Back To Basics: 'A Complete Unknown' Reminds Us What Folk Music is For

A Complete Unknown, the story of a very young Bob Dylan on his initial rise to fame, focusing on his disruption of the traditional folk scene, was the first movie I saw this year, and it held a very good message to start the year off on.

It was so important, in fact, that I’m willing to entirely forgive the fact that it was nearly being spoon-fed by the end. We needed as many people to Get This as possible.

That was also why—initially—I did my best to reserve judgement on Hollywood’s current Golden Boy in the lead role.

Unfortunately, Timothee Chalamet IS worth the hype.

My reservations faded quickly, because in spite of all the grumbling about his lack of resemblance to Dylan, Timothee Chalamet was obviously cast for a reason. 

The man is a chameleon. You can see his face plainly, that's DEFINITELY the dude you've been seeing on all those Willy Wonka ads and magazine covers. but as an actor he puts his whole body into a role in a way that makes him disappear entirely—yes, even with as much exposure as he’s had. Just when I was beginning to think, “I’m sick of seeing this kid everywhere,” he goes and shows me WHY he’s everywhere. 

Damn it Chalamet, you’re as good as they say.

(Also, to his credit, my parents, with whom I saw the movie, said he actually does not look that different from a very young Bob Dylan, and surely opinions from their generation carry more weight than the ones I saw from my own peers.)

I mention him first only to get it out of the way, though, because despite how good it is, his acting is not the most noteworthy part of A Complete Unknown.

'A Complete Unknown' Needs Us To Know Something

As many of us were quietly gearing up for what we now know is a historic test of the checks and balances in the United States federal government, this film brought us back to a different time, with a similar energy—the early 1960s.

60 years ago, our culture was being re-forged in fire, as Black Americans led minorities of all kinds in pushing back against oppressive powers attempting to keep them down (and shut them up.) This film contains an important message to those who remember being on Dylan’s side of things back in the day; one they may not even realize they needed to hear.

The climax of the film—truly the most interesting part, and really where the bulk of the conflict and general plot takes place—doesn’t come until the Newport Folk Festival at the very end of the film; everything that comes before it is merely character and context. 

That is not to say it is unnecessary; the film is artfully crafted, and the ending wouldn’t have nearly the same impact if we hadn’t shared the experiences of these characters earlier on. We are shown what memories were likely at the forefront of Dylan’s mind at that time, and the complex relationships he has with the people who matter to him. 

Dylan and Seeger, played by Timothee Chalamet and Edward Norton

It is, for example, vitally important that we know exactly what kind of man Pete Seeger was, and exactly what he meant to Dylan, before we see him sent in as a double agent of the Festival board, assigned the task of gently begging him not to play any songs with ((shudder)) electric instruments.

Without that knowledge, we would still feel Dylan’s indignation at being talked down to like a child; but with it, we also feel the hurt and betrayal that he perceives as Seeger choosing the board over him—and worse, choosing the form of the music over the message.

When Dylan gets up on the stage and begins to blatantly defy the tentatively-delivered order, all hell breaks loose, and it begins to become even more clear what Bobby had been trying to say to Seeger, and to everybody:

You’re supposed to be listening to what the song is saying.

Director James Mangold makes it perfectly clear what was happening in that crowd in 1965, and it is exactly what you see happening en masse today, online and all over the world. People at the festival hear something new and unexpected, and a subset of them immediately move to reject it, before they even attempt to understand it.

But then something interesting happens. When Dylan starts singing, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more,” one by one, the camera begins to focus on the faces of people in the crowd—women and people of color—who feel those words speaking to something deep inside them.

Those who listened to the words heard that “Maggie’s Farm” was a song about stepping out of line; no longer working to serve people and systems that are not only ungrateful for your toil and sacrifice, but are actively cruel and invested in keeping you down. 

The problem, though, was that not everyone was listening.

It is well known that 1965 was a year of great upheaval for the systems that kept women and people of color from attaining any kind of true equality in society; systems that Folk music overwhelmingly stands against.

Why, then, did Pete Seeger—Pete Seeger, married to a Japanese immigrant, caretaker of Woody Guthrie, introduced to the audience at the very beginning of the story as he is publicly defending “This Land Is Your Land” against accusations of having Communist overtones—why did he stand with those who wanted to censor Bobby’s music, to the point where he came less than a foot away from unplugging everything? 

The answer is that he fell into the same trap that the people in that crowd who began booing, jeering, and throwing things fell into; he got too comfortable. He and his (white, male) peers got used to the things they associated with folk music, and began to believe that those things were all it was—all acoustic instruments and simple harmonies on songs that are easy to repeat and sing along to. These concertgoers weren’t even protesting any of those themes in the song that so many people did find disgusting; they didn’t hear them.

They were simply a Few protesting against The New.

The irate audience members forgot, at some point, that the very purpose of the music they were such fans of was to unite the common people, and make those smaller voices heard. They didn’t notice their girlfriends, their friends, their neighbors and wives being united by it right in front of them; all they heard was an instrument that they thought Didn’t Belong. 

In the film, you can see that those people jeering and booing and throwing trash do not even make up a majority of the audience—most of the crowd are either shown reacting in confusion to the incensed attendees, or standing to cheer and shout in agreement with Dylan. However, because the detractors are the loudest and the most disruptive to the show, they get the board’s attention immediately—of course they do. They’re causing discord at a festival that is supposed to bring people together. 

Those who are actually watching the concert, who are actually listening to the music, hear a good song—a song they love, a song they FEEL, regardless of which instruments are being used in the background. If Pete Seeger had read or listened to the words of his friend’s song before he acted—as Dylan repeatedly asked him to do—he would surely have felt that too.

But Seeger and the rest of the board are too afraid of controversy over the sound to consider the content. They, along with those protesting, seek to shut the song down because they have become more focused on the concept of the festival—its image, its reputation, their abstract view of what it represents to them—than on the reason for its foundation in the first place.

To them—as becomes true with any organization that has been around long enough to become an established name—any deviation from 100% positivity is a failure, a black mark on the pillar of tradition that they built. 

Any culture that is not willing to bend to accept new things will ultimately become more and more brittle, until it breaks into pieces. If you stop thinking critically about the things that you believe, you may be at risk of forgetting why you believe in them—and why they matter in the first place. 

That is the trap. 

Striving for purity is a foolish and impossible quest that robs you, and those whose lives you touch, of countless experiences and perspectives, and it is another step towards fascism that anyone with a little pride and a little power can easily take by accident. Striving for purity means cutting out the controversial, and suppressing those controversial things means suppressing emotion and subverting free expression. All of this goes against the very spirit of folk music, which is supposed to represent the voice of the people. 

Even Pete Seeger, one of the most good-natured and well-intentioned people we meet in the film, still easily slides into an authoritarian mindset when he perceives that his pride is being challenged, his legacy threatened. This feeling is a natural part of being human—the danger only occurs when we believe in our own pride so much that we stop listening to those around us.

Nothing illustrates that point more clearly than when Seeger, about to (literally) pull the plug on the whole thing, is physically blocked by his wife—whom he now sees is staring daggers at him, and has been since he stopped listening to Bobby.

Surely he has seen this look on her face before—as a Japanese woman in an interracial relationship in 1965, we must assume that she often needed to pull out a firm, hard stare that shouted a forceful “NO” at whoever stood in its path. 

He is probably not used to having it used on him. 

It is only then, through the glaring eyes of someone he loves, does he see what he has become, and stand down. 

The overarching lesson reads loud and clear, and it is a very good one to remember in this political and cultural climate: We must all be careful, when defending our values and traditions, that we do not become so entrenched in them that we can no longer tell them apart. 

One is infinitely more important than the other, and placing semantics and pride in front of the things that truly matter (in the case of Newport, the music itself; the messages it sends and the way it unites ordinary people) is the first step down the dangerously slippery path to becoming the oppressor you once fought.