Not An Actual Review of the Movie a Complete Unknown
A Complete Unknown is an excellent movie highlighted by truly amazing acting and musical performances. Most people who are familiar with Dylan’s career and/ or the history of the sixties likely have some basic details about the Newport Folk music where Dylan “went electric” and started to play rock and roll instead of acoustic folk music and protest songs. It is an unusual occurrence for a change of genre of music to be considered not only significant in the artist’s career but a major historical event with potential repercussions for the civil rights and peace movements of the day. It is enough of a historical event for a book to be written on the fiftieth anniversary of the event and now a movie is to be made. It’s true Dylan isn’t an ordinary artist. But from the distance of time, I never understood it. As much as I love Dylan and as much as I understand the history- it always sounded a little absurd to me. Dylan changed his genre of music and people got so mad that there were rumors a peaceful, peaceful man like Peter Seeger would try to cut his wires with an axe. On a subsequent tour people bought tickets to boo him, call him Judas and throw things at him. People staged protests marches outside of his home because he wouldn’t’ write a protest song. People believed that his songs could lead to full equality of African Americans and bring peace to the world and if he didn’t write them that might not happened. Dylan refused because he wanted to play rock and roll. He chose rock and roll over full equality and world peace. I mean it all seems absurd.
The movie really helps to set the stage for how the event came to be. It was a strange time. It’s helpful to be transported, through the power of a movie, to a place and time – a distant past so we can understand how this all occurred. It’s not an easy task though to portray such a time and space.
I mean first you must understand that in the United States of American there were powerful congressmen who were true fascists. They wrapped everything they did and said in patriotism although often the people they were going after were people who simply believed that all people had inalienable rights. They would label them as communists, unamerican, woke… oh, wait, that last one might be another time I’m thinking of. Then, they would silence them by blacklisting which meant they couldn’t perform or sing their songs. So, performers who were very successful could suddenly be, like… we would call it canceled. And some of the courts upheld the decisions these powerful congressman would make. And the world wasn’t at peace at all. We were afraid of nuclear attacks. If you can imagine, children in school had to do drills where they would learn to shelter in place, get under desks or in a closet. Can you imagine children going through drills as to how to shelter in place in case of an attack? Some people begin to think the end of the world was possible. Also, women had no reproductive rights. Abortion was illegal.
I mean when you put yourself in that time you can understand how people were desperate for hope and how absurd things could happen.