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‘A Complete Unknown’ Fact vs. Fiction: Bob Dylan Experts Go Deep on What’s True or Fanciful in the Celebrated Biopic
What's real or fictionalized in the Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown'? Several experts, including the author of the source book, go into detail.
Mangold recently told Variety that the film is “not a Wikipedia entry” and he didn’t feel a fealty to a documentary level of facts — but also pointed out that, besides relying on Wald’s book and other historical source material, he based his version of the script (co-written with Jay Cocks) on many hours he spent personally talking with Dylan. They miss the emotional punch of James Mangold’s poignant Hollywood movie.” And Ronee Blakley, a veteran of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, wrote, “I am happy for Bob to be so carefully portrayed that his legacy stirs excitement today just as it did then, his magic and greatness self-evident and timeless. Browne’s “Talkin’ Greenwich Village” book says that early Dylan gigs found him “awkward and out of place one moment, assured and in command the next,” with a co-manager of the Gaslight saying he was initially “disastrous” and a Daily News reporter saying he “left the stage to the sound of perhaps one hand clapping.” Certainly Shelton, Albert Grossman, Joan Baez, et al. were never in the same room on the same night, as portrayed.
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