Product Description

Inspired by the life and songs of Bob Dylan, I'm Not There is "a profoundly personal and passionate film" (A.O. Scott, The New York Times) that captures the essence of this elusive genius. Six different actors -- including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Oscar® nominee Cate Blanchett in a "soon-to-be-legendary performance" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) - each embody part of the Dylan legend: from Greenwich Village folk singer to electric guitar trailblazer to born-again preacher. Directed by Academy Award®-nominated writer/director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven), I'm Not There is "unquestionably the year's most original American movie" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1606 in DVD
• Brand: I'M NOT THERE (DVD MOVIE)
• Released on: 2008-05-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Running time: 135 minutes

Amazon.com
Unapologetically audacious, I'm Not There is more post-modern puzzle than by-the-numbers biopic. A title card sets the scene: "Inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan." Yet the film features no figure by that name. Instead, writer/director Todd Haynes presents six characters, each incarnating different stages in the artist's career. Perfume's Ben Whishaw, a black-clad poet, serves as a slippery sort of narrator. The action begins with the wanderings of an 11-year-old black runaway named "Woody Guthrie" (Marcus Carl Franklin)--his raucous duet with Richie Havens on "Tombstone Blues" is a highlight--and ends with a silver-haired Billy the Kid (Richard Gere) watching the Old West die before his eyes. In the interim, there's the folk singer-turned-preacher (Christian Bale), the actor (Heath Ledger), and the rock star (Cate Blanchett, who has Don't Look Back Dylan down to a science). The chronology is purposefully non-linear, and editor Jay Rabinowitz cuts rapidly, Jean-Luc Godard-style, between cinéma vérité black-and-white and saturated color, Richard Lester-like slapstick and Fellini-inspired surrealism (Ed Lachman served as cinematographer).

What makes the picture fun for Dylan fans--and potentially frustrating for neophytes--is that every album and movie bears an alternate title. Ledger's Robbie, for instance, stars in "Grain of Sand," actually a reference to the Pete Seeger song. As in Haynes' glam rock reverie Velvet Goldmine, the trickery involves the entire cast. While Julianne Moore plays former lover Alice, a dead ringer for Joan Baez; Michelle Williams embodies elusive scenester Coco, i.e. Edie Sedgwick. If I'm Not There is less affecting than Control, the year's other big music film, it rewards repeat viewings like few biographical features. The soundtrack mixes originals with covers, like Jim James's heartfelt "Goin' to Acapulco." --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

This movie will endure
I am not even a big bob dylan fan, but this film is so well told and creative that it's the best I think of the year 2007 - understood it's non linear and a bit confusing but perfect for those times (and maybe these).

Interesting, but too long...
Todd Haynes has proven his talent, and this idea of his was certainly profound and maybe a little TOO complete. At 2 ¼ hours, it gets a little tired. Casting the 6 different characters as the various incarnations of some un-named singer was interesting. Cate Blanchett won all the recognition, but Carl Marcus Franklin deserved every bit as much. (The Indie awards nominated him). Christian Bale was exellent, too, and Heath Ledger never looked better, equally as good. And Richard Gere has always been under-rated: he added a lot. Fine female support from Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams were also welcome. My main problem was that the film was so bleak, almost a eulogy, about an enigmatic character who is very much alive. I wasn't able to watch the second disc, but I'd be interested to know Mr. Dylan's take on his imagined life. In the hands of the gifted Todd Haynes, there is definitely drive and commitment; I was simply a little annoyed after the first 1½ hours of the repetitive aura of sadness that prevailed throughout. I'm glad to have seen what the fuss was all about, but I'll likely not want to see it again. Regardless, Mr. Haynes has again shown his maverick side to present a film that is certainly laced with love and sincerity.

Nothing's Missing But Dylan
If you sit through this interminable film school experiment, you'll find something good about it at the end. If you sit through this review, you'll find what's good about the film. Now you'll just find what's wrong with it. Let me count the ways. Yes, Cate Blanchett could be Dylan's body double, and I could watch her all the way through the film, but some of the other personae seem complete blanks playing cardboard cutouts.

One reason is that the film, despite appearances, has no period sense. You hear songs from 1983 while watching supposed '60s TVs. This assumes the audience has no sense of Dylan's music, but that undercuts the premise of the film, which assumes that it does. Straight up, this film could not be made without T. Bone Burnett, the one director who seems to have a sense of pacing this sort of film. But he's among those absent. It's got "Sam Shephard" all over it, but he's not among those in attendance. You'd have to have watched a lot of actual Dylan films, like Renaldo and Clara, and footage, like Don't Look Back, to get any sense of this film at all, and most of its accidental audience likely has not.

Like the Bob Dylan Thirtieth Anniversary Special, a lot of the players seem stuck in the '60s. The exceptions in that TV special and subsequent album were Neil Young and Lou Reed. This film includes a lot of later Dylan music, but seems to suggest that the electric songs, for instance, somehow belonged to his pre-electric period (there is a parody of the Montery Pop Festival scene in which Dylan goes "electric"). Viewers will likely be amazed to hear what are universally ranked among his best songs, "Blind Willie McTell" and "Pressing On", but they will be more surprised to find that these songs date from a period they think they despise, the "born again" era when Dylan was actually incredibly creative, as shown on The Bootleg Series, Vol. One-Three. Those stuck in the 'sixties, however, dismiss these songs out of hand, and without having heard them, knowing that Dylan must share their own prejudices, and therefore that nothing good can come of this musical relapse. That said, there is a parody of the Vineyard, heavily handled, like so much else in the film, but which provides the opportunity for playing "Pressing On" from Saved.

Those whose ideas about Dylan only came from this film would get some very wrong ones, with some very wrong emphases, and likely hate him without cause. I think Joan Baez comes off worst in the film, although her name is never used. The actress playing her says things Joan would never say, for one reason because the vocabulary is from the wrong era and the tone is all wrong, shown by watching extant footage of Baez with Dylan, readily available, or by reading her best-selling autobiography, Daybreak. I would suggest that the actress in question declined to do either.

Then there's the worst persona in the film, the aging outlaw, which seems to be drawn from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and a line in "Knocking on Heaven's Door". If you want outlaw/ Southern/ Western/ drifter types, Dylan knew millions of them. Look at the Rolling Thunder Revue. The Band comes to mind, and there seems to be a brief parody of Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Robbie Robertson, again likely drawn from one Band song. If I had to guess I'd say "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

What I really can't understand is the critics. I suppose they have to watch so much drivel that seeing something pretentious and arty is a form of release. But a ten second shot parodying the Beatles high during the filming of Help hardly contributes a tribute to Richard Lester. Late on, it slips into an Across the Universe sort of surrealistic rock video which would have made a good starting point. In the end a parody of a play of an interpretation of not generally known history has a slightly limited appeal.

I said I'd get to the good part, and I am. It's the closing credits, with all the titles of great Dylan songs going by, some of which seem not even to be in the film. It's the Dylan part. You hear so many great songs in this film, it makes you want to go to Pandora and start streaming Dylan radio. If the actors want viewers to like Dylan as much as they do, that's what will do it. But there's so much Dylan available now. Read his autobiography, Chronicles. Listen to the Bootleg series. Watch Masked and Anonymous, in which Dylan may be playing someone else, as Jack Fate. At least it's Dylan. Or get the soundtrack from I'm Not There. These all have in common the one thing missing in this film: he's there.