Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Brilliant!



This is one of those movies that reminds me why I love movies. As far as sheer beauty, genius and daring, it's right up there with Angels In America, Pulp Fiction and Across The Universe.

To me, storytelling is one of the most important things there is. It's us interpreting our world and sharing it with one another. It's how we try and make sense of it all. The beauty of storytelling in movies is that you're free of the constraints of time, place, even reality. The film is not merely the method by which you tell the story, the way the story unfolds becomes part of the story.

If you're a Dylan fan, this film has a special resonance. But you don't have to be one to be blown away by the film. Dylan has had so many different personas and so many different periods in his career that they can seem like separate people, and what Todd Haynes has done is used 6 different actors to play the different parts of his life. None of them are meant to be Dylan -- they all have other names, but they represent that part of Dylan. The story jumps back and forth in time and place. All the details are right, all the markers are there. It is not in any sense a true biography but I think you get a much richer sense of who he is, which is someone filled with contradictions, flights of fantasy and missing pieces. Hey, he's a genius artist, he's entitled.

And Cate Blanchett is beyond awesome. Whoever had the idea to cast her in this had the inspiration of the century.

2 comments:

fermicat said...

I hadn't heard about this one for some reason. Six different actors, huh? Interesting.

TheWriteGirl said...

When it's out on DVD, take a look. It's one of those films that, the more I think about it, the more I like it. The more comes out of it. And the music is great (of course).