I’m Not There was unlike any film I’ve ever seen before. Never did it feel like the typical Hollywood narrative blockbuster. To me, it had the makings of a Broadway show, or even a standard documentary. That being said, I feel that for me to fully appreciate this movie I would certainly have to see it again. It took me a while to understand what the movie was about and to even realize that each individual character represented a different aspect of Bob Dylan’s life. Although it was not my favorite film, I greatly appreciated the filmmaking that went behind producing such a movie. The director did a fantastic job of cutting to a different scene or using old footage. Looking back on it, I do feel as if I have a much greater comprehension of what it was like to be in Dylan’s shoes. One thing that stood out to me about him was how difficult it was being in the spotlight. People wanted so many answers from him, but he acknowledged right from the beginning that he wasn’t some sort of savior, but was simply just a storyteller. He wanted to do what he enjoyed and not have a big deal made of it, but as a watcher of the movie, you had to certainly feel the pain, pressure, and stress that he was living through. At first I wasn’t so high on this movie, but by looking back on it and trying to fully grasp its meaning, I appreciate it much more that I had first thought.
I’m Not There is one of the best movies about a musician that I have ever seen and that’s saying something considering I love Walk the Line. The film is set up like a documentary, with the titles introducing interviewed characters; which is useful since there is so much cutting and interwoven stories throughout the movie that it’s difficult at times to keep track of who’s who. Bob Dylan is played throughout his life by a plethora of big name stars: Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchet, and Richard Gere to name a few. The different people playing one man, at different parts of his life, can get confusing to the audience, especially since they all go by different names. There’s also the confusing aspect of time jumping back and forth, with the different named people (all of whom are Bob Dylan). If the audience is able to recognize and keep in mind that Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchet (for example) are both Bob Dylan, then, the film is quite interesting as it depicts the multi-faceted personality of Bob Dylan, literally. I think this puts a very unique spin on the biography which made me love the film. I think everyone would desire to have themselves portrayed by multiple actors (if they were to have a movie of themselves), if they changed that much throughout their lives. There’s a carnival theme to the movie which reminded me of the film, Big Fish---how things can sometimes be distorted from what they truly are by our perception of them. The black and white scenes interfused with the color scenes are very interesting. It seemed to me, that perhaps the black and white scenes were done differently to emphasize real occurrences; whereas the color scenes were not necessarily exactly what happened, but what was thought to have happened and they were added to make the story flow and give a better background to the real occurrences.
I’m Not There, in my opinion, was a beautifully intertwined film that narratives the life of Bob Dylan using six different characters. The noticeable three that I picked up on right away was Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett. At times, I will admit that I wasn’t sure what was fully going on but I think you have to be a true Dylan fan to really enjoy this one. However, this isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I grew to like the film and all of its unique features that you don’t see in many movies today. The editing and transitioning from the past and the present/black and white scenes were done extremely well along with the infused music during these scenes. The music which was mostly centered on and performed by Bob Dylan seemed to override a lot of the dialogue at parts, kind of overpowering it in a way. This kind of made me think that the music was more important at times in his life and became the deepened root of his changes as a person. As far as acting goes, I felt that Cate Blanchett did a great job at playing Bob Dylan in the 60’s. She definitely carried the appeal and the “it” that Dylan surely had. The biographical part really takes you into the background of his life allowing us to get a better feel for what he was going through during two decades. The film really investigates this sort of “freedom” that you can live in to a certain extent without being judged for it. Each of the six characters also really gave us insight on the aspects that went on during Dylan’s life and lets us see how much Dylan has changed as a person while using his music to represent that.
Being a huge Dylan fan, of course, I was excited to watch this move. But I won’t lie, the film was a little confusing. I had to stop, and google the movie to understand more clearly what was going on. I was expecting a documentary about Dylan’s life, but instead I started to see a lot of very different characters situated in different time periods and situation that resembled or make me remember the same man: Bob Dylan. One of the many great things this iconic performer has, and in my opinion, why he is so cool, is that until now, you don’t know what to expect from him. He changed so many times his style that keeping up with him was always a surprise. And this is the facet that the film is trying to portrait: Six characters representing one man. During my google search, I find something that I thought was really interesting that the director said: “The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down.” Cate Blanchett for me, was the best performer in the movie. I had to rewind a couple of times the scenes where she appears because I couldn’t believe she was woman. The way she moved and the way spoke was almost an identical representation of Dylan’s attitude. The other part I liked a lot was the Poet scenes. As a Dylan fan I have seen plenty of interviews of him, and it is incredible how confusing he can be. He is never still or direct whatsoever. You’ll never hear one answer that comes right out his mouth that won’t let you more confused and intrigued. This movie is brilliant.
I really enjoyed this film. It was definitely one of the most unique films I have ever seen. The way Todd Haynes was able to portray Bob Dylan’s life through six different actors playing seven different roles was utterly brilliant. Given its awesome execution, I think I learned more about Bob Dylan’s life through this format than I would have from a traditional biopic.
A person’s life has many facets that can very well be considered different people comprising a whole person. Similarly, the film is really six separate short films. Overall, Dylan was an African American civil rights figure, a disillusioned artist, a troubled lover, a staunch nonconformist, a wayward adventurer, a philosopher, and a man of Christ. Some aspects of these personas are worth noting. That Dylan was at one point black symbolizes his devotion towards African Americans; that he was once a woman symbolizes his radical transformation from rebelling against the system to rebelling against himself. Also, the fact that only Jack and Pastor John are played by the same actor expresses the fulfillment of purpose in lieu of misdirection.
Although the roles were perfect in defining his life, they would not have been believable if it wasn’t for the fantastic cast. Cate Blanchett was phenomenal; it was easy forget she was a woman. Christian Bale conveyed mortification vis-à-vis vicarious redemption in his portrayal of Jack and Pastor John. Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg made a great duo. Richard Gere and Marcus Franklin were inspiring, and Ben Whishaw commanded respect.
Despite its triumphs, I felt that the film limited itself by over glorifying the 1960s. I understand that Bob Dylan was a significant figure at the time, but the depiction of the era was geared to those capable – and willing – to reminisce about it. I can’t, nor would I ever want to. The gaudy idolization of the era hindered the film from transcending past it. However, I still applaud the film for its awesome narrative and avante garde style.
I did not enjoy “I’m Not There” in the slightest. Not only have I barely heard of Bob Dylan, but I do not know enough about his life and personality to make this 2 hour+ movie remotely entertaining. I will admit that several of the actors did a fantastic job, probably the best being Cate Blanchett’s role. While each of their individual stories is intriguing, putting them together to represent the different facets of Bob Dylan results in mishmash of confusing plots that merge into one rambling mess. By the time I had figured out that each character was a different version of Bob Dylan, and what was going on with each character, I had already lost interest in the film. Maybe if it had been shorter, or featured fewer stories for the audience to keep track of, the movie would have been entertaining. But the end result is a bizarre combination of confusing characters that does little to pay tribute to Bob Dylan’s cultural icon. And again, it was just way too long to hold my attention. I felt that by the end of the film, the viewer had barely gotten ahold of any one character’s story to truly appreciate it. The use of Bob Dylan’s music obviously helped set the time period of the film. The varying cultural references and different styles of filming, such as the Vietnam War and color for Heath Ledger’s parts, but the Beatles and black and white for Cate Blanchett’s, helped to give life and originality to each part. But in the end, it all combined for one catastrophic and boring mess of a story, if there ever was one to begin with.
I am not there: I am not a big fan of folk music. This was like Bob Dylan’s biography film. The filmmaker divided his life into several parts with different backgrounds, different races and different genders. Especially there were six characters that have different traits to act and tell us the life of Bob Dylan. Although he had not been appeared in the film, that’s why the title of this film was “I am not there”. The combination of fake and truth still gave us some vivid experience of Dylan’s life and even a lecture of American music culture. This film’s style and its way of story telling were very new for me. There were a lot of stuffs happened at the same time, they constructed and linked together to make a general idea. It was very interesting that the film didn’t use Dylan’s original songs and it also had Cate Blanchett to act Dylan. However, I think that’s inconsistent with Dylan’s real impression. Along the whole movie, the folk music kept playing. I like the music, but sometime when the background of scenes changed, I felt confused about what was going on. However, the film was very successful about its characters’ acting, arrangement of the stories and the switching of scenes. If you don’t know anything about Bob Dylan, you will feel as confused and misunderstanding as I do.
My expectations were high. So many stars were pressed in one movie. Sure, I have to like it! However, I didn’t. I was in the mood to leave the room. This movie was too weird and long for me that it almost bored to death. I only have one explanation for it: I don’t know anything about Bob Dylan.
For this movie, it’s essential to know a bit of the musician’s life. Without any knowledge, one doesn’t understand anything. This is sad as the performers did a marvellous job to interpret their different roles. Yes, at the end of the movie I came to the conclusion that everyone is Bob Dylan in a weird way. Only with some research, I understood that every actor resembles one facet of Bob Dylan. This is a smart way to describe his life; but, it was totally messed up. The variation of styles, for example, from colored to black and white scenes, didn’t help at all to clear the mess. I was lost from the beginning, and none of the actors could get me out of there. Moreover, the two hours were way too long to portray the life of Bob Dylan in a convenient way.
I felt happy and relieved when the movie finished. Really, one should never feel this way at any time. And no Hollywood star could prevent me from disliking this film. Not even Heath Ledger, one of my favorite actors. This is kind of sad.
As it were, is the most delicate work of Todd Haynes. According to visual judgment, this work uses three different films for filming. In this work, there are many superstars and super-luxurious background music. The structure of the work is unprecedentedly complete (even though the narrative is scattered and fragment). In the work, there are also my outdoor scenes. In some sense, this film applies too many symbolic means, expressionism and extreme exaggeration. Six different Dylan shows six characteristics of Dylan and symbolizes the conflict heart of Dylan. Interpenetration narrative of 6 different Dylan, in fact, reveals conflict heart and spirit of Dylan in real life along the same time axis. This film seems scattered superficially. However, in fact, this film is a biographic film recording the life of Dylan in order. At first, the film records influences of south Negroes of the United States. At last, the film records the regression of traditional music. Both the influence and the regression are experienced by Dylan. Dylan also experiences traditional folk songs, blues, protest songs, rock mixed up with narcotics, folk songs of self-presentation and music with strong Christianity meaning. Therefore, in my opinion, this film is very clear and understandable. However, objectively, among the xix Dylan, the most outstanding one is Christian Bale. Although the six performers are all good, Christian Bale stands out from them. The accent, tune and action of Christian Bale are very similar to Dylan. The key is that only Christian Bale performs simple imitation. Christian Bale brings different thing to Dylan, which is so amazing. However, Cate Blanchett, because of her unique character as a woman, outshines other Dylan. The second outstanding performer in my heart is the Negro child who acts “Woody Guthrie”. If you consider this film as the biographic film of Bob Dylan or documentary film, you are wrong. In deed, this film quotes a large amount of historical facts; however, the aim of this film is never to tell the life of Bob Dylan. In contrary, the implication is the significance of this film. This film, in fact, is not a biographic film but citing stories of Dylan. Todd Haynes tells the complex of the generation in that era. The ideal Dylan of Todd Haynes is, like Rimbaud, gone when he is still young. The title of “I’m not There” has another meaning per se, namely, The poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, that Bob Dylan is gone.
I'm Not There is a really interesting film. It's very different from any other movie I've ever seen, especially musical biographies, which all seem to follow a similar formula. Though I don't think every aspect worked entirely, overall I think the movie was successful in capturing the spirit of Bob Dylan. As someone who has acted before, I loved getting to see six different actors take on variations of the same role within the same film. As someone who knows very little about Dylan, I feel like after this movie I have a better idea of at least the persona Dylan had, and also why so many people were attracted to and influenced by his music. Cate Blanchett, who is one of my favorite female actors, gave my favorite performance in the movie. She was completely committed, and as an unusual choice to play Dylan (as a woman), she came through with an excellent performance.
I really did not care for I'm Not There. I found it to be extremely boring, and lackluster especially considering the actors in the film. This film had the potential to be extremely interesting, I think, but it just missed on a lot of things to me. First, I feel that the skipping around from person to person making the connection that they are supposed to be the same role was not only annoying at times but also took away from the excitement and connection that the audience feels to the film. As soon as I would feel myself beginning to be intrigued and connected to one character it would switch to another one that I was not intrigued by and bored with. I like the idea of utilizing numerous story lines and character to depict one overall theme and idea, but I just did not like the way it was carried out. The most intriguing story live for me was Heath Ledger's character's story line. This is probably because Heath Ledger was one of my favorite actors of all time, and I am probably biased towards his role. But, I feel that he captivated the audience in a way none of the other characters were able to, and that he was able to command attention and create interest in his story line in the chopped up lay out of the overall film.
Todd Hayne’s “I’m Not There” was a film that struck me as touching and captivating at points, but also rude and devoid of purpose at others. Because I am not familiar with Bob Dylan’s life, or his music I was extremely confused as different people were being used to depict different portions of Dylan’s life. I think that the disjointed nature of the movie added to this confusion. There were sequences with Christian Bale playing the political activist Dylan, but would quickly jump to scenes with the Cate Blanchet version of Dylan. More so than some of the other lives of Dylan, these two lives were so polarizing that it was hard for me as the viewer to believe that one person could change so much. While I was confused as a viewer at points I did enjoy certain points of the film. I felt that Christian Bale’s portrayal of the political activist was done very well. Bale’s performance combined with the highly stylized nature of the film made the messages Dylan was trying to purvey all the more meaningful. I cannot say that I enjoyed the message that Cate Blanchet’s version of Dylan portrayed, but I have to admit that when I found out that it wasn’t a man playing that part of Dylan’s life I was impressed. Her character was so raw, devoid of meaning and purpose, and highly rebellious. The juxtaposition of the political activist Dylan and Blanchet’s Dylan I felt was done extremely well and the two performances by the two actors were outstanding.
I was not a fan of I'm Not There. I was so lost during this whole movie. I know if I was a fan of Bob Dylan or even knowing a little bit about his life would have helped me understand. I truly know nothing about Dylan's life which made me confused on how all the different characters could relate to Dylan. The different characters through me off and it did not help that the plot would keep changing as they showed different characters. As soon as I was following the African-American child's life, all of a sudden, I would be watching another actor such as Christian Bale depict Dylan. I could not keep up with what was going on in every character's life. Even though I did not understand the movie, I could appreciate the acting. I felt like Cate Blanchett did a wonderful job playing a male role. Maybe I can learn more about Bob Dylan and watch the movie again in the future in order to appreciate this film.
This was a film I did not really understand completely. I guess I was confused with all the stories going on, from the one Christian Bale is involved in to the one the little black kid takes part of. The movie is inspired by Bob Dylan. I would say it was a bit overwhelming for me primarily because I had trouble focusing on every story, I kind of felt there was too much going on and therefore did not really enjoy the movie. However, I did like how it constantly involved music, it made it a little more interesting. Although I would say this, at the beginning I began actually enjoying it, and the main reason was because of Woody, he was something else. He was incredible open to everyone, made everyone have a good time and put a smile on their faces. He was not afraid of anything; he was a boy with a lot of initiative. And with his guitar, he entertained everyone, from us the viewers I believe, to the people he was with in different scenes. Then the film turned to something totally different, to the other stories, and it made me forget a little about Woody. My attention was never really dragged as much as when Woody showed up. Jack Rollins however did entertain me a bit because of his attitude, he was different, he was scare less, and confronting. Overall, he was a problematic kind of guy. Honestly I do not know much about Bob Dylan, and this film did not really help much in knowing him better. I say this because the film is supposed to be like a biography on Bob Dylan, interpreted by different strands and characters that are not directly related to him. It’s as if they represent different stages of his life it was not very clear to me.
I'm Not There is a biographical music film about Bob Dylan's life. The only other film in this genre i can really remember seeing is Dream Girls, and the two are almost incomparable. Though Dream Girls was a blockbuster and award show hit, I much prefer I'm Not There. Though I found the movie's format to be confusing at times, from the constant switching of actors and eras, the uniqueness of the film makes it memorable, special, and cool. I'm fascinated by the more daring move of casting Cate Blanchette as one of the Bob Dylan's. To have a women playing such a prominent and iconic man in the music world as Bob Dylan is huge. However, I think Todd Haynes should be proud of how he made this risky move a success, as I think she did a great job. I think that because I'm not a die-hard or well informed, fan of Bob Dylan, that I could have the same appreciation for the movie as a viewer that is, I did really enjoy the interesting way his story was told and want to see it again after learning more about his life that will help me follow along.
I actually rented this film thinking it would be great with the actors playing Bob Dylan and the subject matter it self. Though many may not agree with me, but I did not enjoy this film at all. As a matter of fact it is the first film that I have not been able to sit through in one sitting in a long while. I did enjoy the acting and Cate Blanchett as a male was completely believable. I thought the little black boy also did an excellent job and those were the only two Dylan's that actually seemed interesting enough to watch. It just didn't work for me and I found myself confused with the Christian Bale and Health Ledger characters being Dylan. And although I am a huge fan of Richard Gere, his Dylan was just a parody and seemed fake to me. I didn't like the piecing together the stories and would have rather seen a true biographic piece on such a legend. Maybe the thought was since Dylan himself is quirky and odd, that a film about him should be the same. But it just did not work for me at all.
I'm Not There is a film of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan featureing different actors playing the part of the Minnesota native at various stages of his remarkable career. Each section of the film not only has a different lead actor, but offers different looks that reflect various aspects of popular culture at the time. However, this film was kind of hard to sit through, due to the different stories incorporated. There a little bit too much going on, but the music was interesting. To me, it looked like more of a mixture of a musical and a documentary. I liked the concept of the film, making it different, but it was still hard to follow. The actors were great by the way. But before saying that I hate Haynes' work, I'll have to take a look at his other films.
Music is by far my favorite thing in the world, and although I am not the biggest Bob Dylan fan, I have an appreciation for his impact and what he brought to the music world. However, I did not appreciate this movie. After hearing that Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Kate Blanchett were in this movie I was excited to learn more about Bob Dylan, an artist who I did not have the opportunity to know about growing up. Unfortunately I left the room more confused than anything. It was very difficult to understand exactly what Todd Haynes was trying to get across other than the central idea that Dylan was a free spirit. The different characters of Bob Dylan, intertwined with different stories, personalities, and even different settings and time periods was too all over the place. It was hard to understand what the point of each character was, and their signifigance in relation to Bob Dylan, especially the characters of Kate, the black kid, and the western horse back riding man. The stagnant flow of the movie made it tough to sit through as viewer. I felt strained having to try and fit these pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle together to draw some sort of concrete conclusion. With all this being said, each actor did a great job and I have no qualms with any production value things in the movie, but overall and thematically it was very hard to understand. Hopefully if I watch it again it will make more sense.
While I really do enjoy Bob Dylan and am inspired by his political activism I found I’m Not There to be really strange and not enjoyable at all. I do respect Todd Haynes attempts to shows the different sides of Dylan’s life through the use of various actors, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw, I found the overall strangeness of the film overwhelming. Furthermore, while I do realize that Dylan had a multifaceted career, I find his portrayal by a woman, Cate Blanchett, or by a young child, Marcus Franklin, extremely bizarre. It is disappointing that this movie was not effective because I really enjoy Christian Bale and Heath Ledger as actors in different movies. Their portrayal of the Batman and the Joker in the Dark Knight is nothing short of magic. They were so incredible in that film and simply mediocre in I’m Not There. It is hard to tell whether their acting was just incomplete or whether the screen play forced them to be that way, but it was not effective regardless.
This movie tells the life of one of the greatest singers in all time called Bob Dylan. It depicts different actors playing the same role of Bob Dylan in different stages of his life and of his career. Each section of the movie that involves the different actors all interpreting Dylan, show different views that reflect the several aspects of the culture at the time. For example, we can see Richard Gere in a more conservative American way of life riding on his horse on what seems a small cowboy town and shows the period after Dylan’s motorcycle accident; we can also see Christian Bale interpreting the role of a more gothic Bob Dylan. Honestly, I did not like this movie. I found this a movie that you cannot enjoy and I felt stressed during the whole movie trying to figure out its complexity. Even more I got confused by the fact that the director is constantly jumping from the past to the future to some where in the middle, breaking the whole movie into fractured moments of Dylan’s life. Sure, I believe that all of the actors are amazing and they did a good job, but I also feel that the director did a good job by trying to show how complex it is the life of a great artist such as is Bob Dylan and how hard it is to demonstrate all of the complexity in just two hours. Nevertheless, I do agree that this movie provides a lot of insight on the performer and audience relationship. We can see how the audience is always expecting something out of the performer who is trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes the performer that goes on the stage is so different than the same performer in their personal lives. We can also see how the culture in different periods of time affects and is linked to the audience reaction. We can see this happening when Dylan being a folk music singer, tries to experiment with new ways and decides to experiment with an electric guitar on the stage. This causes the audience to go crazy, even some people leave and other were shouting him to stop. Nowadays we can observe that electric guitar or rock or other types of music are widely accepted by the audience.
The movie “I’m not There” is kind of film biography about Bob Dylan, legendary country singer. Before watching movie, I got less interesting from this movie since I have never heard his name before. As an international student from Asia, it was hard for me to listen to old American country songs. Even if it is about Bob Dylan, there is no actual Bob Dylan in this movie. Seven different egos of Bob Dylan as different six people appeared in movie separately: public singer, pastor, African-American, poet, recluse, actor and pop-star. Among six different egos of Bob Dylan, there is Cate Blanchett who is female actor. It was interesting that female actor express about male singer. Those seven different egos sometime meet and influence each other. At first time, it was really hard for me to catch up the story which was a little bit chaotic. In story, there no clear conclusion and connection. Everything was vague. Even if I try to figure it out what main point of this movie is, it was difficult to answer clearly what it is. After movie, I kept thinking to get answer from this question. I think Bob Dylan is the person who just lived his life spontaneously. He just did what he wants. He didn’t have any specific purpose for his acting; he just sang for enjoying his life. But people always want to put meaning on his achievement. Such thing made misinterpretation of Bob Dylan. Maybe, in this movie, director wants to say “Don’t think too much. Just accept only what Bob Dylan did. Don’t try to interpret too much .”
I was pleasantly surprised with the biographical film “I’m Not There,” mainly because of the manner in which it went about describing Bob Dylan’s life. I was fascinated in the method that the director used in telling the story of Bob Dylan, as it went away from the traditional narrative style that most biographical films use. The film used the stories of Dylan from the characters around him to describe him and show him to the audience. I think that this technique worked very well because it made the audience feel as if they were having a direct conversation with those characters telling the story. The audience was fully engaged in the movie, as they know that those characters around Dylan would give an objective view on Dylan and they would be able to tell them stories and things about them that the average person couldn’t look up on the internet. This gave the assumption the viewers that these stories told in the movie were vital in understanding who Bob Dylan really was. Lastly, even though Dylan’s involvement in many of these stories wasn’t direct or huge in the stories, his involvement showed certain characteristics of himself that was important for the audience to note.
For the most part I wasn’t really engaged in this film which I personally found to be disappointing because I am actually a very big Bob Dylan fan. If there was anything that I actually enjoyed about the film it was the music. Musicians do have a very interesting life story, and I know Bob Dylan has a fascinating one, but in general I am never compelled to watch biopics. This being a biopic of a different nature made it even less compelling for me where I can see for others it could be more so compelling. It was too confused and too questionable in my opinion. The idea of bringing in well named stars to play different facets of one man is an intriguing idea, but it fell flat to me. It was a disarray of plots that may or may not had any connection to other characters playing a face of Dylan. I didn’t really feel a sense of purpose in the film that I usually get from the ones I like. I didn’t feel a driving force behind it. It was really just a jumble of vignettes depicting different segments of Bob Dylan’s life. Cate Blanchett received praise for her portrayal of Dylan. I didn’t really see that. To me it felt awkward and maybe somewhat gimmicky. Overall, I didn’t seem to connect with any of the stylistic choices. Whether it Blanchett’s performance, the young boy’s portrayal, or Richard Gere’s Billy the Kid or whatever he was supposed to be, it didn’t click for me. Maybe if I came in with a cursory knowledge of Dylan’s life, I could appreciate certain segments, but then I see people who enjoyed the film without knowing anything about Dylan or do not really caring for his music.
Having little to no knowledge about Bob Dylan, or his life, the premise of the film interested me. While it was interesting that the story was told through perspectives of six different characters, it was often confusing in parts. This was mainly because the stories often overlapped rather than being six separate specific parts of his life. I also found the choice of characters to play each aspect of his life unexpected. For instance, one of the characters was a woman and another was a young, African American boy. This didn't make much sense to me and only served to further complicate the overall movie.
However, when I look at each individual story separately, they are all interesting and unique. In fact, they could have easily stood on their own, instead of being interrelated. I also liked the use of music throughout the movie, especially since music was the most important part of his life.
While the movie didn't really change my opinion of Bob Dylan, I was able to better understand who he is as an individual. I could emphasize with his struggles and the pressures that he faced and how all of his life experiences helped to shape who he has become. That being said, I feel that I would probably better enjoy this film watching it again. Especially since I now understand the premise of the movie and the way the story is told.
I watched it again by my self, First of all I love Bob Dylan, and the movie makes me love Cate Blanchett. How did Todd Haynes change Cate really shocked me. Cate is such a miracle, he was like a piece of plasticine which can be changed into any shape you want. I think in all Dylans, Christian Bale is the best one.They are all good though, the accent,even the moves he imitates so good.But the greatest this he create his own things and put it into his own Dylan.But he makes it better and convincing.But Cate Blanchett is the most eye-catching one because she is a woman. I think "I'm not there" is the most delicate one in all Todd Haynes's movies, the structure is super complete and much more logical than all the films past,(maybe I'm too easy-thinking).But It's obvious that he has been more release minded to make this movie than before.And I felt he was trying to finish the effect he used to tried but limited by financial problems.That why we saw some similar techniques has been used in this movie also has appeared the films such like"Velvet Goldmine", "Dottie Get Spanked"----using the television media perspective to express the event.
I was really looking forward to seeing this film because I heard several people rave about how good it was and how spectacular Cate Blanchet is. Of course I was a little skeptical about a biopic about a musician that I never really enjoyed, and him being played by six different actors, one being a woman. Nevertheless, like almost everyone else who saw this movie, I loved it. Blanchet obviously immersed herself very well in the role and within minutes of seeing her on screen, you forget that she is woman and start seeing her as an interesting personality of Bob Dylan. Another actor that really caught my attention was Christian Bale. He has always been one of my favorite actors because of his work in 3:10 to Yuma and the Prestige. I’m Not There is no exception, he is spot on his is role. When I think musical biography, I think Walk the Line, which is pretty close to a perfect movie. I’m Not There is not Walk the Line and that is a good thing. It has its own unique style that captivates the viewer. After seeing this movie, I got the impression that there are so many different sides to Bob Dylan that there is no way that he could be portrayed by one person. However, I felt like the movie was getting a little lengthy and strange towards the end because there are six different Dylans. The movie becomes much more enjoyable if you think of it six different short films that each try to define a multidimensional figure of an era.
Marc Pollack C10553848 When I saw the movie “I’m not there” on the syllabus as a movie that we would be watching in our Survey of Motion Pictures Class, being that it is about Bob Dylan, I couldn’t have been more excited than I was. Bob Dylan is by far, one of my favorite musicians and in my opinion; he might be one of the most talented to ever play music. This movie literally embodies Bob Dylan’s life and is broken down into six people who Bob Dylan was not only as a celebrity, but as a person as well. This concept that director, Todd Haynes, instilled in this movie, is a complete work of art. Before seeing this film, I wouldn’t think that something like this would be able to work, but I am happy to say that I couldn’t be anymore wrong. To me, Heath Ledger played the best role of his career; yes I do believe that this beats out his role in the critically acclaimed Batman movie. A second actor that I believe had the role of his life was Christian Bale. Overall, this movie opened my eyes to who Bob Dylan was and above that, how he felt as a person.
I am not familiar with Bob Dylan, his life, nor his music. As a result, I think that a lot of this movie was lost to me. It is a movie that I can see being very interesting and something that I would like, but if it was about someone who's life I knew better. Often there were moments that either I did not understand, or understand why they were part of the movie, but when I spoke to a friend later one about it (who is a big Bob Dylan fan), they were able to explain the significance of that scene to me. Knowing the significance made the scene much better, even without being a big Dylan fan.
Having multiple people play one person (all with different names) was at times, confusing. I understand the metaphorical part that each person has a different personality and that each was a representation of Bob Dylan, but it made for a confusing storyline to follow. This was especially true when these stories would intertwine. While this unified the story in a sense, it made it confusing because each of these stories were all supposed to be about one man essentially. Yet when they interacted, it would be more like the actors were all playing separate people who could interact with each other.
Perhaps this is a movie that I need to see again after learning more about Bob Dylan. Since I have no desire to do that, I do not forsee me rewatching this movie anytime soon.
I'm Not There was one of the movies that I did not enjoy as much. I have never heard of Bob Dylan prior to taking this class. It was hard watching a biographical film about someone's life that I was not familiar with. On top of not knowing who Bob Dylan was, the movie was a little hard for me to follow. There were five or six different characters that were all different and telling a story about a different section of his life. I was confused because it would jump from one character to another in no particular order. I was so confused that I lost interest in trying to figure out what was going on in the movie. I would have preferred it to have one main actor portray Bob Dylan and it go in order. I would have enjoyed it more if the movie started from his childhood and progressed on from there. Then, maybe I would have been able to get into the movie. The only thing that I liked about the movie was the music. I did not like all of it, but there were a few songs that I liked. I know some people loved the movie, but that was because they knew who Bob Dylan was. I know that his story was told in a creative way, and I wish that I could talk about that. Sadly, I can't because I wasn't able to follow the story.
The movie I’m not there is about Bob Dylan’s life. It is stated that Bob Dylan had many lives, so there are different actors that describe a particular part of his life. I think the way the movie is carried out is very insightful and attention grabbing, since each actor talks about a particular time in Bob Dylan’s life, such as the motorcycle accident. Each actor interprets Bob Dylan in a particular way, which creates a more intrinsic type of film. This man was a poet, an activist, and an ideal, which could only be described this way. I was particularly interested in the scenery, the way the actors chose a particular part to explore it even further, and how his life was described. After seeing this type of movie, I believe more biography style of movies should be presented like this. At first it was a bit confusing and long, since each part of Bob Dylan’s life was cut, as if tit was fragmented. The movie at times could be too slow which made it difficult for me to continue grasping the most important ideas. Overall, even though some parts were slow, I think the director did an excellent part depicting his life.
The first time I watched I'm Not there, I was both intrigued and astounded. The implications of the film are that Dylan's life was spent in fragments, as if he truly had no idea who he truly was. He was confused and his thoughts were muddled by the film’s attempt to depict the compilation of Dylan’s thoughts. For the viewer who is easily confused, the message can be lost, the message that he was more than one person, he existed for everyone. In my opinion, upon watching the film, the true Dylan is Cate Blanchett’s Dylan, while the rest are trying to BE Bob Dylan, or variations of his character. They all want to rise to the top, and inspire many like he’s done for them, but he exists within them all, and yet they’re not copies of one another. There are 6 Bob Dylans, not one of them calls themselves Bob Dylan, but names of people who inspired him/he inspired. I’m Not There is almost otherworldly, incorporating the magic created by Dylan’s music, a magic that can only be felt and not shown, but it works within the film, when the magic is given perspective and character. I enjoyed the film, very surreal and gives the viewer the feeling that they too can be Bob Dylan.
This was a very interesting viewing experience. It was difficult for me to keep up with a lot of what was happening, but it didn't stop me from appreciating the cultural value of the film, being that i am an avid fan of Bob Dylan. I love the way that he is played by different characters, often being portrayed as characters entirely unlike his actual physical appearance. But that creates a beautiful metaphor for music and the equality of all people. It was very cool to see Christian Bale portraying bob Dylan, for I had the privilege of watching one of my favorite actors of all time portraying one of my favorite musicians of all time. the scene where he sings 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' for a group of African-American workers was very engaging, being that the song itself is in fact based on a news paper article Bob Dylan had read about a man, William Zanzinger, who killed an African-American woman for absolutely nothing at all and was out on bail the next day. The fact that they would have Bob Dylan portrayed by a young African-American boy or a woman was very daring. It was also very impressive that they could make Kate Blanchet look so much like Bob Dylan. I think one difficulty many people have in appreciating this movie, is following the events occurring being that there doesn't seem to be a solid plot to unite the film as a cohesive and continuous stream of events and the non-linear order of the events portrayed could be quite confusing. Had this movie been in chronological order, however, I think it would not have had such a potent effect in demonstrating the complexity of the culture that it is trying to reflect. Also, if the movie were in chronological order, or had been completely filmed with one single actor portraying Bob Dylan, then the movie would have seemed superficial to me, and would have depicted Bob Dylan in a very conceited and skewed light. But I feel that the meaning of the movie is not lost on me. It demonstrates very accurately the culture of the time and its struggles and I think the directing, acting, editing, and sound were all very well done. It also includes very interesting commentary from Dylan's audience and demonstrates the intricate nature of being a performer.
This was a very interesting movie in my opinion. During the film I was very confused as to what was going on, and it was only after I watched the film and read about it on the internet that I was able to piece it all together. It was different phases in Bob Dylan's life portrayed by different people, representing the fact that even he didnt know who he was at times during his life. While each section of his life was interesting in itself, it was frustrating when I would really get into a scene only to have it change to another time in his life, especially when I didnt know what was going on. The filming was great, and it changed depending on the time period which added a more authentic feel to the film. The music in the movie was amazing, and in my opinion it was the best part of the film. Overall I enjoyed the film, but I enjoyed it in pieces more than I did as a whole.
I’m Not There is a movie that presents the life of Bob Dylan. After seeing this movie, I remembered my psychology classes and thought about the concept of psychoanalytics. There are six different people that portray Bob Dylan, so it would have been interesting for each character to have psychoanalysis and with this, would be able to further analyze themselves. In psychoanalysis, there may be a part of us that is shy at times, while the other part of our personality is determined. This non-traditional narrative is extremely entertaining, as if the screen was being refreshed. I particularly liked how Cate Blanchet acted, because she showed a very interesting part of Bob Dylan’s life. I believe more movies should be made with this perspective; it can make it more attractive and interesting. I would have truly liked to meet Allan Ginsberg and had a conversation with him. Furthermore, I think it had an excellent ending by having the actual Bob Dylan playing Nr. Tambourine Man with his harmonica. This is a movie I would highly recommend this movie to numerous people, especially for his movie fans. It provides a witty and innovative way to portray his life on film.
Even after watching the trailer I still wasn’t quite sure what this movie entailed. After watching the entire film, I finally put all the pieces together and really loved this movie. This movie was similar to other movies such as Ray and Walk the Line. I really love the unique structure in which you have different parts making up the entire story. It is interesting how the film appeared to be a documentary, narrative, and a mockumentary all at the same time. It was also cool how some of the film was in black and white. It gave it a cool and unique look. Each actor plays different roles as Bob Dylan. I feel that I really got a sense of Bob Dylan’s life and his views of life.
Even though I like all six characters that embody Bob Dylan’s life, my favorite versions of Bob Dylan were Marcus Carl Franklin, who played Woody, and Heath Ledger, who played Robbie. I’ve always liked Bob Dylan’s music, however I never really got all of his songs meanings. After watching this movie I feel like I now better understand where his music is coming from. Bob Dylan never really sang for anyone else and was always a free spirit. I feel if I were to watch this movie again, I would get something completely new out of it. I would definitely recommend everyone see this film at least once.
I’m Not There was bit confusing, but re-watching the first part of the movie, I was able to understand that all of those characters and the things they did represented the all the different sides of Bob Dylan. I think I probably would have enjoyed the movie if I was a fan of Bob Dylan, but not knowing anything about him made it difficult to understand. I could understand what each of the characters were going though, but I didn’t know how that related to Bob Dylan which would be essential to understand the underlying meaning of the movie. For example, I understand the woman’s criticism that Woody should sing about problems of his time rather than about things irrelevant to his own generation. This is why in the beginning of the film when they flashed the different characters on the white screen, he was labeled as a fake. But I don’t know how this relates to Bob Dylan. I thought it was interesting that Cate Blanchett was cast as a man in the movie. She did an amazing job, but I’m not sure if that the fact that she is really a woman had some additional significance to the movie. Also, I think previous knowledge of the issues related to the war that Bob Dylan sang about would have made watching this movie more enjoyable for me.
objectively speaking, several Dylan is the best of the Christian Bale, although six actors are great, but he still stand out. Whether accent or accent, even the movements are like, the key only he is simply not to imitate, he brought to Dylan something, but is so convincing. But Cate Blanchett as a woman was upstaged the particularity of the, I think the second good is in "Woody Guthrie" black children. Supporting role are all very good, almost robbed the main character of the play. Michelle Williams plays the Coco Levington is a big surprise. This role is almost Edie Sedgewick incarnate, Michelle show one thousand times stronger than the Sienna Miller, too the United States, too alike in spirit, compared with his husband Heath Ledger although part of many, but only know could show off, let me old think of brokeback mountain, a little than but he only two scene's wife. Charlotte Gainsbourg also is very good, she with co-star with Heath, her role of Dylan is innuendo Claire's ex-wife Sara Lowndes. The results I only remember her, not remember Heath performance have what window. Julianne Moore role very, very Joan Baez, this, put a little YingTing drew within in fits of laughter...... Because it's too like...... And they had and so don't like...
If you like Bob Dylan, you have to watch it! Even if you do not like Dylan, you will be in love with him after watching it! Another one that you will fall in love with is Cate Blanchett. The transformation that Todd Haynes did to Cate was unbelievable. Why is that? It is hard to believe that there was someone who can be shaped into generally anything in this world. In this world, we have to be really careful to maintain our own existence of our souls. For most of us, it might be inevitable to lose our souls. We often forget about the joy of materialism, the initial direction of our soul and dreams. And Dylan is different, I remember something from his autobiography: "like a Rolling Stone" to my surprise, a lively splash of soul, trying to break through the paper, to occupy, to wake me up until I feel the long forgotten soul of was just around the corner. It is an attempt to germinate the seed, to be suddenly aware of the feeling of existence. The book, it worth it to read it repeated over time. I can recall that Dylan was complementing his wife, because she always has its own ideas that made her so different from other people.
This is a legendary figure, which is one of the most suitable interpretation of the figures in this way, because he seemingly fragmented life and a strange turning point, maze movieto the performance of a mystery, like the characters, at least formally,formed a fit. This man is the BOB DYLAN song from Forrest Gump BLOWING the IN THE WIND, began toknow of his existence, at home, he's an unplugged electric concert CD seems to never be found. Never seen anything like this biopic, no, indeed, this is not a biography, more BOB'sconjecture about him at every stage of the state, the director has used six different names, probably deliberately Avoid cross-examination about the realism. State is reallyvery different ah, or hippie or implied, or jumping or warm interpretation of a variety of state actors is to describe the problem to convert to Christ stage BALE Impact upon -from the star, it has a kind temperament of the Gospel; KATE of firmness and flexibility is consistent with the contradictions of the characters; Richard Kiel, slightly shape much likea hermit master of some western ... Away train ~ film there are many similar roads lead to Rome, close to the end, adecentralized BOB began to clear and complete, the final monologue of KATE andRichard Gere is very important is the understanding of the director. The ending reminded of the familiar LIKE A ROILING STONE, harmonica sound is still melodious, always put it simply, people are so rich, you can expand the unlimited power of the story and atmosphere.
As a fan of Bob Dylan, I was really looking forward to seeing I'm Not There. However after the film, I was left confused. I understand that every character was meant to portray a different side of Dylan, but I found this film extremely difficult to follow and interpret. Each performance was exceptional, my personal favorites have to be Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. This is honestly probably because their story lines were the only ones I could actually follow and understand. I really do appreciate the unique interpretation of Dylan's life. The idea of having multiple story lines to depict his complicated life is very unique and interesting, however I personally did not think it was executed clearly. Maybe I just need further explanation of what was going on in the film, but my personal expectations for the film were let down.
I enjoyed watching this film primarily because I’m such a big fan of Bob Dylan so I’m a little biased. I also never really had the time to research Bob Dylan’s live story either so I was very intrigued to see his journey to stardom. The use of the different time periods through his life allowed the audience to get a much better understanding of his life. However, it was someone difficult to stay completely focused on each story because the stories would be told at a fast pace. But not only did I like the film because of it’s main feature, it was amazing to see the various ages of Bob Dylan played by the different actors. It was a little confusing though to see six different actors playing the same role, and especially Cat Blanchet’s role as Bob Dylan. But I guess the point of it is that Dylan has many different personalities throughout his life. I actually thought the more important part of the movie was its focus on the actual music. The Dylan character within the movie always had his guitar with him, singing ballads and entertaining everyone throughout the various scenes.
I’m Not There was by far my least favorite movie we watched in class. I found the plot very hard to follow (maybe because I do not know Bob Dylan’s story). It was chaotic and confusing, which made the overall view experience uninteresting.
Perhaps the most confusing concept was that the same part was played by many different actors (including different genders) and all had different story lines. Maybe if all the characters were a part of the same plot (not just paralleling aspects of Dylan’s life), then it would have been easier to follow. Or another way it could have been less confusing is if Dylan was played by one character and jumped from story to story consecutively instead of back and forth between all of them. Another way the story could have been clearer would be if the editors made sections before each story and said or wrote how that part related to a certain time in Dylan’s life.
I do think that the casting director chose a great variety of talented actors and actresses. I liked that I was familiar with people like Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bail and Richard Gere. For me, this component was the only aspect of the film that made it bearable to watch.
Going into watching I'm Not There, I expected a movie simply about Bob Dylan and his biography, and this film basically followed my expectations. Unfortunately, I do not like the music that Bob Dylan has done and don't know much about his life so I was a little lost in some parts of the movie. Although, I did enjoy how his life was broken up into different sections throughout the movie and even portrayed by different actors. I found this method of showing a person transition throughout their life effective and even interesting. Some directors like to use one actor and stage make up, and this method was refreshingly new to me. Overall, it was generally a good movie but only because Bob Dylan was such an influential person on our modern day music and culture. So many of his songs have been redone and remixed that its hard not to know any of his music, so I would recommend this movie to someone that really does enjoy his music and knows more about his life. Alexandra Ball C07809270
“Im not there” is a movie directed by Todd Haynes, which narrates the life of Bob Dylan through six different characters. I did like this movie, however I think it requires of a lot of attention due to the fact most of the components are not explicit. Which means you don’t quite get that the 6 different characters are portraying the life of a same person, in this case Bob Dylan. I consider that the production techniques were very interesting and in a certain way, they were unique. The director tried make of this movie a documentary meshing it with a different way of telling the story and that is what triggers the audience the most.
The movie deals with a constant premise which I personally like and it is: “People are always talking about freedom, freedom of live a certain way, off course the more you live a certain way the less it feels like freedom”. It focuses on how Bob Dylan had to act and live and adapt his actions to a certain way which disables him to be free. I think that happens to most of the celebrities when they become so public they have to accommodate their well being and their actions to some preexisting and acceptable behavior.
I'm not that there is a bio pic that lost most of my interest from the very beginning. Sadly, this film was my least favorite film of the entire semester. It was difficult to follow along and to tell the truth I had no idea they were all the same person (Bob Dylan), until the class discussion! I believe what confused me was perhaps Cat Blanchet's character being intermingled with the characters.
I did however love the artistic vibe the film brought. Through music, black and white and color. A scene that I found to love was the scene where Michelle Williams and Cat Blanchet's character run into each other. The reason I like this scene looking back is they way both characters are polar opposite presentations of Bob Dylan, yet the same character. Although scenes like this also made confused, I would recommend this film to Bob Dylan lovers and those with a decent attention span.
I found this film incredibly fascinating. It is like an expose the fascinating and towering of the public figure simply as "Bob Dylan." Understandably, this a very smart film. From the timeless music to the incomparable acting to the immeasurable film quality, very few films that I have watched this year in class could compare. Honestly, I love the fact that Bod Dylan, the true hero of this cinematic masterpiece, is mentioned only once, at the intro sequence. Most astoundingly, the film plays out as a story of his legendary life, but shown through lens of different actors playing out different aspects of his life, as interpreted from the perspective of different people who encountered Bob Dylan in their lives. The film is certainly a fresh take on the biopic genre. Imagine how a biopic on JFK would be if it took on the style of this film. Overall, the film, filmed beautifully in black and white, has a way of connecting the interviews with the fake Bob Dylan with the segments on different times in his life. The editing and sound in the film are nearly flawless, helping move along the film's narrative and thematic content very seamlessly. The narrative structure and cinematographic approach are very fresh and will be remembered for a long time to come. Although the film seemed a bit pretentious, it still was enjoyable and has led me to see Bob Dylan in a new light. Moreover, the film plays to my knowledge of psychology, namely that who we are is how we perceive ourselves, others perceive us, and how certain things will always unknown. The film really plays with perceptions of character and how our knowledge of anyone really is limited and inherently biased. Objectivity in film may really just be a misnomer.
As a massive Bob Dylan fan I found this movie incredibly painful to watch. Some of my favorite films are Bob Dylan documentaries because I find him to be such an incredibly interesting unique person and he is regarded as one of, if not the most important artist of the 20th century. I am a huge fan of Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary “Don’t Look Back” which follows Dylan on his 1965 United Kingdom tour and Scorsese’s “No Direction Home”. Many of the scenes in I’m Not There are direct interpretations of actual footage from the two previous documentaries so from my personal perspective a lot of the scenes lacked authenticity. The structure of the movie, although unique, just didn’t work for me. I found myself lost several times and questioning the significance of large portions of the movie. I also felt like the movie was unnecessarily long and it dragged on for over two hours with no apparent direction. Overall I expected more from the film and it definitely did not live up to its expectations in my eyes. The big-name acting cast and subject matter should have yielded a much better film than what I’m Not There turned out to be.
I’m Not There is unlike anything movie that I've seen before, a very well done drama of the life of infamous singer Bob Dylan. In I'm Not There, six actors portray Dylan in completely different ways, representing different phases of his life and career. Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett, portray Dylan, though it's not a simple trade off as the film progresses. The stories work interchangeably and out of chronological order, and although they are all Dylan, they have different relationship and stay inside the realm of the time they are playing him. One thing that will really help you with I'm Not There is some knowledge of Bob Dylan's history. I don't know a thing about him and so I was fairly lost throughout the majority of the movie. The very fact that each representation of Bob Dylan had their own character name was confusing enough, let alone that it was unclear to determine which phase each actor represented. My only major complaint about the film is that it drags on. While trying to wrap up every sub story is good, Haynes could have ended the film 30 minutes earlier and it would have been just as good. I’m Not There is a film I normally would avoid but the way that Haynes did this movie made it a worthwhile film.
I did not particularly enjoy I’m Not There. While it’s interesting that the film didn’t follow a normal narrative structure, I felt that only hurt it when all was said and done. I didn’t know anything about Bob Dylan before the movie started, and after watching it, I feel as though I now know less about him than I did before. Dylan is portrayed by 6 different people throughout the film, 4 played by older men, 1 played by a woman, and another played by a young black man. While I thought this was a novel idea, I didn’t understand why the movie chose to do that. I didn’t feel that anything throughout the film gave the audience an understanding of why Dylan’s life was split into six representations. To be honest, if I wasn’t told at the start of the film that they were all suppose to be representing one man, I never would have guessed, because I thought that each character has very little to do with one another. I feel that wanting the audience to follow six separate stories is a bit too much. However; that’s not to say that some of the stories that were in here weren’t interesting. Richard Gere’s story was great to watch and was very well written. I also thought Cate Blanchett’s portrayal was well done, and I feel that story should have been the focus of the whole movie.
I'm Not There is a movie in its own unique genre. Blending music, documentary, drama and narrative, this movie is a very original piece. It was difficult to keep up with at times, and the multiple character story lines got confusing, but it was highly entertaining. One component of the movie that I thought made it very confusing was that some characters lived in the same timeline. Heath Ledger's incarnation of Bob Dylan portrayed Christian Bale's character in a movie. While some of the Bob Dylan incarnations lived in obviously different universes, others had very similar settings and led me to believe that they could possibly meet up or be involved in some way. Because the plot of the film is not in a linear progression, this makes it even more confusing when the film switches to a different universe. My least favorite incarnation of Bob Dylan was Arthur, the one being interviewed. I found this incarnation to be a bit out of place in the movie, and provided more of an overall narration than adding to the rest of the plot. While I enjoyed most of the other storylines, I thought the two best were the roles played by Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. Blanchett was a very unorthodox choice to portray a male incarnation of Bob Dylan, but embodied the role of a politically persecuted musician. Ledger's role was more fitting for him to play as he was an actor with a life that was falling apart. I thought this was a good film as a whole, but it could get confusing for those who are unfamiliar with the life of Bob Dylan. It is crucial to understand before watching the film that the movie follows the lives of different incarnations of Bob Dylan. It was a great watch, and completely steps outside of the lines of a music movie, making a quality movie in the process.
"I'm not There" is the most exquisite works of one of Todd Haynes. According to the naked eye, with at least three different film shooting, there is so much star and ultra-luxurious soundtrack, the structure of an unprecedented complete
Fruit to the film as bob dylan biopic, or even "documentary", then the first thing you have wrong. It does refer to a large number of historical facts, but the purpose never to tell you what life is, the implication is the meaning of the film bob dylan. It is not a biopic, Todd Haynes, telling the story by dylan is the generation of the complex. His ideal of dylan, like Rimbaud, as early as still a young man died.
Perhaps, I'm not There is the title itself, there is another layer of meaning - the na me, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, that Bob Dylan is gone.
Im not there is a 2007 film directed by Todd Haynes. It is a musical biography inspired on the famous singer Bob Dylan. I think the movie was ok even though I do think you must be into the character and know a little about him before watching the movie. Not everyone is interested in Bob Dylan and this makes the audience limited. I personally am aware of him and I do like some of his music but I don’t know much about him. After watching the movie you get a sense of what his life was about. The story is told through six different characters. Singers and artist in general have a very active life and it can be very interesting but somehow I thought the movie was confusing, I don’t know if it is because I’m not much of a Bod Dylan fan or if it was just the narrative. What I did find really motivating is his music, it means so much and I has a deep meaning that I felt engaged to.
This was one of the most unique films I've ever seen. I love listening to Bob Dylan and so when I realized that this movie depicted his life, I was very excited to watch it. I came out satisfied. It was strange because six different actors played Bob Dylan. The beginning of the movie was very interesting. The first of the six actors, Cate Blanchett who is a woman, comes on stage and performs. It quickly cuts to his tragic death. I did not expect the movie to start off in such a dramatic way. However, I did like this start because it made me think of how great Dylan was. This movie was kind of confusing at times because Dylan had all these different personas that I lost track at times but then it was clear that a new actor was playing Bob Dylan. You get different versions of Dylan with each character that plays him and I think that this is done perfectly. When Richard Gere takes over, Dylan is portrayed as a very conservative American on his horse in this small town. However, when Christian Bale plays Dylan, Dylan is portrayed as a more dark and ominous man. I thought the director did a good job in deciding to keep jumping from the past to the present and to random junctures in Dylan's life. This kept the movie fresh and I couldn't wait to find out more about his life. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys listening to Bob Dylan because I now know so much more about his life and who he was as a person. I now enjoy some of his music that I didn't particularly like because I understand his life better.
I’m Not There This film was unlike almost any I have ever seen. I cannot even really think of something to compare it to. I really like the unique aspect they take in making this a documentary and also having so many actors each play Dylan really well and make the seamless transitions. I think not only age difference and style differences, but the director wanted to show that he did change themes so much it was almost different people. This also made a little bit confusing movie even a little more confusing. I would definitely have shorten this movie and feel parts were unnessacary.
I have always been a huge fan of Bob Dylan and was very excited to watch a musical film about his life. Dylan has been releasing influential songs since the 1960’s. Since then the music industry and Dylan himself have experienced to many changes it was almost necessary to have six actors depict different parts of his life. I feel to really enjoy the film you had to have some knowledge of Bob Dylan’s life. The parts I enjoyed the most were Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchet scenes. I understood what part of Dylan’s life they were representing and this allowed me to analyze Todd Haynes approach towards Dylan’s career. Cate Blanchet had one of the hardest roles as she had to convince the viewers that she was Bob Dylan even though her she was a woman in the film.
After watching I’m Not There I was curious to see some more of Haynes work. I watched Velvet Goldmine, which is based on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character. I found this film tougher to follow but it showed me that Haynes doesn’t document people lives in any conventional way. He looks at David Bowie’s life through a British journalist, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale). Although Hayne’s original biographical techniques are interesting and effective there were times in I’m Not There when I became confused with the constant changing of characters. This was probably because I don’t know everything about Bob Dylan’s life. However I feel that Todd Haynes should make it easier to understand because he can’t expect everyone to have an in-depth knowledge of Dylan’s life. The film impressed me although it is certainly not a film I would recommend on a movie night. In my opinion to truly enjoy the uniqueness of the film a firm understanding of Dylan’s life is required.
I’m not there I’m not there is a very interesting and unique documentary film about music star Bob Dylan. I have never been a very large Bob Dylan fan but this movie brought me a new perspective on him as a person and artist. The documentary showed Dylan’s life and the many changes he went through. The maker of this film thought that Bob Dylan changed so much throughout his life that 6 different actors were used to portray him in the film. This is where the uniqueness comes in. I have never seen a movie where so many actors play one particular role. This came to me as a surprise and interested me a lot. Although I am not a Bob Dylan fan the actors they picked for each segment of his life seemed to fit very well and did a good job at portraying that certain segment. I wish I had known more about the history of Bob Dylan and his life experiences, as it would have made viewing this film a lot better. Nevertheless I still enjoyed watching the film and learning the life of such a unique person. Erik Rueckle-c10166645
I was intrigued by the idea/concept of this movie since the year it came out, mostly due to all the awards attention it seemed to be getting. Alas, it was one of those films that I said “That looks interesting,” but never actually got around to seeing. Lo and behold, I finally did, and it wasn’t bad. I will admit – my initial reaction to the film upon first learning about it was something along the lines of “huh?” Different actors playing Bob Dylan? Does it go in order, like is there a time-coherent sequence to it, or is it just like separate movies or just out of sequence order or what? However, I wanted to try and go into it with an open mind. After doing my best to shake those first-impression questions off before seeing the film, I was still predominantly curious overall about a film that had different actors playing the same people, with different styles present throughout the film, and what it would be like to see it all together and not just as clips at award shows. I found the film interesting, being a fan of many of the different actors to appear throughout it. I thought the performances were interesting to watch. The styles used were interesting as well - for example, I liked the use of black and white. I can see why it would get awards buzz. Overall, I found the film interesting on a stylistic perspective, as well as a watchable one.
I’m Not There was one of the more unique and interesting films I have ever seen, as it was done differently than any movie I can remember. The film is about the life of Bob Dylan, who while I enjoy his music, I am not a particularly a big fan of and therefore wasn’t too excited to see the movie. However, the way the film is done, with six different actors playing six different versions of Dylan (although none are direct portrayals of Dylan), including Cate Blanchette even playing one of the roles, which is obviously strange as it is a woman in a man’s role. I found all of the performances to be interesting to varying degrees, although they all intrigued me a bit, as some were very indirect portrayals of Dylan, like Gere’s Billy the Kid, and others, like Blanchette’s role, were much closer to reality. However, the challenging part of the movie for me was that many of the references to Dylan’s life were symbolic or indirect, it was hard to tell what was really a part of Dylan’s life and what was just part of that individual character’s story since I don’t have much background knowledge on Bob Dylan. Overall, while I don’t think it was perfect, it was an enjoyable way to make a biopic, especially for any audience unfamiliar with the title character.
I was a little nervous about seeing I'm Not There because I don't know all that much, if anything, about Bob Dylan. I still feel kind of indifferent about it as a whole, but that's mostly cause it felt hard to keep up with and it really lasted way too long. I felt an air of pretentiousness in watching it, like it's a film clearly made for serious Dylan fans. Maybe I just feel left out or something, but not following what might be a fantastic film is always a letdown. I absolutely adore Christian Bale and I'm sure I always will. I really looked forward to his and Heath Ledger's performances and I think they both did great jobs with their roles. Cate Blanchett also did really well, but I knew she would. I'm not much of a Todd Haynes fan either, so I guess all signs would point to not watching I'm Not There. I'm glad I had the exposure to it because it taught me more about Dylan's influence on music, which I've always wanted to explore. I probably wouldn't recommend this film to anyone... I'd tell them to watch Walk the Line instead.
I’m Not There was very interesting in terms of the idea behind the movie, which was to use six different characters to display different parts of Bob Dylan’s life. I figured this out after the movie. I thought the concept was very creative and it caught my attention. The movie follows the storylines of the different characters and cuts back and forth between them. This makes it a little hard to follow at times, especially since there were six different characters and story lines. However, the filming, editing, and acting were all great. I think it would have been helpful to have more background knowledge on Bob Dylan, because it was difficult to tie all of the different characters together and figure out what is going on. I liked how Bob Dylan’s music was played throughout the movie. It kept reminding me that it’s supposed to be his biography and I kept trying to make sense of it all.
The movie I’m Not There gives insight into Bob Dylan’s life. The structure of the film is very different. It doesn’t follow the usual narrative techniques. There are different actors playing the same role at different stages of Bob Dylan’s life. The stories of the different actors intercut throughout the film. For example, one of the actors portrays Bob Dylan after his motorcycle accident. Another actor portrays him as the young Bob Dylan. The film cuts between the different stories and sometimes it cuts to old footage. Sometimes it is in color and sometimes it is in black and white. I think the movie is better understood if the viewer has an idea of Bob Dylan’s life. That way the viewer is able to comprehend the different aspects of his life being portrayed. I was not very knowledgeable about Bob Dylan; therefore, I was confused during some parts of the film. I think this film targets Bob Dylan’s fans and people who admire him and his music. Nevertheless, the film as a whole was enjoyable. I found out things about him that I didn’t know before watching this film and became more understanding of his lifestyle. I also acquired more appreciation for his music.
If the movie I’m Not There was trying to show the many different sides and characters of Bob Dylan, it certainly succeeded in that. With its confusing yet original mixture of stories, six different incarnations of Bob Dylan paint a great picture of who the musician really was. Todd Haynes puts into this movie something not seen very often. Instead of one person having multiple personalities and interests, one person is divided into different characters each of them being that distinct personality or interest. What makes this movie stand out is the fact that there are six separate cast members that all play the same role, the same character, the main character. But how else do you represent someone who had so many different personalities and sides to who he was? Even though the movie was hard to follow at times, it was great in its own weird way. Also, hearing Bob Dylan’s best songs was a great plus. The choice in making the movie in a documentary style was also great because it gave a sense of more reality to such a surreal movie.
I’m Not There Matthew Head Using different actors to display the six different Dylans is genius. I would have never thought to do this. The first movie that I thought of was The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Even though these movies are very very different, this is the only movie I have seen to use different actors for the same character. I enjoyed this movie so much because Bob Dylan is such a legend, even though I wish I had known more about Dylan before the movie. The film could be confusing at parts however I think that considering the different actors and different cuts and jumps it was done very well. This is such a creative take on a documentary. Even though I liked this movie it could have been a little shorter. I think if twenty minutes or so were cut off it would have helped other people in the audience keep focus .
As a fan of Bob Dylan and his music, I had high expectations going into watching, I’m Not There. However, after leaving the screening, I was not fully impressed with what I saw. It was overall not that exciting or nearly as entertaining as I wanted it to be. There were many parts of the film that were quite slow and long and seemed like the director was just dragging scenes out sometimes. Movies are much clearer and concise when certain scenes are cut down, rather than elongated. Furthermore, I’m Not There does not do a good job with appealing to a mainstream audience. In order to understand the movie, it seemed as though the viewer needed to be a Bob Dylan expert. Much of the content was very specific. Although there were various negatives, my favorite part to the film was the soundtrack. There was absolutely excellent music, played by of course Bob Dylan, throughout the film. I’m Not There is a very segmented movie, which reflects one of the primary themes of how people are constantly changing at different points of their lives.
I’m Not There, a biographical film, focuses on the life of Bob Dylan. At first, I was completely confused as to what was occurring during the screening. I believe my confusion was due to the non-linear structure of the story. Although non-linear structures are usually effective in telling stories as if they were being recollected from the human mind, I believe this use of non-linear story telling lead to confusion. While telling six different stories, a non-linear progression makes sense; however, I believe it could been used in a more comprehensible fashion.
On the other hand, I did enjoy the fact that six different characters were used to tell Dylan’s story. In order to explain Dylan’s complex life, it must be broken up and personified by different characters and stories. Through each story, whether it may be Woody Guthrie or Jack Rollins, the audience takes away something that helps them to better understand the life of Bob Dylan. The audience is essentially being taken on a journey throughout different parts of Dylan’s life in which each story provides the audience with another piece to the puzzle. Together, when all the stories are combined, the six stories provide a great insight into the life of Bob Dylan.
Unconventional biopic of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, director Todd Haynes features different actors who play the part of the native Minnesota, at various times of his remarkable career. The actors who are playing as singer are Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Marcus Carl Franklin. Cate Blanchette portrays the man during his Don’t look Back era incarnation. Heath Ledger plays as an actor who is playing one of the fictional Dylans in a movie- within a movie. Christian Bale, is strongly associated with political causes plays as the Dylan beginning to chafe. Richard Gere portrays the period, which is post-motorcycle accident. Marcus Carl Franklin plays the role of a young Dylan who passed himself off as the second coming of Woody Guthrie. There is a different lead actor in every section of the film. Moreover, different looks that reflect the various aspects of popular culture are offered.
Unconventional biopic of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, director Todd Haynes features different actors who play the part of the native Minnesota, at various times of his remarkable career. The actors who are playing as singer are Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Marcus Carl Franklin. Cate Blanchette portrays the man during his Don’t look Back era incarnation. Heath Ledger plays as an actor who is playing one of the fictional Dylans in a movie- within a movie. Christian Bale, is strongly associated with political causes plays as the Dylan beginning to chafe. Richard Gere portrays the period, which is post-motorcycle accident. Marcus Carl Franklin plays the role of a young Dylan who passed himself off as the second coming of Woody Guthrie. There is a different lead actor in every section of the film. Moreover, different looks that reflect the various aspects of popular culture are offered.
I was rather perplexed by the film I'm Not There. I'm not very aware of Bob Dylan and his life, so I sort of missed that part of the story, which was apparently fairly central to the film, and instead saw only the separate storylines weaving within one another. All of the stories were rather interesting, all having to do with a different aspect of society. On the whole, I thought the movie was fairly decent, but I think I missed out on a lot by not understanding what a majority of the film had to do with Bob Dylan.
It was boring when I first saw this film. That is because I don’t know anything about Bob Dylan or his songs. I realized through this film that it is really important to understand the background knowledge when it comes to watching the movie about one character which is based on real persons. I was very confused during watching the film, there were so many people to understand the relationships between characters and it didn’t help me to grasp the idea of movie. But it was interesting Dylan was portrayed by a woman actor, Cate Blanchett. I think it is great trial that the director used many actors who actually act one character however, a lack of consideration made me run out of the room while the movie was going on. It teaches me the importance of acquiring the knowledge about the movies beforehand and patience while understanding whole story of the films.
I enjoyed this movie. I was interesting how the different story lines played into each other. Lokking back on Bob Dylan, we see a human being who's music defied time. But at the same time his music was so pertinent to the day at hand. And in this film these multiple portrayals of Dylan, create a larger than life feeling to Dylan. Like a person who could not be defined by one actor, or storyline. I defiantly could not see this film being made any other way. If only one actor played dylan, that would be weird.
Bob Dylan is one of the greatest musicians of all time and this movie does a great job in doing him justice. Although it wasn't as "rockstar" or crazy as I wanted it to be it did portray the importance of music and the effects Bob Dylan had. The fact that 6 different actors played Bob Dylan was a unique thing to see and allowed me to see Bob Dylan in different lights. I am glad I was able to see this movie because I had never heard of it before. Overall it was a little boring but its unique style and interesting topic kept me watching the whole time.
I truly enjoyed I’m Not There. The film is made to look as if it were a documentary, interviewing the characters. I think this aided the viewer in keeping track of who’s-who as it can get confusing at times since Bob Dylan is being represented by several different characters. The film was beautifully done, and unique- to say the least. At time’s however, I found myself somewhat lost and feeling as though one must be a true Bob Dylan fan to fully appreciate the movie for the purpose it was made. However, we are presented with a biographical component to help us “non-Dylan die-hards” get in on the know. My favorite part of how the movie was done was the literal use of several different characters to represent the multi-faceted life of Bob Dylan. Although the way the movie was set up using different characters to help us better get a grasp of the complex Bob Dylan, it did not hurt the those who were helping to portray him did so fantastically. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Charlotte Gainsburg, Richard Gere, Marcus Franklin, and Ben Whishaw all did a phenomenal job in making this “mockumentary” come to life.
"I'm Not There" was probably one of the most confusing movies that I have seen in a long time. I did not know very much about Bob Dylan prior to viewing the film and felt that I didn't learn anymore after watching the film. I found the use of six different actors to portray aspects of Dylan's life to be interesting, but left me pretty confused for about half the film. It took me awhile to get used to the constant switching back and forth of characters. Most of the time I didn't even understand what was happening. I will give the director credit for such a unique idea, it was probably better received by Bob Dylan fans. I read a little about him after watching the movie and thinking back on the scenes they made a lot more sense and I could understand what the director was going for. I think all the actors did a superb job portraying their characters, especially Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. I found the story of Robbie Clark to be the most interesting to watch. I would have actually enjoyed that story expanded on and made into an entire movie in itself. I thought that the struggling relationship between him and his wife made a good story to watch. I found the switching from color to black and white to be a bit distracting. I would have preferred to watch it entirely in one or the other. I also found the switching to interview style to be a little strange. Julianne Moore's character didn't really serve much purpose in my opinion. I thought the music in the movie was done really well. The songs were used magnificently to match each scene of the film. Although the movie left me a little confused I can definitely appreciate the inventiveness of the film. I think that if I was a Dylan fan or at least knew some prior background information I would have understood and enjoyed the film a lot more.
I'm Not There is an interesting movie. The format to tell this, or rather, these stories is distinctive. The multiple story lines keep you intrigued. My personal favorite is the young boy. Christian Bale also does a really good job in this movie. I am used to him being in roles such as American Psycho and Batman, however, this was a nice change of pace and I think he did a very nice job in his portrayal. Cate Blanchet also does amazing playing her character. The fact that she plays a man is astounding as I did not even realize it was her until about halfway through the movie. The interview styles throughout the films are really fun in that they give great insight into what normal people thought of Bob Dylan at different times in his career. Though this is an untraditional method for a biopic, I did really enjoy this movie. It is quite insightful into the many various aspects of Bob Dylan's life. The constant Dylan music in the background and foreground is enjoyable and keep the proper mood for each scene. Overall, I really liked this movie, though it is not my typical kind to watch. The format, music, and mix of color and black and white all blend nicely together to educate the viewer of the career of Bob Dylan.
I found this film magnificent. The many different people playing the role stress the many alter egos that inhibit this richly complex character. The character's speed and marijuana usage give the whole movie a very dreamlike state. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, and newcomer Marcus Carl Franklin all show themselves to be very adept at playing the role.
I feel like some of the scenes contribute to the film, that much more when watching it. There is a scene in which they were at a party, and in this room that was shaped like a cube, and the walls were projecting video. Anyway, as Dylan (Blanchett) who was REALLY messed up at the time, went further and further in the rambling and the craziness, the screen showed images that reflected her tone. As he got worse, the images would get faster and/or stranger. At one point Dylan is yelling at his friend. And on the walls, we see video of Dylan freaking out, and spinning around. Then flipping off the cameraman, and dancing. The music supported the tone of the scene, as well. Overall, I enjoyed this film eventhough I never really had much background of Bob Dylan.
I really liked the concept of the movie I’m Not There. The idea of using six different people to represent the different aspects of one man is genius. It is true that any person is too hard to describe with just one description. This concept is even truer for someone as diverse and complex as Bob Dylan. This movie solves that problem by simply using six very different characters to show every aspect of Bob Dylan’s personality and his life. The story starts with a young Marcus Carl Franklin playing a young Dylan who hasn’t quite found himself yet. He finds himself writing music for country singers and playing songs about days long before his own. This is changed when he is confronted about how he ignores the current age and only plays older music. From there it shows the different stages of his life. This going from the years where he sung about change and religion; as shown by actor Christian Bale. Then to the days he was booed for plugging in and changing from folk. This is shown by actress Cate Blanchett. I really enjoyed watching this movie because of the amazing acting if not just for the pure ingenuity of the idea.
The actors in this film is what drew me to it because I knew a film featuring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere, had to be one that had a lot to offer. Secondly, the film also intrigued me because it was based on Bob Dylan's life and music. The fact that Blanchett was able to mimic Dylan's look, mannerisms, and even the way he speaks, is somewhat amazing because it's rare that a female can depict a male this well. To play devil's advocate, it could be said that Blanchett's performance didn't present Dylan as a creative soul, the performance solely depicted him as a performer. The best part about this film is that it's not your typical format, and this is what kept me intrigued because I was eager to see where it was headed. I thought this was definitely a fun and enjoyable film.
Kate and the actress who played the guy's wife is good. This is the two actors I felt most impressive n this movie. They are both women. This role is independent, strong, and never lost. She has a very strong soul. The reasons she chose to abandon the men are so unique - I'm leaving you because I love you, I do not want to be your burden.
Kate has been learning to have a mode like Dylan, that the similarity is amazing. But when she sat in the car, Zhaixiamojing, you can not reuse the physical simulation, only this face when she is after all just Kate. That was the end of the film, Dylan said the significance of the music, it is faith, it is a nanny, it is no longer confused. Finally, she playfully looking at the camera, meaningful eye, it is a woman, played by a male mockery, as if to say, look, this is Dylan, in fact, this is me. Perfect ending. Body and soul with the role of one, but might as well give it to add a little naughty rhyme. In reality and the spirit world, free shuttle, that is, the actors in this fascinating work. This Dylan is Dylan, but also Kate. While women are often surprising, when she abandon the vain and hypocritical, she may be more powerful than men.
I’m not there Director Todd friendly show originality, in order to fully deconstruction Bob's inner world, using a 6 different actors of different period and different character's Bob to deduce, in combination with the documentary form as well as a number of expressional gimmick, make movies in reality and nothing (Bob inner change) trainwas travelling between, so to some extent, this is not an ordinary biography movie. If not known as Bob dylan and that history want to further understand the obscure characters and events is still need to spend some time. And there are Six actors to play Bob dylan's different stage, because this is a complex music life. Kate in the stage began her career should be his most rebellious the most wonderful life memories. The plot of the film with a bad, but that it may be the director style or intention, there have a sense of humor, and also have every meaningfully-interweaved.
I’m Not There was a very intriguing film. It was made as a documentary using numerous actors to play the role of Bob Dylan at different times in his life. One of the pitfalls of this film was I felt that I was a step behind trying to analyzed what I had just watched when it skips ahead and I’m forced to process new material. I do know some of Bob Dylan’s life, but was unaware of many portions in the film. Unlike a conventional documentary that might walk you through it all I’m Not There thrusts you into the life of Bob Dylan.
I enjoyed what Todd Haynes did with this film. He took a risk and instead of giving you a spoon-fed documentary puts an artistic twist and uses the medium of film with different actors, colors, types of shots, shot length to really make a unique film. I don’t think his goal was to educate you on all things Bob Dylan, but rather give you a taste of his life to exemplify what kind of man he is.
I found this film to be a little drawn out. The concept of Bob Dylan living through the different characters was a good idea, but I felt as if the whole story was relentlessly pounding on that one concept. And the lengthy duration of the film didn't help that.
The fact that Bob Dylan was living through people of all different ages, genders, and colors was cool, though. It was nice how the film portrayed Dylan's music as being able to relate to everyone, and ultimately bring them together. And it was very entertaining to see the multiple sides of Bob Dylan demonstrated by these contrasting characters.
I’m not there is an interesting film because of its structure. At times it feels like a documentary, at times a bio-pic, and at times like your typical hollywood movie. I’m not there uses this and the six actors who portray Dylan to show an important message, how deep the character of Dylan is. By six different actors playing Dylan it allowed to show many different sides of him. Dylan shouldn’t be thought of as one of the actors that played him, but rather by a sum of all of their parts comprising who the real Bob Dylan was. I think one particular performance that should be singled out was Cate Blanchett, because not only is she a woman she showed a sort of deep side to Dylan in the 60s that was very interesting and quaint side to him This format and structure also lends itself for repeated viewings. Not being a Bob Dylan fan myself, there were some instances where I did not completely follow what was going on, but given repeated viewing I believe there would be a better sense of what was going on. And therefore have a better understanding of the means of the plot and the purposes and directions of the movie.
I’m Not There C04997305 I’m Not There tells the story of Bob Dylan by dividing the man himself into six different personas, each portrayed by a uniquely different character. The film opens with the persona of Woody a young African American boy who represents the Bob in his naïve days as a troubadour singing songs without having yet taken a social stance. We are then introduced to Henry Rollins (Christian Bale) the folk singer who rises to fame in Greenwhich Village singing folk songs of social political importance that drove Bob out of anonymity. Robbie played by Ledger presents the star persona portraying Dylan at the epitome of his popularity, while Jude (Blanchett) portrays Bob’s persona at one of his lowest points dealing with the backlash of a change in his creative style (transition from folk to rock). Billy (Gere) represents Dylan’s plunge back into anonymity in order to protect himself from the outside world. Whishaw’s character of Arthur to me represents Dylan’s current persona and ties all the others together. Overall I feel Haynes does a superb job of dividing and tackling the different personas that make up the enigma that is Bob Dylan. The characters of Woody and Jude, portrayed by a young African American and a woman, add to the idea of Dylan’s diverse identity. The film is a nice bend of biopic and art piece that is new and refreshing. I greatly enjoyed I’m Not There and feel that Haynes and the cast did great interpretation of Dylan.
Jason Koreen
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There was unlike any film I’ve ever seen before. Never did it feel like the typical Hollywood narrative blockbuster. To me, it had the makings of a Broadway show, or even a standard documentary. That being said, I feel that for me to fully appreciate this movie I would certainly have to see it again. It took me a while to understand what the movie was about and to even realize that each individual character represented a different aspect of Bob Dylan’s life. Although it was not my favorite film, I greatly appreciated the filmmaking that went behind producing such a movie. The director did a fantastic job of cutting to a different scene or using old footage. Looking back on it, I do feel as if I have a much greater comprehension of what it was like to be in Dylan’s shoes. One thing that stood out to me about him was how difficult it was being in the spotlight. People wanted so many answers from him, but he acknowledged right from the beginning that he wasn’t some sort of savior, but was simply just a storyteller. He wanted to do what he enjoyed and not have a big deal made of it, but as a watcher of the movie, you had to certainly feel the pain, pressure, and stress that he was living through. At first I wasn’t so high on this movie, but by looking back on it and trying to fully grasp its meaning, I appreciate it much more that I had first thought.
I’m Not There is one of the best movies about a musician that I have ever seen and that’s saying something considering I love Walk the Line. The film is set up like a documentary, with the titles introducing interviewed characters; which is useful since there is so much cutting and interwoven stories throughout the movie that it’s difficult at times to keep track of who’s who. Bob Dylan is played throughout his life by a plethora of big name stars: Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchet, and Richard Gere to name a few. The different people playing one man, at different parts of his life, can get confusing to the audience, especially since they all go by different names. There’s also the confusing aspect of time jumping back and forth, with the different named people (all of whom are Bob Dylan). If the audience is able to recognize and keep in mind that Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchet (for example) are both Bob Dylan, then, the film is quite interesting as it depicts the multi-faceted personality of Bob Dylan, literally. I think this puts a very unique spin on the biography which made me love the film. I think everyone would desire to have themselves portrayed by multiple actors (if they were to have a movie of themselves), if they changed that much throughout their lives. There’s a carnival theme to the movie which reminded me of the film, Big Fish---how things can sometimes be distorted from what they truly are by our perception of them. The black and white scenes interfused with the color scenes are very interesting. It seemed to me, that perhaps the black and white scenes were done differently to emphasize real occurrences; whereas the color scenes were not necessarily exactly what happened, but what was thought to have happened and they were added to make the story flow and give a better background to the real occurrences.
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There, in my opinion, was a beautifully intertwined film that narratives the life of Bob Dylan using six different characters. The noticeable three that I picked up on right away was Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett. At times, I will admit that I wasn’t sure what was fully going on but I think you have to be a true Dylan fan to really enjoy this one. However, this isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I grew to like the film and all of its unique features that you don’t see in many movies today. The editing and transitioning from the past and the present/black and white scenes were done extremely well along with the infused music during these scenes. The music which was mostly centered on and performed by Bob Dylan seemed to override a lot of the dialogue at parts, kind of overpowering it in a way. This kind of made me think that the music was more important at times in his life and became the deepened root of his changes as a person.
ReplyDeleteAs far as acting goes, I felt that Cate Blanchett did a great job at playing Bob Dylan in the 60’s. She definitely carried the appeal and the “it” that Dylan surely had. The biographical part really takes you into the background of his life allowing us to get a better feel for what he was going through during two decades. The film really investigates this sort of “freedom” that you can live in to a certain extent without being judged for it. Each of the six characters also really gave us insight on the aspects that went on during Dylan’s life and lets us see how much Dylan has changed as a person while using his music to represent that.
Being a huge Dylan fan, of course, I was excited to watch this move. But I won’t lie, the film was a little confusing. I had to stop, and google the movie to understand more clearly what was going on. I was expecting a documentary about Dylan’s life, but instead I started to see a lot of very different characters situated in different time periods and situation that resembled or make me remember the same man: Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many great things this iconic performer has, and in my opinion, why he is so cool, is that until now, you don’t know what to expect from him. He changed so many times his style that keeping up with him was always a surprise. And this is the facet that the film is trying to portrait: Six characters representing one man.
During my google search, I find something that I thought was really interesting that the director said: “The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down.”
Cate Blanchett for me, was the best performer in the movie. I had to rewind a couple of times the scenes where she appears because I couldn’t believe she was woman. The way she moved and the way spoke was almost an identical representation of Dylan’s attitude.
The other part I liked a lot was the Poet scenes. As a Dylan fan I have seen plenty of interviews of him, and it is incredible how confusing he can be. He is never still or direct whatsoever. You’ll never hear one answer that comes right out his mouth that won’t let you more confused and intrigued.
This movie is brilliant.
I really enjoyed this film. It was definitely one of the most unique films I have ever seen. The way Todd Haynes was able to portray Bob Dylan’s life through six different actors playing seven different roles was utterly brilliant. Given its awesome execution, I think I learned more about Bob Dylan’s life through this format than I would have from a traditional biopic.
ReplyDeleteA person’s life has many facets that can very well be considered different people comprising a whole person. Similarly, the film is really six separate short films. Overall, Dylan was an African American civil rights figure, a disillusioned artist, a troubled lover, a staunch nonconformist, a wayward adventurer, a philosopher, and a man of Christ. Some aspects of these personas are worth noting. That Dylan was at one point black symbolizes his devotion towards African Americans; that he was once a woman symbolizes his radical transformation from rebelling against the system to rebelling against himself. Also, the fact that only Jack and Pastor John are played by the same actor expresses the fulfillment of purpose in lieu of misdirection.
Although the roles were perfect in defining his life, they would not have been believable if it wasn’t for the fantastic cast. Cate Blanchett was phenomenal; it was easy forget she was a woman. Christian Bale conveyed mortification vis-à-vis vicarious redemption in his portrayal of Jack and Pastor John. Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg made a great duo. Richard Gere and Marcus Franklin were inspiring, and Ben Whishaw commanded respect.
Despite its triumphs, I felt that the film limited itself by over glorifying the 1960s. I understand that Bob Dylan was a significant figure at the time, but the depiction of the era was geared to those capable – and willing – to reminisce about it. I can’t, nor would I ever want to. The gaudy idolization of the era hindered the film from transcending past it. However, I still applaud the film for its awesome narrative and avante garde style.
I did not enjoy “I’m Not There” in the slightest. Not only have I barely heard of Bob Dylan, but I do not know enough about his life and personality to make this 2 hour+ movie remotely entertaining. I will admit that several of the actors did a fantastic job, probably the best being Cate Blanchett’s role. While each of their individual stories is intriguing, putting them together to represent the different facets of Bob Dylan results in mishmash of confusing plots that merge into one rambling mess. By the time I had figured out that each character was a different version of Bob Dylan, and what was going on with each character, I had already lost interest in the film. Maybe if it had been shorter, or featured fewer stories for the audience to keep track of, the movie would have been entertaining. But the end result is a bizarre combination of confusing characters that does little to pay tribute to Bob Dylan’s cultural icon. And again, it was just way too long to hold my attention. I felt that by the end of the film, the viewer had barely gotten ahold of any one character’s story to truly appreciate it. The use of Bob Dylan’s music obviously helped set the time period of the film. The varying cultural references and different styles of filming, such as the Vietnam War and color for Heath Ledger’s parts, but the Beatles and black and white for Cate Blanchett’s, helped to give life and originality to each part. But in the end, it all combined for one catastrophic and boring mess of a story, if there ever was one to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI am not there:
ReplyDeleteI am not a big fan of folk music. This was like Bob Dylan’s biography film. The filmmaker divided his life into several parts with different backgrounds, different races and different genders. Especially there were six characters that have different traits to act and tell us the life of Bob Dylan. Although he had not been appeared in the film, that’s why the title of this film was “I am not there”.
The combination of fake and truth still gave us some vivid experience of Dylan’s life and even a lecture of American music culture. This film’s style and its way of story telling were very new for me. There were a lot of stuffs happened at the same time, they constructed and linked together to make a general idea. It was very interesting that the film didn’t use Dylan’s original songs and it also had Cate Blanchett to act Dylan. However, I think that’s inconsistent with Dylan’s real impression.
Along the whole movie, the folk music kept playing. I like the music, but sometime when the background of scenes changed, I felt confused about what was going on. However, the film was very successful about its characters’ acting, arrangement of the stories and the switching of scenes. If you don’t know anything about Bob Dylan, you will feel as confused and misunderstanding as I do.
My expectations were high. So many stars were pressed in one movie. Sure, I have to like it! However, I didn’t. I was in the mood to leave the room. This movie was too weird and long for me that it almost bored to death. I only have one explanation for it: I don’t know anything about Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteFor this movie, it’s essential to know a bit of the musician’s life. Without any knowledge, one doesn’t understand anything. This is sad as the performers did a marvellous job to interpret their different roles. Yes, at the end of the movie I came to the conclusion that everyone is Bob Dylan in a weird way. Only with some research, I understood that every actor resembles one facet of Bob Dylan. This is a smart way to describe his life; but, it was totally messed up. The variation of styles, for example, from colored to black and white scenes, didn’t help at all to clear the mess. I was lost from the beginning, and none of the actors could get me out of there. Moreover, the two hours were way too long to portray the life of Bob Dylan in a convenient way.
I felt happy and relieved when the movie finished. Really, one should never feel this way at any time. And no Hollywood star could prevent me from disliking this film. Not even Heath Ledger, one of my favorite actors. This is kind of sad.
As it were, is the most delicate work of Todd Haynes. According to visual judgment, this work uses three different films for filming. In this work, there are many superstars and super-luxurious background music. The structure of the work is unprecedentedly complete (even though the narrative is scattered and fragment). In the work, there are also my outdoor scenes. In some sense, this film applies too many symbolic means, expressionism and extreme exaggeration. Six different Dylan shows six characteristics of Dylan and symbolizes the conflict heart of Dylan. Interpenetration narrative of 6 different Dylan, in fact, reveals conflict heart and spirit of Dylan in real life along the same time axis. This film seems scattered superficially. However, in fact, this film is a biographic film recording the life of Dylan in order. At first, the film records influences of south Negroes of the United States. At last, the film records the regression of traditional music. Both the influence and the regression are experienced by Dylan. Dylan also experiences traditional folk songs, blues, protest songs, rock mixed up with narcotics, folk songs of self-presentation and music with strong Christianity meaning. Therefore, in my opinion, this film is very clear and understandable. However, objectively, among the xix Dylan, the most outstanding one is Christian Bale. Although the six performers are all good, Christian Bale stands out from them. The accent, tune and action of Christian Bale are very similar to Dylan. The key is that only Christian Bale performs simple imitation. Christian Bale brings different thing to Dylan, which is so amazing. However, Cate Blanchett, because of her unique character as a woman, outshines other Dylan. The second outstanding performer in my heart is the Negro child who acts “Woody Guthrie”. If you consider this film as the biographic film of Bob Dylan or documentary film, you are wrong. In deed, this film quotes a large amount of historical facts; however, the aim of this film is never to tell the life of Bob Dylan. In contrary, the implication is the significance of this film. This film, in fact, is not a biographic film but citing stories of Dylan. Todd Haynes tells the complex of the generation in that era. The ideal Dylan of Todd Haynes is, like Rimbaud, gone when he is still young. The title of “I’m not There” has another meaning per se, namely, The poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, that Bob Dylan is gone.
ReplyDeleteI'm Not There is a really interesting film. It's very different from any other movie I've ever seen, especially musical biographies, which all seem to follow a similar formula. Though I don't think every aspect worked entirely, overall I think the movie was successful in capturing the spirit of Bob Dylan. As someone who has acted before, I loved getting to see six different actors take on variations of the same role within the same film. As someone who knows very little about Dylan, I feel like after this movie I have a better idea of at least the persona Dylan had, and also why so many people were attracted to and influenced by his music. Cate Blanchett, who is one of my favorite female actors, gave my favorite performance in the movie. She was completely committed, and as an unusual choice to play Dylan (as a woman), she came through with an excellent performance.
ReplyDeleteI really did not care for I'm Not There. I found it to be extremely boring, and lackluster especially considering the actors in the film. This film had the potential to be extremely interesting, I think, but it just missed on a lot of things to me. First, I feel that the skipping around from person to person making the connection that they are supposed to be the same role was not only annoying at times but also took away from the excitement and connection that the audience feels to the film. As soon as I would feel myself beginning to be intrigued and connected to one character it would switch to another one that I was not intrigued by and bored with. I like the idea of utilizing numerous story lines and character to depict one overall theme and idea, but I just did not like the way it was carried out. The most intriguing story live for me was Heath Ledger's character's story line. This is probably because Heath Ledger was one of my favorite actors of all time, and I am probably biased towards his role. But, I feel that he captivated the audience in a way none of the other characters were able to, and that he was able to command attention and create interest in his story line in the chopped up lay out of the overall film.
ReplyDeleteTodd Hayne’s “I’m Not There” was a film that struck me as touching and captivating at points, but also rude and devoid of purpose at others. Because I am not familiar with Bob Dylan’s life, or his music I was extremely confused as different people were being used to depict different portions of Dylan’s life. I think that the disjointed nature of the movie added to this confusion. There were sequences with Christian Bale playing the political activist Dylan, but would quickly jump to scenes with the Cate Blanchet version of Dylan. More so than some of the other lives of Dylan, these two lives were so polarizing that it was hard for me as the viewer to believe that one person could change so much.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was confused as a viewer at points I did enjoy certain points of the film. I felt that Christian Bale’s portrayal of the political activist was done very well. Bale’s performance combined with the highly stylized nature of the film made the messages Dylan was trying to purvey all the more meaningful.
I cannot say that I enjoyed the message that Cate Blanchet’s version of Dylan portrayed, but I have to admit that when I found out that it wasn’t a man playing that part of Dylan’s life I was impressed. Her character was so raw, devoid of meaning and purpose, and highly rebellious. The juxtaposition of the political activist Dylan and Blanchet’s Dylan I felt was done extremely well and the two performances by the two actors were outstanding.
I was not a fan of I'm Not There. I was so lost during this whole movie. I know if I was a fan of Bob Dylan or even knowing a little bit about his life would have helped me understand. I truly know nothing about Dylan's life which made me confused on how all the different characters could relate to Dylan. The different characters through me off and it did not help that the plot would keep changing as they showed different characters. As soon as I was following the African-American child's life, all of a sudden, I would be watching another actor such as Christian Bale depict Dylan. I could not keep up with what was going on in every character's life. Even though I did not understand the movie, I could appreciate the acting. I felt like Cate Blanchett did a wonderful job playing a male role. Maybe I can learn more about Bob Dylan and watch the movie again in the future in order to appreciate this film.
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There
ReplyDeleteThis was a film I did not really understand completely. I guess I was confused with all the stories going on, from the one Christian Bale is involved in to the one the little black kid takes part of. The movie is inspired by Bob Dylan. I would say it was a bit overwhelming for me primarily because I had trouble focusing on every story, I kind of felt there was too much going on and therefore did not really enjoy the movie. However, I did like how it constantly involved music, it made it a little more interesting. Although I would say this, at the beginning I began actually enjoying it, and the main reason was because of Woody, he was something else. He was incredible open to everyone, made everyone have a good time and put a smile on their faces. He was not afraid of anything; he was a boy with a lot of initiative. And with his guitar, he entertained everyone, from us the viewers I believe, to the people he was with in different scenes. Then the film turned to something totally different, to the other stories, and it made me forget a little about Woody. My attention was never really dragged as much as when Woody showed up. Jack Rollins however did entertain me a bit because of his attitude, he was different, he was scare less, and confronting. Overall, he was a problematic kind of guy. Honestly I do not know much about Bob Dylan, and this film did not really help much in knowing him better. I say this because the film is supposed to be like a biography on Bob Dylan, interpreted by different strands and characters that are not directly related to him. It’s as if they represent different stages of his life it was not very clear to me.
I'm Not There is a biographical music film about Bob Dylan's life. The only other film in this genre i can really remember seeing is Dream Girls, and the two are almost incomparable. Though Dream Girls was a blockbuster and award show hit, I much prefer I'm Not There. Though I found the movie's format to be confusing at times, from the constant switching of actors and eras, the uniqueness of the film makes it memorable, special, and cool. I'm fascinated by the more daring move of casting Cate Blanchette as one of the Bob Dylan's. To have a women playing such a prominent and iconic man in the music world as Bob Dylan is huge. However, I think Todd Haynes should be proud of how he made this risky move a success, as I think she did a great job. I think that because I'm not a die-hard or well informed, fan of Bob Dylan, that I could have the same appreciation for the movie as a viewer that is, I did really enjoy the interesting way his story was told and want to see it again after learning more about his life that will help me follow along.
ReplyDeleteI'm Not There......
ReplyDeleteI actually rented this film thinking it would be great with the actors playing Bob Dylan and the subject matter it self. Though many may not agree with me, but I did not enjoy this film at all. As a matter of fact it is the first film that I have not been able to sit through in one sitting in a long while. I did enjoy the acting and Cate Blanchett as a male was completely believable. I thought the little black boy also did an excellent job and those were the only two Dylan's that actually seemed interesting enough to watch. It just didn't work for me and I found myself confused with the Christian Bale and Health Ledger characters being Dylan. And although I am a huge fan of Richard Gere, his Dylan was just a parody and seemed fake to me. I didn't like the piecing together the stories and would have rather seen a true biographic piece on such a legend. Maybe the thought was since Dylan himself is quirky and odd, that a film about him should be the same. But it just did not work for me at all.
I'm Not There is a film of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan featureing different actors playing the part of the Minnesota native at various stages of his remarkable career. Each section of the film not only has a different lead actor, but offers different looks that reflect various aspects of popular culture at the time. However, this film was kind of hard to sit through, due to the different stories incorporated. There a little bit too much going on, but the music was interesting. To me, it looked like more of a mixture of a musical and a documentary. I liked the concept of the film, making it different, but it was still hard to follow. The actors were great by the way. But before saying that I hate Haynes' work, I'll have to take a look at his other films.
ReplyDeleteWephniva Nonord
C07404423
Music is by far my favorite thing in the world, and although I am not the biggest Bob Dylan fan, I have an appreciation for his impact and what he brought to the music world. However, I did not appreciate this movie. After hearing that Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Kate Blanchett were in this movie I was excited to learn more about Bob Dylan, an artist who I did not have the opportunity to know about growing up. Unfortunately I left the room more confused than anything. It was very difficult to understand exactly what Todd Haynes was trying to get across other than the central idea that Dylan was a free spirit. The different characters of Bob Dylan, intertwined with different stories, personalities, and even different settings and time periods was too all over the place. It was hard to understand what the point of each character was, and their signifigance in relation to Bob Dylan, especially the characters of Kate, the black kid, and the western horse back riding man. The stagnant flow of the movie made it tough to sit through as viewer. I felt strained having to try and fit these pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle together to draw some sort of concrete conclusion. With all this being said, each actor did a great job and I have no qualms with any production value things in the movie, but overall and thematically it was very hard to understand. Hopefully if I watch it again it will make more sense.
ReplyDeleteKyle Laney
ReplyDeleteWhile I really do enjoy Bob Dylan and am inspired by his political activism I found I’m Not There to be really strange and not enjoyable at all. I do respect Todd Haynes attempts to shows the different sides of Dylan’s life through the use of various actors, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw, I found the overall strangeness of the film overwhelming. Furthermore, while I do realize that Dylan had a multifaceted career, I find his portrayal by a woman, Cate Blanchett, or by a young child, Marcus Franklin, extremely bizarre. It is disappointing that this movie was not effective because I really enjoy Christian Bale and Heath Ledger as actors in different movies. Their portrayal of the Batman and the Joker in the Dark Knight is nothing short of magic. They were so incredible in that film and simply mediocre in I’m Not There. It is hard to tell whether their acting was just incomplete or whether the screen play forced them to be that way, but it was not effective regardless.
This movie tells the life of one of the greatest singers in all time called Bob Dylan. It depicts different actors playing the same role of Bob Dylan in different stages of his life and of his career. Each section of the movie that involves the different actors all interpreting Dylan, show different views that reflect the several aspects of the culture at the time. For example, we can see Richard Gere in a more conservative American way of life riding on his horse on what seems a small cowboy town and shows the period after Dylan’s motorcycle accident; we can also see Christian Bale interpreting the role of a more gothic Bob Dylan. Honestly, I did not like this movie. I found this a movie that you cannot enjoy and I felt stressed during the whole movie trying to figure out its complexity. Even more I got confused by the fact that the director is constantly jumping from the past to the future to some where in the middle, breaking the whole movie into fractured moments of Dylan’s life. Sure, I believe that all of the actors are amazing and they did a good job, but I also feel that the director did a good job by trying to show how complex it is the life of a great artist such as is Bob Dylan and how hard it is to demonstrate all of the complexity in just two hours. Nevertheless, I do agree that this movie provides a lot of insight on the performer and audience relationship. We can see how the audience is always expecting something out of the performer who is trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes the performer that goes on the stage is so different than the same performer in their personal lives. We can also see how the culture in different periods of time affects and is linked to the audience reaction. We can see this happening when Dylan being a folk music singer, tries to experiment with new ways and decides to experiment with an electric guitar on the stage. This causes the audience to go crazy, even some people leave and other were shouting him to stop. Nowadays we can observe that electric guitar or rock or other types of music are widely accepted by the audience.
ReplyDeleteI’m not There
ReplyDeleteThe movie “I’m not There” is kind of film biography about Bob Dylan, legendary country singer. Before watching movie, I got less interesting from this movie since I have never heard his name before. As an international student from Asia, it was hard for me to listen to old American country songs. Even if it is about Bob Dylan, there is no actual Bob Dylan in this movie. Seven different egos of Bob Dylan as different six people appeared in movie separately: public singer, pastor, African-American, poet, recluse, actor and pop-star. Among six different egos of Bob Dylan, there is Cate Blanchett who is female actor. It was interesting that female actor express about male singer. Those seven different egos sometime meet and influence each other. At first time, it was really hard for me to catch up the story which was a little bit chaotic. In story, there no clear conclusion and connection. Everything was vague. Even if I try to figure it out what main point of this movie is, it was difficult to answer clearly what it is. After movie, I kept thinking to get answer from this question. I think Bob Dylan is the person who just lived his life spontaneously. He just did what he wants. He didn’t have any specific purpose for his acting; he just sang for enjoying his life. But people always want to put meaning on his achievement. Such thing made misinterpretation of Bob Dylan. Maybe, in this movie, director wants to say “Don’t think too much. Just accept only what Bob Dylan did. Don’t try to interpret too much .”
I was pleasantly surprised with the biographical film “I’m Not There,” mainly because of the manner in which it went about describing Bob Dylan’s life. I was fascinated in the method that the director used in telling the story of Bob Dylan, as it went away from the traditional narrative style that most biographical films use. The film used the stories of Dylan from the characters around him to describe him and show him to the audience. I think that this technique worked very well because it made the audience feel as if they were having a direct conversation with those characters telling the story. The audience was fully engaged in the movie, as they know that those characters around Dylan would give an objective view on Dylan and they would be able to tell them stories and things about them that the average person couldn’t look up on the internet. This gave the assumption the viewers that these stories told in the movie were vital in understanding who Bob Dylan really was. Lastly, even though Dylan’s involvement in many of these stories wasn’t direct or huge in the stories, his involvement showed certain characteristics of himself that was important for the audience to note.
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I wasn’t really engaged in this film which I personally found to be disappointing because I am actually a very big Bob Dylan fan. If there was anything that I actually enjoyed about the film it was the music. Musicians do have a very interesting life story, and I know Bob Dylan has a fascinating one, but in general I am never compelled to watch biopics. This being a biopic of a different nature made it even less compelling for me where I can see for others it could be more so compelling. It was too confused and too questionable in my opinion. The idea of bringing in well named stars to play different facets of one man is an intriguing idea, but it fell flat to me. It was a disarray of plots that may or may not had any connection to other characters playing a face of Dylan. I didn’t really feel a sense of purpose in the film that I usually get from the ones I like. I didn’t feel a driving force behind it. It was really just a jumble of vignettes depicting different segments of Bob Dylan’s life. Cate Blanchett received praise for her portrayal of Dylan. I didn’t really see that. To me it felt awkward and maybe somewhat gimmicky. Overall, I didn’t seem to connect with any of the stylistic choices. Whether it Blanchett’s performance, the young boy’s portrayal, or Richard Gere’s Billy the Kid or whatever he was supposed to be, it didn’t click for me. Maybe if I came in with a cursory knowledge of Dylan’s life, I could appreciate certain segments, but then I see people who enjoyed the film without knowing anything about Dylan or do not really caring for his music.
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ReplyDeleteI'm Not There
ReplyDeleteHaving little to no knowledge about Bob Dylan, or his life, the premise of the film interested me. While it was interesting that the story was told through perspectives of six different characters, it was often confusing in parts. This was mainly because the stories often overlapped rather than being six separate specific parts of his life. I also found the choice of characters to play each aspect of his life unexpected. For instance, one of the characters was a woman and another was a young, African American boy. This didn't make much sense to me and only served to further complicate the overall movie.
However, when I look at each individual story separately, they are all interesting and unique. In fact, they could have easily stood on their own, instead of being interrelated. I also liked the use of music throughout the movie, especially since music was the most important part of his life.
While the movie didn't really change my opinion of Bob Dylan, I was able to better understand who he is as an individual. I could emphasize with his struggles and the pressures that he faced and how all of his life experiences helped to shape who he has become. That being said, I feel that I would probably better enjoy this film watching it again. Especially since I now understand the premise of the movie and the way the story is told.
Devika Boodhoo
DeleteC06517157
I love this movie！！！
ReplyDeleteI watched it again by my self, First of all I love Bob Dylan, and the movie makes me love Cate Blanchett. How did Todd Haynes change Cate really shocked me. Cate is such a miracle, he was like a piece of plasticine which can be changed into any shape you want.
I think in all Dylans, Christian Bale is the best one.They are all good though, the accent,even the moves he imitates so good.But the greatest this he create his own things and put it into his own Dylan.But he makes it better and convincing.But Cate Blanchett is the most eye-catching one because she is a woman.
I think "I'm not there" is the most delicate one in all Todd Haynes's movies, the structure is super complete and much more logical than all the films past,(maybe I'm too easy-thinking).But It's obvious that he has been more release minded to make this movie than before.And I felt he was trying to finish the effect he used to tried but limited by financial problems.That why we saw some similar techniques has been used in this movie also has appeared the films such like"Velvet Goldmine", "Dottie Get Spanked"----using the television media perspective to express the event.
I was really looking forward to seeing this film because I heard several people rave about how good it was and how spectacular Cate Blanchet is. Of course I was a little skeptical about a biopic about a musician that I never really enjoyed, and him being played by six different actors, one being a woman. Nevertheless, like almost everyone else who saw this movie, I loved it. Blanchet obviously immersed herself very well in the role and within minutes of seeing her on screen, you forget that she is woman and start seeing her as an interesting personality of Bob Dylan. Another actor that really caught my attention was Christian Bale. He has always been one of my favorite actors because of his work in 3:10 to Yuma and the Prestige. I’m Not There is no exception, he is spot on his is role. When I think musical biography, I think Walk the Line, which is pretty close to a perfect movie. I’m Not There is not Walk the Line and that is a good thing. It has its own unique style that captivates the viewer. After seeing this movie, I got the impression that there are so many different sides to Bob Dylan that there is no way that he could be portrayed by one person. However, I felt like the movie was getting a little lengthy and strange towards the end because there are six different Dylans. The movie becomes much more enjoyable if you think of it six different short films that each try to define a multidimensional figure of an era.
ReplyDeleteMarc Pollack
ReplyDeleteC10553848
When I saw the movie “I’m not there” on the syllabus as a movie that we would be watching in our Survey of Motion Pictures Class, being that it is about Bob Dylan, I couldn’t have been more excited than I was. Bob Dylan is by far, one of my favorite musicians and in my opinion; he might be one of the most talented to ever play music. This movie literally embodies Bob Dylan’s life and is broken down into six people who Bob Dylan was not only as a celebrity, but as a person as well. This concept that director, Todd Haynes, instilled in this movie, is a complete work of art. Before seeing this film, I wouldn’t think that something like this would be able to work, but I am happy to say that I couldn’t be anymore wrong. To me, Heath Ledger played the best role of his career; yes I do believe that this beats out his role in the critically acclaimed Batman movie. A second actor that I believe had the role of his life was Christian Bale. Overall, this movie opened my eyes to who Bob Dylan was and above that, how he felt as a person.
I am not familiar with Bob Dylan, his life, nor his music. As a result, I think that a lot of this movie was lost to me. It is a movie that I can see being very interesting and something that I would like, but if it was about someone who's life I knew better. Often there were moments that either I did not understand, or understand why they were part of the movie, but when I spoke to a friend later one about it (who is a big Bob Dylan fan), they were able to explain the significance of that scene to me. Knowing the significance made the scene much better, even without being a big Dylan fan.
ReplyDeleteHaving multiple people play one person (all with different names) was at times, confusing. I understand the metaphorical part that each person has a different personality and that each was a representation of Bob Dylan, but it made for a confusing storyline to follow. This was especially true when these stories would intertwine. While this unified the story in a sense, it made it confusing because each of these stories were all supposed to be about one man essentially. Yet when they interacted, it would be more like the actors were all playing separate people who could interact with each other.
Perhaps this is a movie that I need to see again after learning more about Bob Dylan. Since I have no desire to do that, I do not forsee me rewatching this movie anytime soon.
I'm Not There was one of the movies that I did not enjoy as much. I have never heard of Bob Dylan prior to taking this class. It was hard watching a biographical film about someone's life that I was not familiar with. On top of not knowing who Bob Dylan was, the movie was a little hard for me to follow. There were five or six different characters that were all different and telling a story about a different section of his life. I was confused because it would jump from one character to another in no particular order. I was so confused that I lost interest in trying to figure out what was going on in the movie. I would have preferred it to have one main actor portray Bob Dylan and it go in order. I would have enjoyed it more if the movie started from his childhood and progressed on from there. Then, maybe I would have been able to get into the movie. The only thing that I liked about the movie was the music. I did not like all of it, but there were a few songs that I liked. I know some people loved the movie, but that was because they knew who Bob Dylan was. I know that his story was told in a creative way, and I wish that I could talk about that. Sadly, I can't because I wasn't able to follow the story.
ReplyDeleteThe movie I’m not there is about Bob Dylan’s life. It is stated that Bob Dylan had many lives, so there are different actors that describe a particular part of his life. I think the way the movie is carried out is very insightful and attention grabbing, since each actor talks about a particular time in Bob Dylan’s life, such as the motorcycle accident. Each actor interprets Bob Dylan in a particular way, which creates a more intrinsic type of film. This man was a poet, an activist, and an ideal, which could only be described this way. I was particularly interested in the scenery, the way the actors chose a particular part to explore it even further, and how his life was described. After seeing this type of movie, I believe more biography style of movies should be presented like this. At first it was a bit confusing and long, since each part of Bob Dylan’s life was cut, as if tit was fragmented. The movie at times could be too slow which made it difficult for me to continue grasping the most important ideas. Overall, even though some parts were slow, I think the director did an excellent part depicting his life.
ReplyDeleteSarit Benatar
C10202193
The first time I watched I'm Not there, I was both intrigued and astounded. The implications of the film are that Dylan's life was spent in fragments, as if he truly had no idea who he truly was. He was confused and his thoughts were muddled by the film’s attempt to depict the compilation of Dylan’s thoughts. For the viewer who is easily confused, the message can be lost, the message that he was more than one person, he existed for everyone. In my opinion, upon watching the film, the true Dylan is Cate Blanchett’s Dylan, while the rest are trying to BE Bob Dylan, or variations of his character. They all want to rise to the top, and inspire many like he’s done for them, but he exists within them all, and yet they’re not copies of one another. There are 6 Bob Dylans, not one of them calls themselves Bob Dylan, but names of people who inspired him/he inspired. I’m Not There is almost otherworldly, incorporating the magic created by Dylan’s music, a magic that can only be felt and not shown, but it works within the film, when the magic is given perspective and character. I enjoyed the film, very surreal and gives the viewer the feeling that they too can be Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteHiram Aparicio
ReplyDeleteC06979667
I'm Not There
This was a very interesting viewing experience. It was difficult for me to keep up with a lot of what was happening, but it didn't stop me from appreciating the cultural value of the film, being that i am an avid fan of Bob Dylan. I love the way that he is played by different characters, often being portrayed as characters entirely unlike his actual physical appearance. But that creates a beautiful metaphor for music and the equality of all people. It was very cool to see Christian Bale portraying bob Dylan, for I had the privilege of watching one of my favorite actors of all time portraying one of my favorite musicians of all time. the scene where he sings 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' for a group of African-American workers was very engaging, being that the song itself is in fact based on a news paper article Bob Dylan had read about a man, William Zanzinger, who killed an African-American woman for absolutely nothing at all and was out on bail the next day. The fact that they would have Bob Dylan portrayed by a young African-American boy or a woman was very daring. It was also very impressive that they could make Kate Blanchet look so much like Bob Dylan. I think one difficulty many people have in appreciating this movie, is following the events occurring being that there doesn't seem to be a solid plot to unite the film as a cohesive and continuous stream of events and the non-linear order of the events portrayed could be quite confusing. Had this movie been in chronological order, however, I think it would not have had such a potent effect in demonstrating the complexity of the culture that it is trying to reflect. Also, if the movie were in chronological order, or had been completely filmed with one single actor portraying Bob Dylan, then the movie would have seemed superficial to me, and would have depicted Bob Dylan in a very conceited and skewed light. But I feel that the meaning of the movie is not lost on me. It demonstrates very accurately the culture of the time and its struggles and I think the directing, acting, editing, and sound were all very well done. It also includes very interesting commentary from Dylan's audience and demonstrates the intricate nature of being a performer.
This was a very interesting movie in my opinion. During the film I was very confused as to what was going on, and it was only after I watched the film and read about it on the internet that I was able to piece it all together. It was different phases in Bob Dylan's life portrayed by different people, representing the fact that even he didnt know who he was at times during his life. While each section of his life was interesting in itself, it was frustrating when I would really get into a scene only to have it change to another time in his life, especially when I didnt know what was going on. The filming was great, and it changed depending on the time period which added a more authentic feel to the film. The music in the movie was amazing, and in my opinion it was the best part of the film. Overall I enjoyed the film, but I enjoyed it in pieces more than I did as a whole.
ReplyDeleteChristian Casas
ReplyDeleteC10592802
I’m Not There is a movie that presents the life of Bob Dylan. After seeing this movie, I remembered my psychology classes and thought about the concept of psychoanalytics. There are six different people that portray Bob Dylan, so it would have been interesting for each character to have psychoanalysis and with this, would be able to further analyze themselves. In psychoanalysis, there may be a part of us that is shy at times, while the other part of our personality is determined. This non-traditional narrative is extremely entertaining, as if the screen was being refreshed. I particularly liked how Cate Blanchet acted, because she showed a very interesting part of Bob Dylan’s life. I believe more movies should be made with this perspective; it can make it more attractive and interesting. I would have truly liked to meet Allan Ginsberg and had a conversation with him. Furthermore, I think it had an excellent ending by having the actual Bob Dylan playing Nr. Tambourine Man with his harmonica. This is a movie I would highly recommend this movie to numerous people, especially for his movie fans. It provides a witty and innovative way to portray his life on film.
Even after watching the trailer I still wasn’t quite sure what this movie entailed. After watching the entire film, I finally put all the pieces together and really loved this movie. This movie was similar to other movies such as Ray and Walk the Line. I really love the unique structure in which you have different parts making up the entire story. It is interesting how the film appeared to be a documentary, narrative, and a mockumentary all at the same time. It was also cool how some of the film was in black and white. It gave it a cool and unique look. Each actor plays different roles as Bob Dylan. I feel that I really got a sense of Bob Dylan’s life and his views of life.
ReplyDeleteEven though I like all six characters that embody Bob Dylan’s life, my favorite versions of Bob Dylan were Marcus Carl Franklin, who played Woody, and Heath Ledger, who played Robbie. I’ve always liked Bob Dylan’s music, however I never really got all of his songs meanings. After watching this movie I feel like I now better understand where his music is coming from. Bob Dylan never really sang for anyone else and was always a free spirit. I feel if I were to watch this movie again, I would get something completely new out of it. I would definitely recommend everyone see this film at least once.
I’m Not There was bit confusing, but re-watching the first part of the movie, I was able to understand that all of those characters and the things they did represented the all the different sides of Bob Dylan. I think I probably would have enjoyed the movie if I was a fan of Bob Dylan, but not knowing anything about him made it difficult to understand. I could understand what each of the characters were going though, but I didn’t know how that related to Bob Dylan which would be essential to understand the underlying meaning of the movie. For example, I understand the woman’s criticism that Woody should sing about problems of his time rather than about things irrelevant to his own generation. This is why in the beginning of the film when they flashed the different characters on the white screen, he was labeled as a fake. But I don’t know how this relates to Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that Cate Blanchett was cast as a man in the movie. She did an amazing job, but I’m not sure if that the fact that she is really a woman had some additional significance to the movie. Also, I think previous knowledge of the issues related to the war that Bob Dylan sang about would have made watching this movie more enjoyable for me.
I'm not there.
ReplyDeleteobjectively speaking, several Dylan is the best of the Christian Bale, although six actors are great, but he still stand out. Whether accent or accent, even the movements are like, the key only he is simply not to imitate, he brought to Dylan something, but is so convincing. But Cate Blanchett as a woman was upstaged the particularity of the, I think the second good is in "Woody Guthrie" black children.
Supporting role are all very good, almost robbed the main character of the play. Michelle Williams plays the Coco Levington is a big surprise. This role is almost Edie Sedgewick incarnate, Michelle show one thousand times stronger than the Sienna Miller, too the United States, too alike in spirit, compared with his husband Heath Ledger although part of many, but only know could show off, let me old think of brokeback mountain, a little than but he only two scene's wife. Charlotte Gainsbourg also is very good, she with co-star with Heath, her role of Dylan is innuendo Claire's ex-wife Sara Lowndes. The results I only remember her, not remember Heath performance have what window. Julianne Moore role very, very Joan Baez, this, put a little YingTing drew within in fits of laughter...... Because it's too like...... And they had and so don't like...
Feng Yang
ReplyDeleteC06087996
I’M NOT THERE (2007)
If you like Bob Dylan, you have to watch it! Even if you do not like Dylan, you will be in love with him after watching it! Another one that you will fall in love with is Cate Blanchett. The transformation that Todd Haynes did to Cate was unbelievable. Why is that? It is hard to believe that there was someone who can be shaped into generally anything in this world.
In this world, we have to be really careful to maintain our own existence of our souls. For most of us, it might be inevitable to lose our souls. We often forget about the joy of materialism, the initial direction of our soul and dreams. And Dylan is different, I remember something from his autobiography: "like a Rolling Stone" to my surprise, a lively splash of soul, trying to break through the paper, to occupy, to wake me up until I feel the long forgotten soul of was just around the corner. It is an attempt to germinate the seed, to be suddenly aware of the feeling of existence. The book, it worth it to read it repeated over time. I can recall that Dylan was complementing his wife, because she always has its own ideas that made her so different from other people.
This is a legendary figure, which is one of the most suitable interpretation of the figures in this way, because he seemingly fragmented life and a strange turning point, maze movieto the performance of a mystery, like the characters, at least formally,formed a fit. This man is the BOB DYLAN song from Forrest Gump BLOWING the IN THE WIND, began toknow of his existence, at home, he's an unplugged electric concert CD seems to never be found.
ReplyDeleteNever seen anything like this biopic, no, indeed, this is not a biography, more BOB'sconjecture about him at every stage of the state, the director has used six different names, probably deliberately Avoid cross-examination about the realism. State is reallyvery different ah, or hippie or implied, or jumping or warm interpretation of a variety of state actors is to describe the problem to convert to Christ stage BALE Impact upon -from the star, it has a kind temperament of the Gospel; KATE of firmness and flexibility is consistent with the contradictions of the characters; Richard Kiel, slightly shape much likea hermit master of some western ...
Away train ~ film there are many similar roads lead to Rome, close to the end, adecentralized BOB began to clear and complete, the final monologue of KATE andRichard Gere is very important is the understanding of the director. The ending reminded of the familiar LIKE A ROILING STONE, harmonica sound is still melodious, always put it simply, people are so rich, you can expand the unlimited power of the story and atmosphere.
As a fan of Bob Dylan, I was really looking forward to seeing I'm Not There. However after the film, I was left confused. I understand that every character was meant to portray a different side of Dylan, but I found this film extremely difficult to follow and interpret. Each performance was exceptional, my personal favorites have to be Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. This is honestly probably because their story lines were the only ones I could actually follow and understand. I really do appreciate the unique interpretation of Dylan's life. The idea of having multiple story lines to depict his complicated life is very unique and interesting, however I personally did not think it was executed clearly. Maybe I just need further explanation of what was going on in the film, but my personal expectations for the film were let down.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI’m not there
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching this film primarily because I’m such a big fan of Bob Dylan so I’m a little biased. I also never really had the time to research Bob Dylan’s live story either so I was very intrigued to see his journey to stardom. The use of the different time periods through his life allowed the audience to get a much better understanding of his life. However, it was someone difficult to stay completely focused on each story because the stories would be told at a fast pace. But not only did I like the film because of it’s main feature, it was amazing to see the various ages of Bob Dylan played by the different actors. It was a little confusing though to see six different actors playing the same role, and especially Cat Blanchet’s role as Bob Dylan. But I guess the point of it is that Dylan has many different personalities throughout his life. I actually thought the more important part of the movie was its focus on the actual music. The Dylan character within the movie always had his guitar with him, singing ballads and entertaining everyone throughout the various scenes.
Holly Bensur
ReplyDeleteC09668372
I’m Not There was by far my least favorite movie we watched in class. I found the plot very hard to follow (maybe because I do not know Bob Dylan’s story). It was chaotic and confusing, which made the overall view experience uninteresting.
Perhaps the most confusing concept was that the same part was played by many different actors (including different genders) and all had different story lines. Maybe if all the characters were a part of the same plot (not just paralleling aspects of Dylan’s life), then it would have been easier to follow. Or another way it could have been less confusing is if Dylan was played by one character and jumped from story to story consecutively instead of back and forth between all of them. Another way the story could have been clearer would be if the editors made sections before each story and said or wrote how that part related to a certain time in Dylan’s life.
I do think that the casting director chose a great variety of talented actors and actresses. I liked that I was familiar with people like Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bail and Richard Gere. For me, this component was the only aspect of the film that made it bearable to watch.
Going into watching I'm Not There, I expected a movie simply about Bob Dylan and his biography, and this film basically followed my expectations. Unfortunately, I do not like the music that Bob Dylan has done and don't know much about his life so I was a little lost in some parts of the movie. Although, I did enjoy how his life was broken up into different sections throughout the movie and even portrayed by different actors. I found this method of showing a person transition throughout their life effective and even interesting. Some directors like to use one actor and stage make up, and this method was refreshingly new to me. Overall, it was generally a good movie but only because Bob Dylan was such an influential person on our modern day music and culture. So many of his songs have been redone and remixed that its hard not to know any of his music, so I would recommend this movie to someone that really does enjoy his music and knows more about his life.
ReplyDeleteAlexandra Ball
C07809270
Im not there
ReplyDelete“Im not there” is a movie directed by Todd Haynes, which narrates the life of Bob Dylan through six different characters. I did like this movie, however I think it requires of a lot of attention due to the fact most of the components are not explicit. Which means you don’t quite get that the 6 different characters are portraying the life of a same person, in this case Bob Dylan. I consider that the production techniques were very interesting and in a certain way, they were unique. The director tried make of this movie a documentary meshing it with a different way of telling the story and that is what triggers the audience the most.
The movie deals with a constant premise which I personally like and it is: “People are always talking about freedom, freedom of live a certain way, off course the more you live a certain way the less it feels like freedom”. It focuses on how Bob Dylan had to act and live and adapt his actions to a certain way which disables him to be free. I think that happens to most of the celebrities when they become so public they have to accommodate their well being and their actions to some preexisting and acceptable behavior.
Ximena Manrique
I'm not that there is a bio pic that lost most of my interest from the very beginning. Sadly, this film was my least favorite film of the entire semester. It was difficult to follow along and to tell the truth I had no idea they were all the same person (Bob Dylan), until the class discussion! I believe what confused me was perhaps Cat Blanchet's character being intermingled with the characters.
ReplyDeleteI did however love the artistic vibe the film brought. Through music, black and white and color. A scene that I found to love was the scene where Michelle Williams and Cat Blanchet's character run into each other. The reason I like this scene looking back is they way both characters are polar opposite presentations of Bob Dylan, yet the same character. Although scenes like this also made confused, I would recommend this film to Bob Dylan lovers and those with a decent attention span.
I'm Not There
ReplyDeleteGaurav Dhiman
I found this film incredibly fascinating. It is like an expose the fascinating and towering of the public figure simply as "Bob Dylan." Understandably, this a very smart film. From the timeless music to the incomparable acting to the immeasurable film quality, very few films that I have watched this year in class could compare. Honestly, I love the fact that Bod Dylan, the true hero of this cinematic masterpiece, is mentioned only once, at the intro sequence. Most astoundingly, the film plays out as a story of his legendary life, but shown through lens of different actors playing out different aspects of his life, as interpreted from the perspective of different people who encountered Bob Dylan in their lives. The film is certainly a fresh take on the biopic genre. Imagine how a biopic on JFK would be if it took on the style of this film. Overall, the film, filmed beautifully in black and white, has a way of connecting the interviews with the fake Bob Dylan with the segments on different times in his life. The editing and sound in the film are nearly flawless, helping move along the film's narrative and thematic content very seamlessly. The narrative structure and cinematographic approach are very fresh and will be remembered for a long time to come. Although the film seemed a bit pretentious, it still was enjoyable and has led me to see Bob Dylan in a new light. Moreover, the film plays to my knowledge of psychology, namely that who we are is how we perceive ourselves, others perceive us, and how certain things will always unknown. The film really plays with perceptions of character and how our knowledge of anyone really is limited and inherently biased. Objectivity in film may really just be a misnomer.
As a massive Bob Dylan fan I found this movie incredibly painful to watch. Some of my favorite films are Bob Dylan documentaries because I find him to be such an incredibly interesting unique person and he is regarded as one of, if not the most important artist of the 20th century. I am a huge fan of Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary “Don’t Look Back” which follows Dylan on his 1965 United Kingdom tour and Scorsese’s “No Direction Home”. Many of the scenes in I’m Not There are direct interpretations of actual footage from the two previous documentaries so from my personal perspective a lot of the scenes lacked authenticity. The structure of the movie, although unique, just didn’t work for me. I found myself lost several times and questioning the significance of large portions of the movie. I also felt like the movie was unnecessarily long and it dragged on for over two hours with no apparent direction. Overall I expected more from the film and it definitely did not live up to its expectations in my eyes. The big-name acting cast and subject matter should have yielded a much better film than what I’m Not There turned out to be.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There is unlike anything movie that I've seen before, a very well done drama of the life of infamous singer Bob Dylan. In I'm Not There, six actors portray Dylan in completely different ways, representing different phases of his life and career. Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett, portray Dylan, though it's not a simple trade off as the film progresses. The stories work interchangeably and out of chronological order, and although they are all Dylan, they have different relationship and stay inside the realm of the time they are playing him.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that will really help you with I'm Not There is some knowledge of Bob Dylan's history. I don't know a thing about him and so I was fairly lost throughout the majority of the movie. The very fact that each representation of Bob Dylan had their own character name was confusing enough, let alone that it was unclear to determine which phase each actor represented.
My only major complaint about the film is that it drags on. While trying to wrap up every sub story is good, Haynes could have ended the film 30 minutes earlier and it would have been just as good.
I’m Not There is a film I normally would avoid but the way that Haynes did this movie made it a worthwhile film.
I did not particularly enjoy I’m Not There. While it’s interesting that the film didn’t follow a normal narrative structure, I felt that only hurt it when all was said and done. I didn’t know anything about Bob Dylan before the movie started, and after watching it, I feel as though I now know less about him than I did before. Dylan is portrayed by 6 different people throughout the film, 4 played by older men, 1 played by a woman, and another played by a young black man. While I thought this was a novel idea, I didn’t understand why the movie chose to do that. I didn’t feel that anything throughout the film gave the audience an understanding of why Dylan’s life was split into six representations. To be honest, if I wasn’t told at the start of the film that they were all suppose to be representing one man, I never would have guessed, because I thought that each character has very little to do with one another. I feel that wanting the audience to follow six separate stories is a bit too much. However; that’s not to say that some of the stories that were in here weren’t interesting. Richard Gere’s story was great to watch and was very well written. I also thought Cate Blanchett’s portrayal was well done, and I feel that story should have been the focus of the whole movie.
ReplyDeleteI'm Not There is a movie in its own unique genre. Blending music, documentary, drama and narrative, this movie is a very original piece. It was difficult to keep up with at times, and the multiple character story lines got confusing, but it was highly entertaining. One component of the movie that I thought made it very confusing was that some characters lived in the same timeline. Heath Ledger's incarnation of Bob Dylan portrayed Christian Bale's character in a movie. While some of the Bob Dylan incarnations lived in obviously different universes, others had very similar settings and led me to believe that they could possibly meet up or be involved in some way. Because the plot of the film is not in a linear progression, this makes it even more confusing when the film switches to a different universe. My least favorite incarnation of Bob Dylan was Arthur, the one being interviewed. I found this incarnation to be a bit out of place in the movie, and provided more of an overall narration than adding to the rest of the plot. While I enjoyed most of the other storylines, I thought the two best were the roles played by Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. Blanchett was a very unorthodox choice to portray a male incarnation of Bob Dylan, but embodied the role of a politically persecuted musician. Ledger's role was more fitting for him to play as he was an actor with a life that was falling apart. I thought this was a good film as a whole, but it could get confusing for those who are unfamiliar with the life of Bob Dylan. It is crucial to understand before watching the film that the movie follows the lives of different incarnations of Bob Dylan. It was a great watch, and completely steps outside of the lines of a music movie, making a quality movie in the process.
ReplyDelete"I'm not There" is the most exquisite works of one of Todd Haynes. According to the naked eye, with at least three different film shooting, there is so much star and ultra-luxurious soundtrack, the structure of an unprecedented complete
ReplyDeleteFruit to the film as bob dylan biopic, or even "documentary", then the first thing you have wrong. It does refer to a large number of historical facts, but the purpose never to tell you what life is, the implication is the meaning of the film bob dylan. It is not a biopic, Todd Haynes, telling the story by dylan is the generation of the complex. His ideal of dylan, like Rimbaud, as early as still a young man died.
Perhaps, I'm not There is the title itself, there is another layer of meaning - the na me, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, that Bob Dylan is gone.
Michelle Yidios
ReplyDeleteIm not there is a 2007 film directed by Todd Haynes. It is a musical biography inspired on the famous singer Bob Dylan. I think the movie was ok even though I do think you must be into the character and know a little about him before watching the movie. Not everyone is interested in Bob Dylan and this makes the audience limited. I personally am aware of him and I do like some of his music but I don’t know much about him. After watching the movie you get a sense of what his life was about. The story is told through six different characters. Singers and artist in general have a very active life and it can be very interesting but somehow I thought the movie was confusing, I don’t know if it is because I’m not much of a Bod Dylan fan or if it was just the narrative. What I did find really motivating is his music, it means so much and I has a deep meaning that I felt engaged to.
This was one of the most unique films I've ever seen. I love listening to Bob Dylan and so when I realized that this movie depicted his life, I was very excited to watch it. I came out satisfied. It was strange because six different actors played Bob Dylan. The beginning of the movie was very interesting. The first of the six actors, Cate Blanchett who is a woman, comes on stage and performs. It quickly cuts to his tragic death. I did not expect the movie to start off in such a dramatic way. However, I did like this start because it made me think of how great Dylan was.
ReplyDeleteThis movie was kind of confusing at times because Dylan had all these different personas that I lost track at times but then it was clear that a new actor was playing Bob Dylan.
You get different versions of Dylan with each character that plays him and I think that this is done perfectly. When Richard Gere takes over, Dylan is portrayed as a very conservative American on his horse in this small town. However, when Christian Bale plays Dylan, Dylan is portrayed as a more dark and ominous man.
I thought the director did a good job in deciding to keep jumping from the past to the present and to random junctures in Dylan's life. This kept the movie fresh and I couldn't wait to find out more about his life.
I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys listening to Bob Dylan because I now know so much more about his life and who he was as a person. I now enjoy some of his music that I didn't particularly like because I understand his life better.
I’m Not There
ReplyDeleteThis film was unlike almost any I have ever seen. I cannot even really think of something to compare it to. I really like the unique aspect they take in making this a documentary and also having so many actors each play Dylan really well and make the seamless transitions. I think not only age difference and style differences, but the director wanted to show that he did change themes so much it was almost different people. This also made a little bit confusing movie even a little more confusing. I would definitely have shorten this movie and feel parts were unnessacary.
I have always been a huge fan of Bob Dylan and was very excited to watch a musical film about his life. Dylan has been releasing influential songs since the 1960’s. Since then the music industry and Dylan himself have experienced to many changes it was almost necessary to have six actors depict different parts of his life. I feel to really enjoy the film you had to have some knowledge of Bob Dylan’s life. The parts I enjoyed the most were Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchet scenes. I understood what part of Dylan’s life they were representing and this allowed me to analyze Todd Haynes approach towards Dylan’s career. Cate Blanchet had one of the hardest roles as she had to convince the viewers that she was Bob Dylan even though her she was a woman in the film.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching I’m Not There I was curious to see some more of Haynes work. I watched Velvet Goldmine, which is based on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character. I found this film tougher to follow but it showed me that Haynes doesn’t document people lives in any conventional way. He looks at David Bowie’s life through a British journalist, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale). Although Hayne’s original biographical techniques are interesting and effective there were times in I’m Not There when I became confused with the constant changing of characters. This was probably because I don’t know everything about Bob Dylan’s life. However I feel that Todd Haynes should make it easier to understand because he can’t expect everyone to have an in-depth knowledge of Dylan’s life. The film impressed me although it is certainly not a film I would recommend on a movie night. In my opinion to truly enjoy the uniqueness of the film a firm understanding of Dylan’s life is required.
Nicholas Sando
C10186082
I’m not there
ReplyDeleteI’m not there is a very interesting and unique documentary film about music star Bob Dylan. I have never been a very large Bob Dylan fan but this movie brought me a new perspective on him as a person and artist. The documentary showed Dylan’s life and the many changes he went through. The maker of this film thought that Bob Dylan changed so much throughout his life that 6 different actors were used to portray him in the film. This is where the uniqueness comes in. I have never seen a movie where so many actors play one particular role. This came to me as a surprise and interested me a lot. Although I am not a Bob Dylan fan the actors they picked for each segment of his life seemed to fit very well and did a good job at portraying that certain segment. I wish I had known more about the history of Bob Dylan and his life experiences, as it would have made viewing this film a lot better. Nevertheless I still enjoyed watching the film and learning the life of such a unique person.
Erik Rueckle-c10166645
I’M NOT THERE – ERICA GOTTFRIED
ReplyDeleteI was intrigued by the idea/concept of this movie since the year it came out, mostly due to all the awards attention it seemed to be getting. Alas, it was one of those films that I said “That looks interesting,” but never actually got around to seeing. Lo and behold, I finally did, and it wasn’t bad. I will admit – my initial reaction to the film upon first learning about it was something along the lines of “huh?” Different actors playing Bob Dylan? Does it go in order, like is there a time-coherent sequence to it, or is it just like separate movies or just out of sequence order or what? However, I wanted to try and go into it with an open mind. After doing my best to shake those first-impression questions off before seeing the film, I was still predominantly curious overall about a film that had different actors playing the same people, with different styles present throughout the film, and what it would be like to see it all together and not just as clips at award shows. I found the film interesting, being a fan of many of the different actors to appear throughout it. I thought the performances were interesting to watch. The styles used were interesting as well - for example, I liked the use of black and white. I can see why it would get awards buzz. Overall, I found the film interesting on a stylistic perspective, as well as a watchable one.
I’m Not There was one of the more unique and interesting films I have ever seen, as it was done differently than any movie I can remember. The film is about the life of Bob Dylan, who while I enjoy his music, I am not a particularly a big fan of and therefore wasn’t too excited to see the movie. However, the way the film is done, with six different actors playing six different versions of Dylan (although none are direct portrayals of Dylan), including Cate Blanchette even playing one of the roles, which is obviously strange as it is a woman in a man’s role. I found all of the performances to be interesting to varying degrees, although they all intrigued me a bit, as some were very indirect portrayals of Dylan, like Gere’s Billy the Kid, and others, like Blanchette’s role, were much closer to reality. However, the challenging part of the movie for me was that many of the references to Dylan’s life were symbolic or indirect, it was hard to tell what was really a part of Dylan’s life and what was just part of that individual character’s story since I don’t have much background knowledge on Bob Dylan. Overall, while I don’t think it was perfect, it was an enjoyable way to make a biopic, especially for any audience unfamiliar with the title character.
ReplyDeleteI was a little nervous about seeing I'm Not There because I don't know all that much, if anything, about Bob Dylan. I still feel kind of indifferent about it as a whole, but that's mostly cause it felt hard to keep up with and it really lasted way too long. I felt an air of pretentiousness in watching it, like it's a film clearly made for serious Dylan fans. Maybe I just feel left out or something, but not following what might be a fantastic film is always a letdown. I absolutely adore Christian Bale and I'm sure I always will. I really looked forward to his and Heath Ledger's performances and I think they both did great jobs with their roles. Cate Blanchett also did really well, but I knew she would. I'm not much of a Todd Haynes fan either, so I guess all signs would point to not watching I'm Not There. I'm glad I had the exposure to it because it taught me more about Dylan's influence on music, which I've always wanted to explore. I probably wouldn't recommend this film to anyone... I'd tell them to watch Walk the Line instead.
ReplyDeleteI’m Not There was very interesting in terms of the idea behind the movie, which was to use six different characters to display different parts of Bob Dylan’s life. I figured this out after the movie. I thought the concept was very creative and it caught my attention. The movie follows the storylines of the different characters and cuts back and forth between them. This makes it a little hard to follow at times, especially since there were six different characters and story lines. However, the filming, editing, and acting were all great. I think it would have been helpful to have more background knowledge on Bob Dylan, because it was difficult to tie all of the different characters together and figure out what is going on. I liked how Bob Dylan’s music was played throughout the movie. It kept reminding me that it’s supposed to be his biography and I kept trying to make sense of it all.
ReplyDeleteThe movie I’m Not There gives insight into Bob Dylan’s life. The structure of the film is very different. It doesn’t follow the usual narrative techniques. There are different actors playing the same role at different stages of Bob Dylan’s life. The stories of the different actors intercut throughout the film. For example, one of the actors portrays Bob Dylan after his motorcycle accident. Another actor portrays him as the young Bob Dylan. The film cuts between the different stories and sometimes it cuts to old footage. Sometimes it is in color and sometimes it is in black and white. I think the movie is better understood if the viewer has an idea of Bob Dylan’s life. That way the viewer is able to comprehend the different aspects of his life being portrayed. I was not very knowledgeable about Bob Dylan; therefore, I was confused during some parts of the film. I think this film targets Bob Dylan’s fans and people who admire him and his music. Nevertheless, the film as a whole was enjoyable. I found out things about him that I didn’t know before watching this film and became more understanding of his lifestyle. I also acquired more appreciation for his music.
ReplyDeleteIf the movie I’m Not There was trying to show the many different sides and characters of Bob Dylan, it certainly succeeded in that. With its confusing yet original mixture of stories, six different incarnations of Bob Dylan paint a great picture of who the musician really was. Todd Haynes puts into this movie something not seen very often. Instead of one person having multiple personalities and interests, one person is divided into different characters each of them being that distinct personality or interest.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this movie stand out is the fact that there are six separate cast members that all play the same role, the same character, the main character. But how else do you represent someone who had so many different personalities and sides to who he was?
Even though the movie was hard to follow at times, it was great in its own weird way. Also, hearing Bob Dylan’s best songs was a great plus. The choice in making the movie in a documentary style was also great because it gave a sense of more reality to such a surreal movie.
I’m Not There
ReplyDeleteMatthew Head
Using different actors to display the six different Dylans is genius. I would have never thought to do this. The first movie that I thought of was The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Even though these movies are very very different, this is the only movie I have seen to use different actors for the same character. I enjoyed this movie so much because Bob Dylan is such a legend, even though I wish I had known more about Dylan before the movie. The film could be confusing at parts however I think that considering the different actors and different cuts and jumps it was done very well. This is such a creative take on a documentary. Even though I liked this movie it could have been a little shorter. I think if twenty minutes or so were cut off it would have helped other people in the audience keep focus .
I'm Not There:
ReplyDeleteAs a fan of Bob Dylan and his music, I had high expectations going into watching, I’m Not There. However, after leaving the screening, I was not fully impressed with what I saw. It was overall not that exciting or nearly as entertaining as I wanted it to be. There were many parts of the film that were quite slow and long and seemed like the director was just dragging scenes out sometimes. Movies are much clearer and concise when certain scenes are cut down, rather than elongated. Furthermore, I’m Not There does not do a good job with appealing to a mainstream audience. In order to understand the movie, it seemed as though the viewer needed to be a Bob Dylan expert. Much of the content was very specific. Although there were various negatives, my favorite part to the film was the soundtrack. There was absolutely excellent music, played by of course Bob Dylan, throughout the film. I’m Not There is a very segmented movie, which reflects one of the primary themes of how people are constantly changing at different points of their lives.
I’m Not There, a biographical film, focuses on the life of Bob Dylan. At first, I was completely confused as to what was occurring during the screening. I believe my confusion was due to the non-linear structure of the story. Although non-linear structures are usually effective in telling stories as if they were being recollected from the human mind, I believe this use of non-linear story telling lead to confusion. While telling six different stories, a non-linear progression makes sense; however, I believe it could been used in a more comprehensible fashion.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I did enjoy the fact that six different characters were used to tell Dylan’s story. In order to explain Dylan’s complex life, it must be broken up and personified by different characters and stories. Through each story, whether it may be Woody Guthrie or Jack Rollins, the audience takes away something that helps them to better understand the life of Bob Dylan. The audience is essentially being taken on a journey throughout different parts of Dylan’s life in which each story provides the audience with another piece to the puzzle. Together, when all the stories are combined, the six stories provide a great insight into the life of Bob Dylan.
Unconventional biopic of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, director Todd Haynes features different actors who play the part of the native Minnesota, at various times of his remarkable career. The actors who are playing as singer are Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Marcus Carl Franklin. Cate Blanchette portrays the man during his Don’t look Back era incarnation. Heath Ledger plays as an actor who is playing one of the fictional Dylans in a movie- within a movie. Christian Bale, is strongly associated with political causes plays as the Dylan beginning to chafe. Richard Gere portrays the period, which is post-motorcycle accident. Marcus Carl Franklin plays the role of a young Dylan who passed himself off as the second coming of Woody Guthrie. There is a different lead actor in every section of the film. Moreover, different looks that reflect the various aspects of popular culture are offered.
ReplyDeleteUnconventional biopic of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, director Todd Haynes features different actors who play the part of the native Minnesota, at various times of his remarkable career. The actors who are playing as singer are Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Marcus Carl Franklin. Cate Blanchette portrays the man during his Don’t look Back era incarnation. Heath Ledger plays as an actor who is playing one of the fictional Dylans in a movie- within a movie. Christian Bale, is strongly associated with political causes plays as the Dylan beginning to chafe. Richard Gere portrays the period, which is post-motorcycle accident. Marcus Carl Franklin plays the role of a young Dylan who passed himself off as the second coming of Woody Guthrie. There is a different lead actor in every section of the film. Moreover, different looks that reflect the various aspects of popular culture are offered.
ReplyDeleteI was rather perplexed by the film I'm Not There. I'm not very aware of Bob Dylan and his life, so I sort of missed that part of the story, which was apparently fairly central to the film, and instead saw only the separate storylines weaving within one another. All of the stories were rather interesting, all having to do with a different aspect of society. On the whole, I thought the movie was fairly decent, but I think I missed out on a lot by not understanding what a majority of the film had to do with Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteIt was boring when I first saw this film. That is because I don’t know anything about Bob Dylan or his songs. I realized through this film that it is really important to understand the background knowledge when it comes to watching the movie about one character which is based on real persons. I was very confused during watching the film, there were so many people to understand the relationships between characters and it didn’t help me to grasp the idea of movie. But it was interesting Dylan was portrayed by a woman actor, Cate Blanchett. I think it is great trial that the director used many actors who actually act one character however, a lack of consideration made me run out of the room while the movie was going on.
ReplyDeleteIt teaches me the importance of acquiring the knowledge about the movies beforehand and patience while understanding whole story of the films.
I enjoyed this movie. I was interesting how the different story lines played into each other. Lokking back on Bob Dylan, we see a human being who's music defied time. But at the same time his music was so pertinent to the day at hand. And in this film these multiple portrayals of Dylan, create a larger than life feeling to Dylan. Like a person who could not be defined by one actor, or storyline. I defiantly could not see this film being made any other way. If only one actor played dylan, that would be weird.
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan is one of the greatest musicians of all time and this movie does a great job in doing him justice. Although it wasn't as "rockstar" or crazy as I wanted it to be it did portray the importance of music and the effects Bob Dylan had. The fact that 6 different actors played Bob Dylan was a unique thing to see and allowed me to see Bob Dylan in different lights. I am glad I was able to see this movie because I had never heard of it before. Overall it was a little boring but its unique style and interesting topic kept me watching the whole time.
ReplyDeleteI truly enjoyed I’m Not There. The film is made to look as if it were a documentary, interviewing the characters. I think this aided the viewer in keeping track of who’s-who as it can get confusing at times since Bob Dylan is being represented by several different characters. The film was beautifully done, and unique- to say the least. At time’s however, I found myself somewhat lost and feeling as though one must be a true Bob Dylan fan to fully appreciate the movie for the purpose it was made. However, we are presented with a biographical component to help us “non-Dylan die-hards” get in on the know. My favorite part of how the movie was done was the literal use of several different characters to represent the multi-faceted life of Bob Dylan. Although the way the movie was set up using different characters to help us better get a grasp of the complex Bob Dylan, it did not hurt the those who were helping to portray him did so fantastically. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Charlotte Gainsburg, Richard Gere, Marcus Franklin, and Ben Whishaw all did a phenomenal job in making this “mockumentary” come to life.
ReplyDelete"I'm Not There" was probably one of the most confusing movies that I have seen in a long time. I did not know very much about Bob Dylan prior to viewing the film and felt that I didn't learn anymore after watching the film. I found the use of six different actors to portray aspects of Dylan's life to be interesting, but left me pretty confused for about half the film. It took me awhile to get used to the constant switching back and forth of characters. Most of the time I didn't even understand what was happening. I will give the director credit for such a unique idea, it was probably better received by Bob Dylan fans. I read a little about him after watching the movie and thinking back on the scenes they made a lot more sense and I could understand what the director was going for. I think all the actors did a superb job portraying their characters, especially Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. I found the story of Robbie Clark to be the most interesting to watch. I would have actually enjoyed that story expanded on and made into an entire movie in itself. I thought that the struggling relationship between him and his wife made a good story to watch. I found the switching from color to black and white to be a bit distracting. I would have preferred to watch it entirely in one or the other. I also found the switching to interview style to be a little strange. Julianne Moore's character didn't really serve much purpose in my opinion. I thought the music in the movie was done really well. The songs were used magnificently to match each scene of the film. Although the movie left me a little confused I can definitely appreciate the inventiveness of the film. I think that if I was a Dylan fan or at least knew some prior background information I would have understood and enjoyed the film a lot more.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Kaminski - C09409163
ReplyDeleteI'm Not There is an interesting movie. The format to tell this, or rather, these stories is distinctive. The multiple story lines keep you intrigued. My personal favorite is the young boy. Christian Bale also does a really good job in this movie. I am used to him being in roles such as American Psycho and Batman, however, this was a nice change of pace and I think he did a very nice job in his portrayal. Cate Blanchet also does amazing playing her character. The fact that she plays a man is astounding as I did not even realize it was her until about halfway through the movie. The interview styles throughout the films are really fun in that they give great insight into what normal people thought of Bob Dylan at different times in his career. Though this is an untraditional method for a biopic, I did really enjoy this movie. It is quite insightful into the many various aspects of Bob Dylan's life. The constant Dylan music in the background and foreground is enjoyable and keep the proper mood for each scene. Overall, I really liked this movie, though it is not my typical kind to watch. The format, music, and mix of color and black and white all blend nicely together to educate the viewer of the career of Bob Dylan.
I'm Not There
ReplyDeleteI found this film magnificent. The many different people playing the role stress the many alter egos that inhibit this richly complex character. The character's speed and marijuana usage give the whole movie a very dreamlike state. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, and newcomer Marcus Carl Franklin all show themselves to be very adept at playing the role.
I feel like some of the scenes contribute to the film, that much more when watching it. There is a scene in which they were at a party, and in this room that was shaped like a cube, and the walls were projecting video. Anyway, as Dylan (Blanchett) who was REALLY messed up at the time, went further and further in the rambling and the craziness, the screen showed images that reflected her tone. As he got worse, the images would get faster and/or stranger. At one point Dylan is yelling at his friend. And on the walls, we see video of Dylan freaking out, and spinning around. Then flipping off the cameraman, and dancing. The music supported the tone of the scene, as well. Overall, I enjoyed this film eventhough I never really had much background of Bob Dylan.
Michael Lerer
ReplyDeleteI really liked the concept of the movie I’m Not There. The idea of using six different people to represent the different aspects of one man is genius. It is true that any person is too hard to describe with just one description. This concept is even truer for someone as diverse and complex as Bob Dylan. This movie solves that problem by simply using six very different characters to show every aspect of Bob Dylan’s personality and his life. The story starts with a young Marcus Carl Franklin playing a young Dylan who hasn’t quite found himself yet. He finds himself writing music for country singers and playing songs about days long before his own. This is changed when he is confronted about how he ignores the current age and only plays older music.
From there it shows the different stages of his life. This going from the years where he sung about change and religion; as shown by actor Christian Bale. Then to the days he was booed for plugging in and changing from folk. This is shown by actress Cate Blanchett. I really enjoyed watching this movie because of the amazing acting if not just for the pure ingenuity of the idea.
The actors in this film is what drew me to it because I knew a film featuring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere, had to be one that had a lot to offer. Secondly, the film also intrigued me because it was based on Bob Dylan's life and music. The fact that Blanchett was able to mimic Dylan's look, mannerisms, and even the way he speaks, is somewhat amazing because it's rare that a female can depict a male this well. To play devil's advocate, it could be said that Blanchett's performance didn't present Dylan as a creative soul, the performance solely depicted him as a performer. The best part about this film is that it's not your typical format, and this is what kept me intrigued because I was eager to see where it was headed. I thought this was definitely a fun and enjoyable film.
ReplyDeleteI'm Not There
ReplyDeleteKate and the actress who played the guy's wife is good. This is the two actors I felt most impressive n this movie. They are both women. This role is independent, strong, and never lost. She has a very strong soul. The reasons she chose to abandon the men are so unique - I'm leaving you because I love you, I do not want to be your burden.
Kate has been learning to have a mode like Dylan, that the similarity is amazing. But when she sat in the car, Zhaixiamojing, you can not reuse the physical simulation, only this face when she is after all just Kate. That was the end of the film, Dylan said the significance of the music, it is faith, it is a nanny, it is no longer confused. Finally, she playfully looking at the camera, meaningful eye, it is a woman, played by a male mockery, as if to say, look, this is Dylan, in fact, this is me. Perfect ending. Body and soul with the role of one, but might as well give it to add a little naughty rhyme. In reality and the spirit world, free shuttle, that is, the actors in this fascinating work. This Dylan is Dylan, but also Kate. While women are often surprising, when she abandon the vain and hypocritical, she may be more powerful than men.
I’m not there
ReplyDeleteDirector Todd friendly show originality, in order to fully deconstruction Bob's inner world, using a 6 different actors of different period and different character's Bob to deduce, in combination with the documentary form as well as a number of expressional gimmick, make movies in reality and nothing (Bob inner change) trainwas travelling between, so to some extent, this is not an ordinary biography movie. If not known as Bob dylan and that history want to further understand the obscure characters and events is still need to spend some time.
And there are Six actors to play Bob dylan's different stage, because this is a complex music life.
Kate in the stage began her career should be his most rebellious the most wonderful life memories. The plot of the film with a bad, but that it may be the director style or intention, there have a sense of humor, and also have every meaningfully-interweaved.
I’m Not There was a very intriguing film. It was made as a documentary using numerous actors to play the role of Bob Dylan at different times in his life. One of the pitfalls of this film was I felt that I was a step behind trying to analyzed what I had just watched when it skips ahead and I’m forced to process new material. I do know some of Bob Dylan’s life, but was unaware of many portions in the film. Unlike a conventional documentary that might walk you through it all I’m Not There thrusts you into the life of Bob Dylan.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed what Todd Haynes did with this film. He took a risk and instead of giving you a spoon-fed documentary puts an artistic twist and uses the medium of film with different actors, colors, types of shots, shot length to really make a unique film. I don’t think his goal was to educate you on all things Bob Dylan, but rather give you a taste of his life to exemplify what kind of man he is.
I found this film to be a little drawn out. The concept of Bob Dylan living through the different characters was a good idea, but I felt as if the whole story was relentlessly pounding on that one concept. And the lengthy duration of the film didn't help that.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Bob Dylan was living through people of all different ages, genders, and colors was cool, though. It was nice how the film portrayed Dylan's music as being able to relate to everyone, and ultimately bring them together. And it was very entertaining to see the multiple sides of Bob Dylan demonstrated by these contrasting characters.
I’m not there is an interesting film because of its structure. At times it feels like a documentary, at times a bio-pic, and at times like your typical hollywood movie. I’m not there uses this and the six actors who portray Dylan to show an important message, how deep the character of Dylan is. By six different actors playing Dylan it allowed to show many different sides of him. Dylan shouldn’t be thought of as one of the actors that played him, but rather by a sum of all of their parts comprising who the real Bob Dylan was. I think one particular performance that should be singled out was Cate Blanchett, because not only is she a woman she showed a sort of deep side to Dylan in the 60s that was very interesting and quaint side to him
ReplyDeleteThis format and structure also lends itself for repeated viewings. Not being a Bob Dylan fan myself, there were some instances where I did not completely follow what was going on, but given repeated viewing I believe there would be a better sense of what was going on. And therefore have a better understanding of the means of the plot and the purposes and directions of the movie.
I’m Not There
ReplyDeleteC04997305
I’m Not There tells the story of Bob Dylan by dividing the man himself into six different personas, each portrayed by a uniquely different character. The film opens with the persona of Woody a young African American boy who represents the Bob in his naïve days as a troubadour singing songs without having yet taken a social stance. We are then introduced to Henry Rollins (Christian Bale) the folk singer who rises to fame in Greenwhich Village singing folk songs of social political importance that drove Bob out of anonymity. Robbie played by Ledger presents the star persona portraying Dylan at the epitome of his popularity, while Jude (Blanchett) portrays Bob’s persona at one of his lowest points dealing with the backlash of a change in his creative style (transition from folk to rock). Billy (Gere) represents Dylan’s plunge back into anonymity in order to protect himself from the outside world. Whishaw’s character of Arthur to me represents Dylan’s current persona and ties all the others together.
Overall I feel Haynes does a superb job of dividing and tackling the different personas that make up the enigma that is Bob Dylan. The characters of Woody and Jude, portrayed by a young African American and a woman, add to the idea of Dylan’s diverse identity. The film is a nice bend of biopic and art piece that is new and refreshing. I greatly enjoyed I’m Not There and feel that Haynes and the cast did great interpretation of Dylan.