Make acting great again: "Greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that."

"I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight...."

Humility is the go-to tone for awards accepting, and Timmy eschewed it. He came right out and said he's aiming for greatness. "I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to be, but... I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero...."

I hear Timmy's speech as part of the new masculine pride, which I associate with Trump and those in his vicinity, which is not Hollywood. But it belongs in Hollywood, and Timmy's a good exemplar of hard work and aspiration to greatness. It's okay again — isn't it? — to strive to achieve.

"It would be disingenuous to my uh you know the way I like to act or my approach... It just happened.... It's nobody's business how I go about these things."

"It's within the law and... it might not be as interesting as people think or it could be a lot more interesting than people think."

Said Timothée Chalamet, responding to a question about how he ended up holding this one note for a long time when that's nothing Bob Dylan did when he sang that song. Presumably, Chalamet is channeling some deeper knowledge of how Bob might sing on some other occasion, never recorded, which seems like something Bob himself would do, and Timmy's channeling that too.

Here's his full "60 Minutes" interview:

 

It's within the law... I like that. You know, to live within the law you don't have to be honest.

"It was kind of sad because she was lonesome. Judy would come out wearing her one little black cocktail dress and a pair of little earrings with pearls..."

"... and she would make shepherd’s pie because she liked it. It was comforting. We would have dinner and then we would watch 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' which was on before her show. And if she didn’t like the way someone performed, she didn’t mind telling you!"

Said Bob Mackie about Judy Garland, quoted in "Bob Mackie notoriously created Cher’s look— but he didn’t always like it: 'Don’t tell anyone'" (NY Post).

Mackie also designed for Tina Turner "She was just amazing and funny and if she hated something she told you immediately."

Is this typical of great singers, that they blurt it right out what they don't like? Judy "didn’t mind telling you" and Tina "told you immediately."

"Don't ask me nothin' about nothin' – I just might tell you the truth."

Sang Timothée Chalamet, on "SNL" last night, where he was the host, in a bunch of skits, and also performed, in his Bob Dylan persona, as the musical guest.

There were 3 songs — "Outlaw Blues" and, surprisingly "Three Angels"...

... and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time"...

What did you think? It's very hard for me to judge... other than that I was delighted that "Three Angels" was chosen and disappointed that the sound wasn't balanced properly in the end of the song and we lost Timmy's voice. But does anyone hear the music they play, does anyone even try?

I'm interested in the fashion interpretation of Bob's famous polka dots. Bob's were a shirt. Timmy's — same size and color — were a hoodie. The shift from shirt to hoodie sheds light on the choice to do "Three Angels." It's a rap song.

ADDED: I haven't been able to force myself to go see Chalamet's movie yet, so I don't know how close these performances last night are to his embodiment of Bob in the movie. In a Reddit discussion, the top comment is: "Actually credit for Timmy for not doing Bob, I much more appreciate a Dylan cover that's not trying to be Bob and that rendition of Three Angels sounded fresh." 

"You’re not actually finished until you do read poetry on the weekends for fun."

Someone says in response to someone who said "I vividly remember discovering Dylan’s whole catalogue in college and consequently falling entirely out of touch with everything else music-related for a solid year, I also grew my curls out and you best believe I was wearing scarves and dressing like someone who liked to read poetry on weekends for fun."

All of that was in an r/bobdylan discussion of this new clip of Timothée Chalamet, getting (too far?) into his impersonation of Bob Dylan:

Welcome to the Church of Bob, Timmy. 🙏🏻🎶❤️
pic.twitter.com/g7N7S9DfBk

— Melanie Young 🔧 (@FreewheelinMY) December 18, 2024

What poetry does Bob read?

"From the very first scenes, as played by Chalamet, this Dylan has no use for anything other than his own songs and his desperate, entirely internalized, need to keep making them."

"Everyone else... they’re all just obstacles that stand in his way. Chalamet’s Dylan is aloof, peevish and, frankly, kind of a jerk. Nearly everyone in his orbit suffers accordingly. The closer they try to get, the more Dylan vaporizes and wafts away. But this doesn’t happen because of fame or riches or drugs, like it would in most music biopics. It happens because of who Dylan is. He just doesn’t care. He lives his life and writes his music and manages his career like a man who knows everyone around him is trying to write a biopic about him."

Writes Will Leitch, in "Don’t think twice, Dylan fans. ‘A Complete Unknown’ is all right. The impossibility of ever truly understanding Bob Dylan is the movie’s central tension" (WaPo).

I wonder if Will Leitch is related to Donovan (Leitch). Just an idle thought. It's hard to see how it would matter. Anyway, are you planning to watch this movie? Bob Dylan recommended the movie. I blogged about that 13 days ago, here. He also recommended the book the movie is based on — "Dylan Goes Electric" (commission earned) — saying, "After you’ve seen the movie read the book." But the movie doesn't premiere until Christmas, so I went and read the book out of order. I do some of the things Bob tells me to do. Some of them. Not all of them. 

Here's something from the book that I happened to highlight:

Golden Globe nominations are out.

 See the list at People.com.

I don't care other than that "A Complete Unknown" is thought to be good. It's nominated as best drama motion picture and Timothée Chalamet is nominated as best male actor in a drama (in the role of Bob Dylan) and Edward Norton is nominated as best male actor in a supporting role in a drama (playing Pete Seeger). 

Tim will need to compete with the actor who plays Donald Trump in "The Apprentice," and Ed will need to compete with Jeremy Strong, who plays Roy Cohn in "The Apprentice." 

And I love seeing that Pamela Anderson is in the running for best "female actor" in a drama. She's got to compete with Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, Kate Winslet — all famously great at acting in big dramas. You've got to root for the underdog there, but then there's one more nominee, Fernanda Torres for something called "I’m Still Here." I don't know anything about that, so... whatever... Pam or Fernanda. But I will watch Angelina Jolie in "Maria," because it's already on Netflix, starting Wednesday. That probably suggests it's not that good, but it costs nothing in time/money to take a look.

"Here comes Mr. Bob Dylan himself..."

The best part of this is how much James Austin Johnson looks like old Bob Dylan.

It's interesting that a woman plays Chalamet. That might have some verisimilitude, except that it made Chalamet much shorter than Dylan. In real life, Bob is 5'7" and Timothée is 5'10".

ADDED: Uproxx has an interview with James Austin Johnson about his Dylan imitation and links to this 2022 appearance on the Tonight Show where he sang "Jingle Bells" in Dylan voices from difference eras of Dylan:

James Austin Johnson sings “Jingle Bells” as Bob Dylan through the decades. #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/kuPegi5Dhw

— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) November 29, 2022

"There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role."

"Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book."

Tweets Bob Dylan (who writes his own tweets, obviously and reportedly).

I love the way Bob endorses the movie and the book without assuring us that the story they tell is the truth. In fact, I hear him saying that they are not the truth. The book is a "fantastic retelling." And Timmy's portrayal is "going to be completely believable" not because he really is like Bob, but because "Timmy’s a brilliant actor." And there isn't even one Bob: there's Bob, younger Bob, and some other Bob. Who is Bob? He's teasing us to think that he isn't really anyone in particular. It ain’t no use a-talking to him/It’s just the same as talking to you. That's why "A Complete Unknown" is a great title. We don't know him and we won't know him, but I'm sure Timmy'll do a fine job. He's brilliant. You can believe him as the lead character in the fantastic retelling of The Fiasco at Newport. That was something like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I believe.

The word "believe" only appears in 1 Bob Dylan song. I'm not counting "I Don't Believe You," because "believe" is only in the song title. It's this song, "I Believe in You":

UPDATE: A reader emails that there are plenty more Dylan songs with the word "believe." Redoing my search, I see the fine print, in faint aqua:

Clicking that "SONGS (42)," I get to the additional "believe"s — "I couldn't believe after all these years that you didn't know me any better than that" "If you really believe that, you know you've got nothing to win and nothing to lose," "I believe I'll go see her again," "I'm going back to New York City/I do believe I've had enough" — etc. etc.

In the new trailer for "A Complete Unknown," we hear Timothée Chalamet, as Bob Dylan, sing "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."

"He was the antidote to the Marvel-led glut of synthetic, bulging muscles that looked like CGI but were real and the brute brand of masculinity associated with that type of body."

"Blended with Chalamet’s otherwise standard-issue heartthrob characteristics (white, cis, floppy ’90s hair, pouty lips), all this led to an explosion of heartthrob idolatry.... But does a horde of die-hard stans anointing someone an Internet Boyfriend make him an actual sex symbol with all the onscreen heat, eye-fucking, and innate ability to seduce an entire audience that comes with it? Now, Chalamet is poised to star as Willy Wonka, perhaps one of the most sexless characters ever put to screen. Any actor who dares to don the chocolate-maker’s top hat knows there is no way to make the character fuckable; the role becomes a stress test of their sexiness.... [Wonka] might just be Chalamet’s sledgehammer to the whole Internet Boyfriend enterprise. If so, I say go forth, Chalamet, and leave your heartthrob days behind."

Writes in Allison P. Davis, in "The End of His Heartthrob Era/An assessment of Chalamet’s sex appeal as he steps into the role of Willy Wonka" (Vulture).

What do we really want from a male movie star... and the female writers who write about them? 

"Timothée Chalamet is ready to play Bob Dylan on the big screen and he will be doing his own singing."

Deadline reports.

“It’s such an amazing time in American culture and the story of Bob — a young 19-year-old Bob Dylan coming to New York with like two dollars in his pocket and becoming a worldwide sensation within three years,” [said Chalamet]. “First being embraced into the family of folk music in New York and kind of outrunning them at a certain point as his star rises so beyond belief.”

Meanwhile, at Meadhouse....

"the sluttification of timothée chalamet."

Your tweet was quoted in an article by Post https://t.co/Kre54FkNAN

— Recite Social (@ReciteSocial) September 2, 2022