I went to see "A Complete Unknown" - the new movie about Bob Dylan's early years in New York. It's a fascinating movie about the music and culture of that time, but tells us nothing about Dylan beyond the myth and mystique that he has already generated about himself. There is zero content about his formative period in Minnesota. It presents him as "a complete unknown" - a tabula rasa who just breezed into Manhattan and proceeded to take the world by storm.

The movie doesn't even represent his early gigs in the coffee houses, which kind of surprised me. It has him meeting Pete Seeger by accident at the hospital bed of Woody Guthrie where he spontaneously appears with his guitar and then gives a rendition of "Song to Woody" which blows Pete Seeger away and basically launches him on his career. In the next scene he's being introduced to Joan Baez who becomes immediately obsessed with him and it's only up from there.

It's still a great movie and I don't want to say that I didn't enjoy it, but I think the script is largely bullshit at least in respect to the timeline of events. On the other hand I think it does represent his personality quite well, and the fake story line is in keeping with Dylan's penchant for making up fake origin stories about himself.

So I decided to flip question to Grok about the movie. Here's my question:

The movie "A complete unknown" tells us nothing about dylan's background before New York. Was that a script writing decision based on Dylan input or was it a purely script writing decision?
Answer:

The movie A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, focuses on a specific period of Dylan's life—roughly 1961 to 1965—covering his arrival in New York City at age 19, his rise in the folk music scene, and the pivotal moment at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he famously "went electric." The film deliberately omits detailed exploration of Dylan's background prior to his New York arrival, such as his childhood in Minnesota or his early musical influences in Hibbing and Minneapolis. The question of whether this was a scriptwriting decision influenced by Dylan himself or a purely creative choice by the filmmakers can be addressed by examining available evidence about the script’s development and Dylan’s involvement.

The screenplay, co-written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, is loosely based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties. Wald’s book itself centers on this transformative period, particularly the cultural and musical shift tied to the Newport event, rather than providing an exhaustive biography of Dylan’s entire life. This suggests that the filmmakers inherited a narrative scope already narrowed to these key years, a choice that aligns with Mangold’s stated intent to avoid a “cradle-to-grave” biopic. Mangold has described the film as an “ensemble piece about this moment in time” rather than a comprehensive life story, indicating a deliberate creative decision to focus on a defining chapter rather than a broad overview.

Bob Dylan’s input further shaped this focus. Mangold met with Dylan multiple times during the writing and preproduction process, and Dylan personally annotated the script, offering notes and even contributing specific lines of dialogue. Producer Peter Jaysen revealed that Dylan participated in a table read with Mangold, reading only his own lines while Mangold covered the rest, and afterward signed off on the script with the note “Go with God.” This level of involvement suggests Dylan had significant influence over how his story was told. Additionally, Mangold has recounted Dylan’s insistence on including at least one fabricated scene, showing his willingness to prioritize artistic license over strict factual recounting—though this doesn’t directly address the omission of his pre-New York life.

Dylan’s well-known tendency to obscure his past likely played a role. He famously invented stories about his origins—claiming, for instance, to have run away with a carnival as a teenager—and has been protective of certain personal details. In the film, the character Sylvie Russo (based on Dylan’s real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo, renamed at Dylan’s request) confronts him about hiding his past, to which he responds, “People make up their past, Sylvie! They remember what they want. They forget the rest.” This exchange reflects Dylan’s real-life attitude and suggests that his input may have encouraged the filmmakers to downplay his pre-New York background, aligning with his preference for myth over minutiae. His decision to rename Rotolo, shielding aspects of his personal life, further supports the idea that he influenced the script to focus on his public persona and artistic evolution rather than private history.

However, the choice also serves the filmmakers’ narrative goals. By beginning with Dylan’s arrival in New York, the story emphasizes his rapid transformation from an unknown to a cultural icon, heightening the drama of his rise and the electric controversy. Including earlier details—say, his Minnesota upbringing or high school band days—might have diluted this momentum. Mangold’s comparison of the film to Amadeus, which explores genius through a specific lens rather than a full biography, reinforces this as a deliberate storytelling strategy. The ensemble cast, including figures like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, is designed to orbit Dylan during this period, not to trace his origins.
Ultimately, the decision to exclude Dylan’s pre-New York background appears to be a hybrid of Dylan’s input and the filmmakers’ creative vision. Dylan’s active participation and his historical reticence about his early life likely encouraged the narrowed scope, while Mangold and Cocks’ focus on a pivotal moment reflects their intent to craft a tight, impactful narrative rather than a sprawling biography. Without access to the exact script notes Dylan provided, it’s impossible to pinpoint where his influence ends and the filmmakers’ choices begin, but the evidence suggests a collaborative alignment: Dylan’s desire to control his narrative meshed with the filmmakers’ aim to spotlight a singular, transformative era. Thus, it was neither purely Dylan’s dictate nor solely a scriptwriting decision—it was both, shaped by his involvement and their artistic priorities.

There's a couple other points I want to make. I think it's non-controversial to say that Dylan is not a very likable person. I think he knows that he's not likable and his own input into this movie suggests that he doesn't mind the "asshole" aspect of his personality, especially his treatment of women, being highlighted. Joan actually tells him he's "kind of an asshole" in the movie, after he tells her that he was taught guitar by a cowboy named "Wigglefoot". In highlighting this aspect of himself he guards the true source of his inspiration and his deeper feelings from view.

So in my opinion the movie is very much a Dylan movie, rather than a movie "about Dylan". This was hinted at in the notes provided by Grok. I suspect that his creative influence on the movie was the dominant force, and the script writers wrote it pretty much the way he wanted it.

Edward Norton's portrayal of Pete Seeger is superb. The movie highlights well how Seeger was not happy with Dylan's new musical direction in 1965, but was deeply conflicted about it at the same time.

I find it interesting that the story ends with Newport's 1965 folk festival. This seems to be part of the Dylan myth too. That concert seems to mark the end of his artistic journey, or at least the first milestone. Dylan vanished from public view at this point and was not a part of the ensuing "counter-culture" and war protest movement. He didn't even turn up at the Woodstock Festival , which was practically in his backyard.

Beneath mythos there is a real story and a real man, but that person remains hidden.