‘A Complete Unknown’ Director James Mangold on Consulting With Bob Dylan, Adoring Pete Seeger and Why Newport ’65 Was Like ‘Thanksgiving Dinner Gone Amuck’

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Something is happening here and, given the hoopla over “A Complete Unknown,” probably even Mr.

Jones has an idea what it is: Bob Dylan mania. Thanks to James Mangold’s new film, America is currently experiencing a spike of collective fascination with Dylan that probably hasn’t peaked quite this high since 1965, when the events of the biopic wrap up.

Thankfully, “A Complete Unknown” has turned out to be a thoughtful treatment as well as a crowd-pleasing one that, against most odds, seems to be equally bowling over deeply Dylan-informed boomers and younger audiences that might have Timothée Chalamet as their first point of entry into this world. (The film has accrued a 96% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and when Cinemascore pollsters asked “How does it feel,” the response was a solid A grade.) As a filmmaker, Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “Logan”) doesn’t try to solve the mysteries of Dylan for moviegoers.

But it appears he’s given them something they like even better than easy psychological tropes: electricity. Variety talked with Mangold about the challenges in structuring the screenplay (which he took over from initial writer Jay Cocks); what happened when he spent 18 hours personally talking with Dylan; his direction of award-contending performances from Chalamet, Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro; and, surprisingly, how Pete Seeger was as much of a youthful hero to him as Dylan. For some of us who didn’t think there could ever be a convincing, realistic portrayal of Dylan on screen, and one that works for people as a movie, there’s a feeling that you’ve pulled off the impossible. Well, I think some people were so convinced it’s not possible, they’re.