Among its many achievements, Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There hurls a Molotov cocktail through the facade of the Hollywood biopic factory.
I'm Not There (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:152
Fresh:117
Rotten:35
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: I'm Not There's unique editing, visuals, and multiple talented actors portraying Bob Dylan make for a deliciously unconventional experience. Each segment brings a new and fresh take on Dylan's life.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for language, some sexuality and nudity.
Runtime: 2 hrs 17 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Theatrical Release:21-12-2007
Synopsis: Todd Haynes (VELVET GOLDMINE, FAR FROM HEAVEN) delivers this dazzling, experimental take on the life of popular music's most revered and enigmatic artist: Bob Dylan. In keeping with the... Todd Haynes (VELVET GOLDMINE, FAR FROM HEAVEN) delivers this dazzling, experimental take on the life of popular music's most revered and enigmatic artist: Bob Dylan. In keeping with the impossible-to-pin-down nature of Dylan himself, Haynes chose to cast six different actors to portray several incarnations of the groundbreaking troubadour. The result is a challenging, sprawling work that spans several decades and genres. Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin) is a young black child with a folk music obsession; Jack Rollins (Christian Bale) is an upstart folksinger whose protest songs have ignited an entire generation; Arthur (Ben Wishaw) is a Rimbaud-esque figure who has begun to embrace a new form of lyrical poetry; Robbie (Heath Ledger) is a well-known actor whose marriage to the lovely Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) crumbles under the weight of his lifestyle; Billy (Richard Gere) is a slippery frontiersman who echoes Dylan's infatuation with the Old West and American folklore; and, finally, there is the substance-abusing, confrontational Jude (Cate Blanchett), who represents Dylan in the turbulent mid-1960s. Much in the same way that Dylan appropriated a vast array of musical styles to create his own vernacular, Haynes does the same thing with I'M NOT THERE, using his expansive knowledge of movie history to pay homage to a variety of movements and genres (Godard, Fellini, Lester, etc.). The typically extraordinary cinematographer Edward Lachman outdoes even himself this time around, incorporating so many different visual styles that it's impossible to decide which is the most beautiful. While the cast all fare well in their roles, it is Cate Blanchett who runs away with the picture, proving once again that she is one of the finest actors the movies have ever seen. [More]
Starring: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere
Starring: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Charlotte Gainsbourg, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams
Director: Todd Haynes
Director: Todd Haynes
Screenwriter: Todd Haynes, Oren Moverman
Producer: James D. Stern, John Sloss, John Goldwyn, Christine Vachon
Studio: Weinstein Company
Reviews for I'm Not There
Cate Blanchett has delivered the most audacious, astounding and entertaining performance of the year by ANYONE, male or female.
I love the idea of this concept as well as the way Haynes carried it out ... I'm Not There always has something to look at, to grasp at, and to think about.
A marriage of surrealism, idolatry, and psychological babbling, I'm Not There is an especially intoxicating witches brew for the Dylan faithful, with enough directorial cartwheeling to keep the rest interested in the journey as well.
This is a film in which the name "Bob Dylan" is never uttered once and yet it still comes closer to getting to the bottom of the man, his music and his myths than anything that I can recall reading or seeing.
Haynes' film, certainly his masterpiece to date and one of the year's best
An exhilarant. Sends you out of the theater just as Dylan (and Rimbaud) would have it: with a riot of perfumes.
It's so rich with ideas and visual details and imaginative gestures that you can lose yourself in the cinematic musings.
It's not a challenge to enjoy it (assuming you know what you're in for), but it is difficult to take it all in at once.
Even if you're one of those viewers who finds Haynes an overly cerebral director (I'm not), [the] music provides an emotional scaffolding that sustains the film.
I appreciate Haynes' craft and ambition. I love the Ledger/Gainsbourg scenes, which are sweet and sad and delicately shaded. And Blanchett's inspired not-quite-impersonation of Dylan is reason enough to tussle with the rest of it.
Haynes does it again with his exceptional new I'm Not There, a deconstruction of the biopic as well as a fascinating look at the cult of celebrity.
I'm Not There is at once experimental and mainstream: Haynes juggles the facts, plays fast and loose, but serves up images, and songs that are as much a part of the collective pop consciousness as anything the 20th century produced.
An experimental film that will delight, amuse and intrigue any Dylan lover.
A showy, if not terribly coherent, film that ultimately tells us less about its inspiration than about the filmmaker's penchant for technical flamboyance.
It's well-acted but also a bit long and will probably be of less interest to those who aren't already fans of Dylan or his music.
A dreamlike and poetically opaque mosaic that, in the end, is a lot like Dylan's music itself, in that it invites analysis but stubbornly defies interpretation.
I'm Not There is brilliant, if often brilliantly surreal, filmmaking.
I'm Not There takes its audience across a Rubicon of moviegoing disillusionment, apathy and sloth: If you are, as you say, so tired of the old, then here is the new. Embrace it, or please shut up.
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