what i'm watching: a complete unknown: not very profound (or kind) thoughts about this movie

Bobby, Suze, the Village, the Jacket

Several people have asked me to share my thoughts about "A Complete Unknown," James Mangold's fictional biopic about Bob Dylan in the early 1960s.

Allan and I were in no rush to see it, because we love Bob Dylan, and we are well familiar with the public versions of his story.

Allan dislikes fictional biopics, and while we watched the movie last night, I remembered why I also seldom watch them. I'm actually going into my various watchlists and deleting every movie of this genre. There are at least a dozen movies like this waiting; now I've lost interest in them all.

To me, "A Complete Unknown" was like a checklist of 1961-1965 Bob Dylan. I imagined someone holding a clipboard, checking off each person and each item. Here's Alan Lomax. Here's Albert Grossman. Harold Leventhal. Tom Wilson. Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, and Suze Rotolo (here called Sylvie). Check, check, check.  There's the cap. There's the jacket. The motorcyle. Check, check, check. Folk City, the Gaslight. Walter Cronkite, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Check, check, check.

Predictably, it all leads up to the most famous incident of early Dylandom, the most-told tale, the hotly debated and revised and rewritten Dylan Goes Electric at the 1965 Newport Festival. We wondered if Mangold would repeat the legend of the ax-wielding Pete Seeger. I won't spoil it for you.

It appears that most of the casting for this movie was based on looks, which seems to be how this type of movie is made. Woman with long black hair equals Joan Baez. Heavy man equals Albert Grossman. The actor playing Baez lacked any semblance of the singer and activist's beauty and charisma, and above all, her rich, melodious voice and incredible guitar playing. Maybe that's to be expected, but it still felt like a seventh-generation photocopy.

For those who don't know this story, the film is a history lesson. For those who do, it's a hackneyed re-creation, plus a few scenes that in all likelihood did not happen. I got nothing out of it. Had I been watching alone, I would have turned it off halfway through.

For those wishing to know something about Bob Dylan, I recommend Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary "No Direction Home". Even Scorsese's "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story" -- a fictional, somewhat surreal homage to the greatest rock tour of all time -- captured more Dylan than this movie that tried to adhere so closely to the real story.

I'm guessing this was a much better movie if you didn't know much about Dylan and don't value him as I do.

what i'm reading: two by two favourite authors: part one: roddy doyle's the women behind the door

I took a break from reading nonfiction to read novels by two of my favourite authors: The Women Behind the Door, by Roddy Doyle, and The Fraud, by Zadie Smith. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Here's the first.

Doyle and I go way back

Roddy Doyle is a living legend, and yet under-recognized, at least in Canada.

His debut novel, The Commitments, from 1987, was made into a popular movie, and eventually became the start of the hilarious and poignant Barrytown Trilogy. Like many non-Irish readers, I discovered Doyle when his fourth book, 1993's Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, won the Booker Prize. He's been on my must-read list ever since.

Somewhere along the way, the fact of another new Roddy Doyle novel became commonplace. Now when I see lists of the best contemporary Irish writers, I'm sad to see his name no longer included. 

In The Women Behind the Door, Doyle returns to one of his recurring characters, Paula Spencer. Paula is the title character in 1994's The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. She's in an abusive marriage, a fact that she and everyone around her ignores and rationalizes. It's a deeply moving story -- harrowing and triumphant -- and was groundbreaking in its day.

Twelve years and many books later, Doyle published Paula Spencer, which picks up the action exactly where Woman Who Walked leaves off. Paula is now 40, single, and a recovering alcoholic, trying to build a life from scratch. 

Almost 20 years later, Doyle gives us The Women Behind the Door. These books are now known as the Paula Spencer Series, which I find a bit odd, since they were published many years apart, and were not a planned trilogy. But whatever helps more people read more Roddy Doyle is great.

First he lulls you in, then... the emotional mic drop

The Women Behind the Door is vintage Roddy Doyle. It begins with what he is best known for: witty, bantering dialogue that is hilarious, authentic, and dead-on perfect. This banter often occurs between men at a pub. In this book, the banter is among women. It's fun, it's light, it's easy, and it always rings true.

I was immediately drawn in -- it's impossible not to be. But I thought, so this is where he is now, eh? Just writing the easy dialogue? Did he bring back Paula Spencer just to have her banter with a new friend, and some internal reminiscence of the bad old days? That doesn't seem worthy of--- and boom. You fall off an emotional cliff. 

And then I remember, oh yeah, this is Doyle does best. It's not just the banter. It's the banter that begins to reveal. And it reveals deeply, truly, painfully, joyously. One minute you're laughing, then you're struck dead, then you're weeping, from both joy and heartache. You can't put the book down -- not because of action, because of the emotional suspense.

This book is an absolute triumph. I do think to understand it, to mine the full emotional depth, you need to read the three books in order. However, I would recommend reading other books in between, rather than all three consecutively. 

Doyle appeared at the Vancouver Writers Fest, just last year. I was so pleased to see him recognized in this area, and so annoyed not to have been there. So close! And yet, impossible.

Long ago, we did see him read in a bookstore in New York, and I'm pretty sure I also saw him at the famous 92 Street Y writer series around the same time. He's a treasure, and so is Paula Spencer.