It was I'm Not There, the bio-pic about the life of Bob Dylan, in which six different actors portray Dylan at different points in his life.I should start all this by saying I am not a fan of Bob Dylan's music. I find his voice obnoxious, and I've never been particularly impressed with his lyrics, which I find incomprehensible even if one can actually understand any of what he's singing.
What got me to even consider seeing this movie was all the critical praise being lavished on the acting in this film. Many people have been talking about how phenomenal Cate Blachett is in this movie, and high marks are being given to Christian Bale and Heath Ledger as well. I was going to the movie theater with a friend who'd heard similar things, and we decided we'd give it a shot.
Well, the first thing I learned is that it's possible that seeing the movie Walk Hard has absolutely ruined "life story" movies for me forever. The same hackneyed writing conventions that were skewered so aptly in that movie were well on display here. ("Son, this is 1957! Ain't no one gonna..." Everyone know where we're at in the timeline now, audience??!!!) I almost could have laughed.
...except that I was so phenomenally bored that laughter was simply too far a journey.
My friend and I sat through about 30-40 minutes of the film, waiting for something coherent to happen. But the movie seemed to have made the stylistic choice to be opaquely poetic and non-sensical, just like Dylan's lyrics. There was no real narrative to be followed, no character journey being undertaken, no mental foothold of any kind. Just disassociated vignettes. It was so jarring and disorienting a film, it felt like the reels from 10 or 12 movies had been dropped on the floor somewhere and mistakenly cut together in a random order.
But Cate Blanchett, the rumored star of the whole show, hadn't really appeared in any significant way on screen yet, so for a time, I was determined to try and stick it out. But finally, I checked my watch a few too many times, realized just how slowly time was passing, and I began to wonder how I would possibly make it through another hour-and-a-half of this stupifying crap.
I leaned to my friend and whispered, "are you liking this?" She replied, "I don't know what's going on." There was still time to jump ship and go see Juno instead, so that's precisely what we did.
It's possible that whatever gene allows someone to enjoy Bob Dylan would allow a person to also enjoy this movie. I don't possess it. And I also confess, I didn't really get to the part of the film that every critic was crowing about -- I couldn't make myself endure any more. So maybe -- maybe -- some of you out there would find something to enjoy in this movie.
But why take that chance?
4 comments:
Um, I already had to sit through the hell of "No Direction Home" and that one was done by Martin Scorsese.
http://movies.zap2it.com/index/
dvd/reviews/1,1146,26811,FF.html
There is no way in God's green earth I am gonna sit through another experience involving Bob Dylan. I remember when Dennis Miller was talking about Dylan winning an Academy Award for his song in "Wonder Boys" and he said something along the lines of (paraphrasing) that his speech was so incomprehensible he could have been thanking his mom, his cat, the local mayor and the letter Q.
I will accept some of the poetry of his lyrics after hearing them performed by other artists, but you'll never convince me that he is a decent singer.
/end rant
//deep breath
I like Bob Dylan. He is an exceptional songwriter. He often sings like crap, but doesn't really have to.
Anyway, my question is: Does that give this movie an automatic F? Or is that an I for Incomplete?
I guess it's not fair to grade it if you didn't see all of it. I haven't rated Be Cool, the last movie I walked out on, but I'm not anxious to finish it and rate it.
Technically, "I'm Not There" is not really about Bob Dylan, but someone like Bob Dylan. Technically. See?
Richard Roeper has gone on and on about this film, so it has stirred by curiosity, but I doubt I'll see it. I only allocate a handful of movie-watching slots of my time each year, and I don't think this will fill one of them. I'd rather see the film you left to see -- "Juno." Plus, the last "poetic" film I saw in the cinema was "What Dreams May Come," and I still wish my wife and I walked out of that.
Juno = Awesome
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