pivotal chapter of Dylan’s life, a time that would see a seismic shift in music history.

From folk icon to electric rebel 

This transformative moment in Dylan’s career is drawn from the book Bob Dylan Goes Electric. Much like Titanic or Finding Nemo where the climax is inevitable from the outset, the audience is well aware of what is coming: Dylan’s controversial decision to “go electric.” 

We begin by meeting Dylan as a young folk singer, heavily influenced by legends like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Arriving in New York as an ambitious teenager, he’s welcomed and mentored by the folk music community. These relationships form the foundation of his early career, but they also set the stage for heartbreak. 

The climax unfolds at the Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan debuts an electric set, shattering the expectations of his folk audience. Fans and mentors alike react with outrage—booing, throwing objects, and accusing Dylan of betraying the authenticity of true folk music. By the film’s end, Dylan, despite his eventual electrifying musical success, is no more popular – he has burned nearly every bridge, leaving a trail of fractured relationships. 

True to its title, A Complete Unknown offers no answers. Dylan’s motives remain elusive, and the audience is left with more questions than insights. It’s a daring narrative choice—presenting a guarded character who remains enigmatic to the end. There’s no traditional character arc, no emotional revelation, no intimate a-ha moment. The film respects Dylan’s mystique but denies the audience the catharsis they might expect from a biopic. 
Other biopic producers seem to be following suit.  In efforts not to be formulaic they are choosing a more lackadaisical approach to audience expectations.  In the upcoming Better Man which retells Robbie William’s life story, the singer is presented as a CGI ape. Pharell Williams’ life story is being retold through LEGO. If James Mangold, the director, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks was deliberately trying to subvert the genre, it seems he may have succeeded. 

From musical genius to mass appeal 

Despite its underwhelming emotional denouement, the film does leave viewers marveling at Dylan’s genius. By the age of 24, he had already written and performed some of the most iconic songs of the twentieth century including 'Blowin’ in the Wind' (1962), 'The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964) and 'A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall' (1962). Chalamet’s performance breathes life into Dylan’s music, and it’s nearly impossible to leave the theatre without humming a familiar tune. 

Around that time Dylan was also involved in the civil rights movement. He played at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28th 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. He performed at the huge rally on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial and his presence there alongside other prominent figures helped inspire more musicians and artists to join the struggle for racial equality. But this vital contribution is given only a few seconds of screen time and Dylan shows no other interest in justice or equality in the film. He only interacts minimally with black characters – once to mock a black girlfriend and the other to humiliate a black musician. No explanation is given.  

Dylan’s work undeniably speaks to the human experience, particularly through its reflections on social change, struggle, and hope, yet his actions and interactions seem to conflict with that message. The film therefore creates a dissonance that’s difficult to reconcile. It raises the question of whether we can, or should, separate the artist from the art—or if, in doing so, we undermine the very message they champion through their work. 

From faith to legacy 

The biopic story predates two significant conversions—Dylan’s eventual embrace of Christianity and Johnny Cash’s spiritual awakening. Both men would go on to explore faith in profound ways that would intertwine with one another, influencing both their lives and their music. Dylan’s conversion was famously sparked by an audience member throwing a crucifix onto the stage—a moment not yet reached in this film’s timeline.  Johnny Cash’s role in Dylan’s life is mentioned but not unpacked.  These threads add an intriguing layer of foreshadowing, leaving room for reflection on how faith would later influence their lives. A fascinating follow up would be to explore this relationship – for now the film only hints that perhaps the loneliness and longing for fulfilment behind the success would spark not only their friendship but also a transformative faith.  

Leaving the cinema, I found myself caught between admiration and frustration. Dylan’s genius is undeniable—his songs remain timeless, his influence immeasurable. Yet, his emotional distance and self-absorption left me unsettled.  Perhaps that’s the point. Genius, as we often discover, does not always equate to warmth or relatability. Dylan’s musical brilliance is his gift, but his guarded nature remains his curse. His songs preach peace, but he was a man in conflict with himself and with others. In the end, Dylan is presented as a complete unknown, a man who defies understanding, a riddle that continues to captivate and confound, an enigma in need of some salvation. 

 

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Article
Comment
Digital
Film & TV
Masculinity
4 min read

How our social media turns us against ourselves

We treat others differently when our eyes and hearts are forced inwards.
An unhappy father sits next to a scared son in a police interview room.
Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper star in Adolescence.
Netflix.

My wife turned to me this week whilst watching the compelling Netflix drama Adolescence and asked if it was based on a true story. That proves the quality of the acting, script, and storyline. But it also demonstrates the drama’s prophetic nature. Conceived two and a half years ago by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, the perversion of Jamie’s underdeveloped brain and developing masculinity by social media forces has come to reflect real-life extreme violence by young men. With the sentencings of murderers Axel Radakubana and Nicholas Prosper in recent weeks, Jamie’s actions resonate deeply. Adolescence isn’t based on a specific true story, but that doesn’t prevent it from being true. 

What about the role of social media in these narratives? Radakubana and Prosper were radicalised by violent content they had accessed online. With social media, extreme content does well, particularly on sites with no filters on pornography and violence like Reddit and X. We are beginning to discover that content algorithms are not neutral, instead siloing us into echo chambers that are deliberately forming us into better consumers of content, advertising, and objects. Social media harvests our data and sells it on- meaning it cultivates us as the product. 

Yet these manipulations cover over the deepest issue. Social media depersonalises us, preventing us from making genuine human connection and perverting our view of anybody but us. The German philosopher Martin Buber differentiated between two different ways for humans to exist in the world. One was I-It; in a person treats everyone and everything they come into contact with as an ‘It’- something to be used or taken advantage of. 

The other was I-Thou, in which humans approach every other person as a unique being, with resources to offer the I which ensures that a mutual, open, present connection ensues. For Buber, the ultimate ‘Thou’ was God, with whom humans can have the deepest and most transformative connection. 

Social media ensures we see life in ‘I/It’ mode by removing genuine contact with others and providing curated, fake, existences that can never be open to genuine connection with others. Love and affection become commodified; likes, follows, reactions. Our presentation of ourselves becomes more extreme, more perfect, more beautified, to keep mining the commodities. Our eyes and our hearts are forced inwards, and we lose any sense of encountering a ‘Thou’ on the way. We just keep encountering the I: our own thoughts, needs, desires, self-radicalised by our own insular minds. 

This can be our contribution to the conversation on the culture our young people, and particularly young men, are growing up in. To live I/Thou lives.

The great St Augustine back in the fourth century developed the idea of ‘original sin.’ All humans are prone to destruction: it’s in our DNA. The evidence for such an idea is found in every human experience, as the destructor and the one destructed. Left unchecked without genuine connections with others to challenge and expand our hearts, an I/It life digs deeper and deeper into these destructive impulses until our humanity is twisted into violent obsessions. 

The I/It life focuses completely on self-glorification through any means, something amplified by social media. What if we don’t get enough likes, follows, reactions? What if we cannot achieve self-glory through the more banal mediums of attraction, attention, popularity?  

Both Radakubana and Prosper said they wanted to be notorious, attempting to find the most extreme channel for their violence as possible to ensure they are never forgotten. They will not be the last. Jamie continues to deny his crime but in episode three of Adolescence he states that he could do whatever he wanted to Katie, the young girl he murdered. The same impulses come through; others as objects to take advantage of in achieving self-satisfaction. 

The good intentions for human connection that some of those early social media sites were set up for has been largely lost. But the good intention can remain in our own resolution to live an I/Thou life. Putting down social media and picking up connections with humans in the real world by seeing the other with curiosity and openness will ensure that we are constantly turning our heart outwards, embracing genuine relationships, and finding space in our heart to think of the other before ourselves. These are the relationships that will make us more human. 

Ultimately, Buber was right that the ultimate ‘Thou’ connection we can make is with God. The Christian story is full of God’s desire to seek out relationship with humanity, to allow us to find a connection with God that surpasses our own human experience and transforms us to be people that slowly grow away from our destructive instincts.  

What might Christian faith have to contribute to the conversation on the culture young men are growing up in? To live I/Thou lives that are curious, open, and seeking truest divine and human connection. Such a life might even touch those who have been ravaged by social media and ignored by other I/It lives. It might even inspire them to compassion and curiosity that look beyond the content that turns them inwards, to turn outwards and find a healthier future. 

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