‘Will Going Electric Sink like a (Rolling) Stone?’
In the landscape of formulaic Hollywood music biopics, the quest to capture the irreverent and genre-bending life of Bob Dylan has been something of a holy grail. Scorsese documentaries No Direction Home and Rolling Thunder Revue have interspersed concert performances with backstage moments that never truly seem to penetrate Dylan’s intense mystique, while the faux-biopic I’m Not There split the singer into his many lives in a surrealist attempt to portray Dylan the rebel, poet, prophet, and martyr.
Next up to bat is James Mangold’s Going Electric, starring everybody’s favourite pair of French cheekbones Timothée Chalamet, who recently revealed the brave decision to do his own singing in the film. Not that this is uncommon, with Taron Egerton revealing his golden pipes to the world in Rocketman, but it raises the question of whether anyone could do justice to the effusive character of Dylan, and the unique, easily-imitable-but-never-perfect timbre of his voice.
This isn’t Mangold’s first foray into the world of controversial singers, with 2005’s Walk the Line lauded for its portrayal of the demon-stricken Johnny Cash, but history is in danger of repeating itself when it comes to the film’s faults. Some critics believed it undermined the socio-political, left-leaning reasons Cash dressed as the Man in Black in favour of a cookie-cutter Hollywood romance. While the performances were praised, the script precipitated the declining critical favour of the flashy, inspirational biopic – with Baz Luhrmann’s recent Elvis castigated for its shallowness. Will Going Electric be able to offer a fresh take on the well-worn biopic path?
Then there’s the issue of Dylan himself: how best to portray the illusive storyteller? The unconventional narrative structure of I’m Not There depicted different facets of Dylan through six separate characters, with Cate Blanchett’s Jude Quinn receiving the most screentime of them all. The face worn by Quinn is that of the mid-60s Dylan, deep into his turn away from folk ‘protest music’ and towards the jangly electric rhythms of Like a Rolling Stone. Fans and critics alike questioned the authenticity of Dylan’s commitment to peace, and Blanchett’s shaking, half-arthritic insomniac depicts the identity crisis that followed. Her jumpy, fork-tongued answers to journalists portray guilt-by-omission, a martyr unwilling to be pinned down and caged. Dreams and visions feature heavily here, the surrealist structure reflecting Dylan’s own shifting self-narratives, the complex interrelation of public perception and personal performance. At one point, the singer is a balloon helplessly swaying in the wind, tied to the earth with a thin cord. In another scene, the hallucinatory torment of journalist Keenan Jones (Bruce Greenwood) is soundtracked by Dylan’s haunting blues-rock tune Ballad of a Thin Man – itself an attack on misunderstanding critics. These are the offbeat, unusual stylings required in any attempt to tackle Dylan – especially during the turbulent time that Going Electric demonstrates a desire to depict. So, will a straightforward biopic approach pay off?Physically, Blanchett’s androgynous and pale-skinned Quinn adds depth to the role, with the incongruity of the gender swap further destabilising the straightforward image of Dylan – as a man, a folk singer, an activist. Her performance exudes vulnerability, not just through the delivery of evasive wit and incensed rage, but in the soft eyes often covered by blackout sunglasses, or the oral fixation of Quinn the nail-biter and chain-smoker. Chalamet possesses the sharp face and stickman appearance of early Dylan, but whether he can portray the character without stooping to Hollywood sentimentality or, worse, a cartoonish caricature, will be a matter of sensitive scriptwriting and direction. Going Electric may prove to be as divisive as Dylan’s own turn.
Featured image credit: Rowland Scherman, Wikimedia Commons
