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When I worked at Des Moines Christian radio station in the early 1980s, Bob Dylan had recently recorded some contemporary Christian music that was played on our station.
Dylan is a musical icon. He was known initially for folk music, which is where the recent film is focused.
The movie opens with Dylan traveling half-way across the United States, from his home-state of Minnesota to New York City to see Woody Guthrie, the man who gave folk music an identity. It's there he meets Pete Seeger, another well-known folk singer. The two see a lot of promise in Dylan and Seeger opens some doors that Dylan's talent uses to make a name for himself.
It's a movie, so it seems like the singer arrives in New York and becomes a star, it undoubtedly took a fair amount of time before Dylan became an overnight sensation.
Where the movie shines is with the actors portraying many of the singers, including Seeger, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash. Timothy Chalamet plays Dylan, learning to play the guitar and harmonica for the part and becomes Bob Dylan. Again, I'll defer to historians on this, but he comes across authentically, especially when it comes to music.
Dylan's been a major figure in American music for decades, this film takes a look at just one section of that. When Dylan met Seeger and Guthrie, Seeger tried to explore where Dylan stood on other types of music, referring to folk as being the best, and at the time Dylan expressed appreciation for other genres.
That was a nice bit of fore-shadowing as Dylan surprised, shocked, and disappointed folk purists at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he chose to play an electric guitar instead of an acoustic one.
That's where the movie ends, and I'm guessing a lot of viewers will be like me, interested in listening to more of Bob Dylan's music.
The movie is rated R for language. It's a very good movie, I expect to see it winning several awards over the next few months, see it when you can.
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