Outside his associative domain of music, Bob Dylan is actively inspired by literature and cinema. The Nobel laureate’s career has profited from compelling and coherent lyrical narratives that have both inspired and been inspired by literature and cinema in near-equal measure. For example, Dylan’s 1986 song ‘Brownsville Girl’ drew inspiration from the classic 1950 western movie The Gunfighter.
Beyond the 1973 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack, Dylan’s impact on cinema is a little more nebulous. While none of his songs, specifically, have been a direct movie blueprint, his art has been a central and enduring influence on countless filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese.
In past interviews, Dylan has frequently discussed his love of cinema and once suggested that his 1985 Empire Burlesque cut ‘Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)’ would make for a discerning movie narrative.
“‘Tight Connection to My Heart’ is a very visual song,” Dylan told Spin in a 1985 interview. “I want to make a movie out of it…. I think it’s going to go past on the way, but of all the songs I’ve ever written, that might be one of the most visual.”
“Of all the songs I’ve written, that’s the one that’s got characters that can be identified with,” he continued. “Whatever the fuck that means. I don’t know; I may be trying to make it more important than it is, but I can see the people in it.”
Dylan’s acting career is somewhat sparse, but he has minor roles in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and Masked and Anonymous under his belt. In a 2012 interview with Interview Magazine, the songwriter listed The Devil and Miss Jones, I Was a Zombie for the FBI, Ben Hur and Raintree Country as four movies he wished he could have been in.
Elsewhere in the feature, Dylan was asked to consider his future biopic and list “a couple of actors I’d like to play me”. Without elaboration, he listed Billy Dee Williams and Mickey Rooney. The latter was certainly a fantasy, given that Rooney was tackling his 90s at the time and passed away two years later.
Instead, Dylan must settle for a spritely youngster named Timothée Chalamet. The lithe Wonka star will lead A Complete Unknown, a James Mangold-directed biopic that will start shooting in August 2024.
In an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Mangold said the movie will not be a “typical biopic” as it will cover “a very specific moment” in the 1960s rather than document Dylan’s entire life. “It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early ’60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pockets hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of a nerve disease,” Mangold explained.
“And he sings Woody a song that he wrote for him and befriends Pete Seeger, who is like a son to Woody. And Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs, and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world. This wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivalling The Beatles.”
Watch Bob Dylan in a scene from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid below.