interview - TODD HAYNES
Some Assembly Required
How do you capture a life as multifaceted as Bob Dylan’s? I’m Not There director Todd Haynes decided to take the rock icon apart and cast six actors to play him at different points of his life
By Ingrid Randoja
Audacious. Mesmerizing. Confusing. Really confusing. Prepare to be amazed by director Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan bio-pic I’m Not There, which turns the standard bio-pic on its head and upside down.
Haynes, whose movies include the glam-rock drama Velvet Goldmine and the luscious, 1950s-set weepy Far from Heaven (which garnered him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination and star Julianne Moore one for Best Actress), decided the only way to tell the elusive musician’s story was to mix ’n’ mash the various periods of his life, and to have six different actors — Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw — portray him. Then, just to make things interesting, Haynes has each Dylan manifestation go by a different name, and he’s filmed each segment of the singer’s life in a different style, one reflecting the era in which it takes place.
If it sounds weird, well it is. But it’s also very captivating and surprisingly funny.
“The film has a lot of wit and playfulness,” says the 46-year-old in an interview at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where I’m Not There had both audiences and critics buzzing. And it’s that mischievousness that Haynes feels Dylan himself will appreciate. “I think it’s the reverence, it’s the worshipping, it’s the overestimation of every step he’s taken that just must drive the guy crazy and bore him to tears.”
What compelled you to make a movie about Bob Dylan?
“The Bob Dylan idea kind of presented itself as a no-choice situation. All of a sudden he came back to me like some phantom and really just lifted me up by the collar and pulled me back into his world. Now I know I’m giving all the agency to a phantom Dylan when it was, of course, me who was doing that, but I don’t quite know why and I couldn’t really explain why, except that a big life change followed that experience. I left New York and moved to Portland. It was weird, Dylan became a symptom of a need for change and a need for locomotion, like the desire to be excited and not afraid to make changes.”
And the form your movie takes — such as different actors playing Dylan — embraces the fact you really can’t pin Bob Dylan down.
“Yeah. It says that loud and clear and off the top, but it also says that not only is that okay, that’s interesting, and that’s more interesting then claiming to know somebody and put him in a knowable container.”
Right, one of the things bio-pics love to do is find that defining moment in a person’s life.
“Exactly. My mother sanitized my body and now I’m a crazy rich person [laughs]. You can’t do that to anybody, and I always think, aren’t all of us a collection of different people?”
Was it easy to get the actors on board and have them share your vision?
“So easy, so easy. Regardless if they liked me and my films, or liked Dylan and his music, the script was unlike anything anyone had seen before and it was a complete and total risk — creatively and in every possible way. These actors didn’t think twice about taking that risk on, it’s so cool. It’s really a great message about working actors today.”
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Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There
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Cate Blanchett has, in a way, the easiest part, playing Dylan in
his electric “rock star” period, but it’s also perhaps the hardest part
because the “rock star” concept is riddled with clichés.
“I agree, it was really hard. It was hard just simply as a physical
challenge, and the chance of it being considered a sort of stunt, or
distracting, a kind of clever idea that the audience never gets past.
But you do, and it’s amazing. And that’s because of two things. First,
I saw from the outside that physically it would work, seeing, in fact,
the resemblance between Cate and Dylan to be kind of uncanny. But Cate
knew from the inside, she knew the important thing was getting inside
this character and finding his vulnerability despite his unbelievable
powers at that particular time and the fear he could generate. She knew
how to really get past the surface and I think it was the combination
of those two things that makes it work so well.”
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Did the actors see each others’ performances?
“They didn’t. They didn’t ask to, it was sort of logistically impossible. Heath was able to watch some of the dailies, but I think more just to watch the filmmaking and the style, the visual sensibility of the film. He kind of comes to film with that interest and ability, he’s actually a very gifted filmmaker himself.”
There are people walking around who’ve never heard of Dylan...
“[interrupting]...except they’re called Dylan! It’s so funny, if you Google ‘Dylan’ you’ll get tons of pictures of Bob Dylan and then you’ll get tons of babies, zillions of little babies, Dylan Rosenfeld, Dylan Bloomberg, Dylan Smith. It’s very funny.”
The question is, will people who’ve never heard of Dylan, or who don’t like his music, enjoy the film?
“Well, people who aren’t particularly Dylan fans, and in fact people who don’t particularly care for Dylan, have seen the film and have loved the music. That’s because the musical tapestry is much broader than just Dylan recordings, and the variations of approach to Dylan compositions is pretty vast in film, including Iggy and the Stooges, Sonic Youth, so it really opens him up — gospel songs, folk songs and rock songs — so hopefully that will be a larger net for people who don’t really know Dylan or ascribe him to their parents’ record collection.”
Were you worried about being too inside, thinking maybe only some of the audience will get all the references and jokes?
“I think that’s okay.... It’s almost like Dylan’s music...I don’t get all the lyrics, I don’t get what he means all the time, all the references, what’s from the Bible, what’s from William Blake and what’s from Arthur Rimbaud, but I don’t care. If you approach the movie almost like it’s a piece of music, where your gut is carrying you through it more than your head, I think it’s probably the best way to enjoy it.”