Chalamet faces the music
HOW THE A-LISTER TOOK BOB DYLAN LIVE AND LOUD FOR A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
WORDS IAN FREER
FOLLOWING HIS OSCAR-WINNING Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, co-writer-director James Mangold carried over one mandate for new Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. “I expect my actors to play and sing live on camera,” he says simply. So, while in wide shot or seen from behind, Timothée Chalamet, who plays Dylan, could mime along to the track — but when the camera was on his face, the actor had to do the singing and guitar-strumming thing for real.
“For 90 per cent of the film, it’s a single human’s musical expression,” Mangold explains, in reference to the fact that whereas Johnny Cash played with a band, Dylan is a solo artist. “To try to do that in the default setting of musical filmmaking, where everything is pre-created and played back, is antithetical to the authenticity and live feeling you want inside the music.”