I’M NOT THERE: Bob Dylan Not at the Venice Film Festival 2007
Rachel Williams in The [London] Guardian:
"Critics in Venice have been astonished by [Cate] Blanchett’s performance [in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There]. She is one of six actors playing characters meant to represent [Bob] Dylan at different points in his career, and hers is not the only unorthodox casting: a black actor in his early teens, Marcus Carl Franklin, plays the musician as he arrives as an unknown in New York at the age of 20, while 57-year-old Richard Gere represents him at the age of 32. Heath Ledger and British actors Christian Bale and Ben Whishaw take on other periods."
Richard Gere’s Picasso vs. Dylan quote in the above Guardian article must be read to be believed. (And then actors complain that people don’t take them seriously.)
Eugene Novikov in Film Blather wasn’t all that impressed with I’m Not There, which he caught at the Telluride Film Festival:
"Haynes’ direction is a clusterfuck — people will contend that it’s instance of the film’s form attempting to imitate its subject, but that strikes me as akin to the argument that The Thin Red Line is a great film because it’s long and boring, and so is war. Pulling a [Steven] Soderbergh, Haynes color-codes the segments, which range from pastoral (Woody Guthrie) to grainy black-and-white (Blanchett). The conceptual disaster hits a nadir when [Bruce] Greenwood — the persistent, uncomprehending journalist from the Blanchett storylines — reappears in old-man make-up as Billy the Kid’s nemesis. Like much of Dylan’s work, this made me actively angry: I’m Not There seems to want to conflate skepticism and rationality with oppression and destruction. Well, here’s some skepticism for you: Bob Dylan cannot sing, and never could."
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64th Venice Film Festival: Out of Competition Line-Up
Venice Film Festival 2007 – Horizons Sidebar
LUST, CAUTION Controversy at Venice Film Festival 2007
Venice Film Festival 2007 – The British Have Arrived
Queer Lion for Gay-Themed Films at the Venice Film Festival
A Golden Lion for Peter Greenaway?
Woody Allen’s CASSANDRA’S DREAM at the Venice Film Festival 2007
I’M NOT THERE: Bob Dylan Not at the Venice Film Festival 2007
SLEUTH at Venice 2007: To Remake or Not to Remake
THE GRAIN OF LIFE: Great Cinema at Venice 2007
Top Contenders for the Venice Film Festival 2007 Awards
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dylan never could sing? do you even know what you’re talking about?
That’s a question for Film Blather.