Todd Haynes directs with a split personality.
***image1***The title of the new Bob Dylan sort-of-biopic,
I'm Not There
, is made up entirely of what linguists refer to as indexical expressions. The meaning of the words "I'm" and "there" cannot be determined without knowing the context of their utterance. Who, exactly, is where, precisely? Indexical expressions are evasive, mutable words that become solid for an instant and then, like a slinky black cat, retreat again to the intangible shadows.
The same slipperiness is true, of course, of the iconic artist himself and, perhaps even more so, of the film. Directed and co-written by Todd Haynes (
Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine
), I'm Not There only mentions the name "Bob Dylan" once, at the outset, in tiny print that reads, "Inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan." Haynes is not trying to solve the Dylan riddle (though in fact, one of the film's locations is a fantasy town called Riddle), nor reconstruct and synthesize these many lives into a coherent whole. Instead,
I'm Not There
is a 2½-hour sprawling, messy, maddening pastiche of styles and segments, each one letting one of Dylan's many lives live.
Haynes accomplishes this fractured free-play-and, indeed, it is accomplished-by having six actors enact six different angles of Dylan. These angles range from the oblique (Marcus Carl Franklin as a prepubescent black boy calling himself Woody), to what can only be described as impersonation (a fine turn by Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn). Blanchett's Dylan is in a drugged-out, antisocial-London-socialite phase. There's also the unfortunate: Richard Gere. Gere plays an aging Billy the Kid, a nod to Dylan's role in Sam Peckinpah's
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
, as well as to Dylan's uncomphrehensibleness. Gere's segment is one of those noble and interesting ideas that winds up becoming tedious to ingest.
***image2***The strongest portions, by far, belong to Blanchett-and not merely because her cheekbones lend her a decisive edge in credibility. Her screen presence has never been stronger and, dare I say, sexier. Particularly captivating are the interactions between her character and a skeptical British journalist who represents the collective impulse to pin Dylan, like a fluttering butterfly, to the Styrofoam of his past, and to place him neatly within a display case of descriptive labels.
I'm Not There
is the sort of movie that deserves either four viewings or none at all. Haynes' amalgam is truly brilliant but, like Dylan's wild mane, its frazzled, all-over-the-place qualities will strike some as sloppy and others as the very structure of genius. Which is to say, the "I" in "I'm Not There" might very well refer to you.
