A Complete Unknown (2024) Details: This is a biographical drama that follows a 19-year-old Bob Dylan as he arrives in New York City in 1961, chronicling his meteoric rise and the relationships he forms with musical icons, culminating in groundbreaking performances that reverberate around the world. The film has a runtime of 2h 21m. The film has received an IMDb rating of 7.6/10 from approximately 38K votes.

A Complete Unknown Movie Info:

• Title: A Complete Unknown
• Director: James Mangold
• Genre: Docudrama, Period Drama, Biography, Drama, Music
• Writers: James Mangold, Jay Cocks, Elijah Wald
• Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning
• Release Date: 2024
• Runtime: 2h 21m
• IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
• IMDb Votes: 38K

Bob Dylan: The Complete Unknown

This story begins with a young man who arrived on the New York City folk music scene in the early 1960s. He was a complete unknown. But his music changed the cultural history of America. This story is the story of Robert Allen Zimmerman, who we know as Bob Dylan.

One day, a young Bobby Dylan visited the hospital where the famous singer Woody Guthrie was. He came to see Woody to get his inspiration. “I need to catch a spark,” he said. The famous folk singer Pete Seeger was there. After they met, Pete introduced Bobby to the folk music community in New York.

When Bobby first sang on stage at Folk City, Pete said of him: “A few months ago, Woody and I met a young man. He just kind of came over to us and sang a song for us. It really blew us away. Woody and I saw that we were seeing a new way.”

Bobby became famous in the folk community in New York. He began a romantic relationship with a young woman named Sylvie. They lived together. Sylvie was special to him. She was more studious and sophisticated than Bobby. She criticized his pride and insincerity. “You’re like a stranger. I can hardly recognize you. Your driver’s license has a different face. It has a different name,” she said.

Then Bobby met folk star Joan Baez. She was already famous – she had even been on the cover of Time magazine. Their relationship was complicated. They sang together, toured together, but Bobby didn’t give her his whole heart. John once asked, “Why did you come here? Let me see what you write?” She realized he was using her fame.

As he got older, Bobby became more and more self-centered and unique. He wrote his own songs, some of which were included on his album ‘Freewheeling Bob Dylan’. He rejected the label “folk singer”, refusing to limit his music to a genre.

But the most important moment came at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. After a conversation between Pete Seeger and Bobby, Bobby decided to replace his traditional folk songs with rock songs with electronic instruments. He took the stage amid chants of “Kill them, boys. This is Newport”. Some expressed their disapproval by shouting “Judas!”.

But Bob Dylan’s words from the stage went down in history: “Turn up the volume!” He was decisive about the new direction of his music. With the song “Like a Rolling Stone,” he created a significant moment in rock music history. In that moment, he completely broke away from his folk past and introduced the world to a new Bob Dylan.

Ultimately, Bob Dylan carved out a niche for himself in the folk music world. He never confined himself to one genre or label. He sought “freedom” – as John Beze would eventually say.

The world was changing at the time. Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X was assassinated, there was the Vietnam War, and the threat of nuclear war. “You can’t just write songs about ghost balls and Johnny Appleseed anymore,” Bobby told Sylvie. His music reflected those changes.

Bob Dylan’s story is one of identity, creativity, and change. He said of his future, “I want to be a musician. Someone who can eat.” He went beyond that dream, becoming recognized as one of the most influential musicians in the world, and eventually winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.

Johnny Cash told him, “Make a sound, make a mess of the carpet.” That’s what Bob Dylan did – he broke the conventions of the music world, found his own path, and that path has been followed by generations.

Perhaps, the unknown fullness is the deeper truth that runs through the things we usually see, but we don’t see. Bob Dylan opened himself to that aspect of reality. He translated it into music, turning ordinary life into profound art.

Before the 1965 Newport concert, Pete Seeger told Bob Dylan a parable: “We fill it with teaspoons of sand, and the sand flows. But enough people fill it all at once in one day, and the whole thing falls apart.” Bob Dylan replied, “While they were filling it with teaspoons, I filled it with a shovel.” That was the essence of Bob Dylan’s life – challenging the system, finding his own way, and changing the history of music forever. That is the fullness of the unknown.