DVD Review: I'm Not There

My review of the DVD of the film "I'm Not There," that kaleidoscopic "hypertextual" riff on Bob Dylan.

I scanned what the pro reviewers and some Netflix members had to say about I’m Not There.

 

None grok it quite the same way I do.

 

As Dylan ultimately transcended himself due to the formal operations he brought to the lyric line (and the concomitant freewheelin’ performance life that entails), so this film transcends notions of narrative or chaos or confusion or even characterizations, though anchored by an uncannily spot-on rendering of ’65 Dylan by Cate Blanchett.

 

It’s the kaleidoscopic lucid dream of a fully-lived life, the hypertext poetics of nuanced performativity.

 

Dylan’s to song form as Shakespeare is to dramatic structure. He takes the tried and true and blows the doors off the old meanings. This film bears the same relationship to a more standard biopic.

 

As in Borges’ classic parable “Everything and Nothing,” (which riffed on Shakespeare), Dylan is everyone and no one, the variegated enigma of any creatively driven life exploded to reveal its mythic entrails.

 

For instance, because Ebert’s still a journalist, not a poet, he couldn’t quite stuff Gere’s Billy the Kid playin’ the black kid “fake” Guthrie’s guitar into his critical box, tho’ he dug the production overall. It’s the associative logic of lucid dreaming, Roger. All the psychodramatic fragments of the Dylan persona, his influences, his ambient referents are in freewheelin’ interplay, like any good hypertext story told.

 

Dylanology is ultimately secondary to the inversion of journalism by kaleidoscopic poetics.

 

As a matter of fact, as illustrated in Mark Turner’s book, The Literary Mind, steeped in both literary praxis, and cognitive science, everyone’s mind works parabolically, that is cross-patching various stories from one’s personal history, dreams, and cultural ambience. What’s unfortunate is we tend to think “education” means the starched left-brain reductionism of same.

 

This is not a mere biopic with fictive sidebars �" it’s an archetypal tone poem.

 

Both critics and Netflix members dismissive of the film are simply unfamiliar with the workings of right-brain emphases. And invoking Godard as superior in this context is howlingly ironic, given that Sympathy for the Devil was one of his worst films, Stones and all. Keith Richards said it was like working with a French bank clerk. I even love Godard otherwise, particularly the talismanic Alphaville.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a “famously unknown” poetic rock troubadour myself, 80% done with an experimental documentary, and this film gave me some key structural insights.

 

I don’t even have to get into the 6 or 7 characterizational why-fors, with strong performances all ’round, from Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, et al �" it’s a parabolic waking dream about the free life of the mind and soul when it comes into contact with the clunky artifact we call “society.” The apparently disparate entities comprised of ‘65 electric Dylan, early folk Dylan, Rimbaud, the movie star, the little black “Woody,” and the not-dead older outlaw Billy, et al, all enact said psychodrama.

 

Dylan’s a Voice out of the Whirlwind on a whirlwind tour, stand-in for the creative spirit of everyone. Sure, the mercurial youth trips over his own ego once in awhile, but true to his troubadour calling, he never lingers long in triviality. This I discern in the film, and intuit about the life of the literal man in question.

 

Wake up and smell reality, not the square peg in the round hole of “educated” linear entrained yammering.

 

I’ve only viewed it once at this writing, and will no doubt see it again, parsing out other details. But I stand by this fresh overview.

 

Others invoke director Todd Haynes’ oeuvre, etc., in the linear connect-a-dot game. I’m simply focused on this film, for its archetypal talismanic value to me.

 

I’m Not There means what its title says �" what remains is a shimmering lucid dream of great processual beauty.

Author's Note

Just that this is a tone poem review of a tone poem film.

Reviews

[Anima Inspired]

I actually enjoyed the film...I thought that it was a great potrayal of Dylan's "mind", not necessarily his life, not that it wasn't accurate on that front as well. Several of my friends had negative things to say about the film, namely that it was long and slow, but I found myself softly riveted throughout, enjoying the poetic dance that made it up. Good review and write-up!

[jen]

oops that should be "so went into watching 'i'm not there' looking for a more classic bio-pic..

[jen]

i started to watch it... but found myself getting impatient with it..... i bought "no direction home' the scorcesse doc on him and love it.. so went into watching 'no direction home' looking for a more classic bio-pic and wanting to see cate blanchette play him lol... i am a real fan (just posted a favorite of mine on my page).. so maybe i will give it another go with a more open mind.. thanks for posting this!