FILM SCHEDULES
I'm Not There
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Source: TIFF07.ca
PUBLIC SCREENINGS
- Wednesday, September 12 . . . 08:30PM . . . RYERSON Theatre (Ryerson University, 43 Gerrard Street East, Toronto M5B 1W7)
- Friday, September 14 . . . 12:30PM . . . RYERSON Theatre (Ryerson University, 43 Gerrard Street East, Toronto M5B 1W7)
FILM DESCRIPTION
Bob Dylan – icon, musical genius, poet, voice of a generation – is the subject of a second major film in two years. Whereas Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home was a conventional – albeit monumental – documentary, Todd Haynes’s remarkable revisiting of Dylan’s career is a fictional re-imagining of the great troubadour’s life. This dazzling and dizzying traversal of one of the most elusive and gifted songwriters of a generation follows Dylan’s path from callow youth to superstar extraordinaire. Never comfortable playing one role in his life, Dylan assumed multiple personalities. Haynes fully understands the chameleon-like nature of his subject, and has made a lyrical, poetic, highly stylized portrait of a man determined to possess his own identity and not let anyone – media, public, industry – control that image.
The film begins with the famous motorcycle accident in 1966 and from this defining moment moves effortlessly backward and forward through the most seminal moments in Dylan’s life. The film’s great genius and its overarching conceit is having Dylan played by six different actors. As a young boy (Marcus Carl Franklin), Dylan is black, setting out under the name Woody Guthrie to meet the great folk artist as he lies sick in hospital. Already we are dealing with the conscious invention of a personality. Haynes goes on to highlight key episodes in the singer’s fabled career, and Dylan assumes many personas and names: the endlessly touring, womanizing Robbie (Heath Ledger); the folk idol Jack (Christian Bale), who reinvents himself as an evangelist; Arthur (Ben Whishaw), the youthful, defiant, chain-smoking poet; Billy (Richard Gere), the famous Western outlaw; and Jude (the astonishing Cate Blanchett), the troubled, confused and androgynous rock star.
As these various strands are woven together, the film also calls upon such stellar performers as Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julianne Moore and David Cross to play wife, muse and a fellow poet respectively. I’m Not There succeeds brilliantly in portraying the kaleidoscopic complexity of this genius’s world. Its recreations of the well-documented iconic moments – concerts, press conferences – are juxtaposed with the filmmaker’s re-imagining of Dylan’s interior and exterior universe. In Haynes’s fabulous reshaping of his life, Dylan has found a fellow traveller.
by Piers Handling
DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY
Todd Haynes was born in Los Angeles and studied art and semiotics at Brown University. He began his career directing shorts, including Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud (85) and Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (87). His feature directorial debut, Poison (91), won the dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and a Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. His other films are Dottie Gets Spanked (93), Safe (95), Velvet Goldmine (98), Far from Heaven (02), for which he was nominated for an Academy AwardŽ for best original screenplay, and I’m Not There (07).
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Country: USA
Year: 2007
Language: English
Runtime: 135 minutes
Format: Colour/35mm
Rating: 14A
CAST & CREW
Production Company: Killer Films/ Endgame Entertainment
Executive Producer: Hengameh Panahi, Philip Elway, Andreas Grosch, Wendy Japhet, Douglas E. Hansen, Steven Soderbergh, Amy J. Kaufman, John Wells
Producer: Christine Vachon, James D. Stern, John Sloss, John Goldwyn
Screenplay: Todd Haynes, Oren Moverman
Cinematographer: Edward Lachman
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz
Production Designer: Judy Becker
Sound: Leslie Schatz
Principal Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julianne Moore, David Cross