newcritics

There are so many marvelous things about Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There.” How does it feel? The Shamus is still soaking it in. Thinking about it. Dreaming about it. Marveling anew at what Bob Dylan has given us over the years. It’s time for another Shamus List:

20 REASONS TO BE STUCK INSIDE A MULTIPLEX WITH THE OVERPRICED POPCORN AGAIN
(OR WHY TOM WATSON IS, ALAS, FALLIBLE)

1. Marcus Carl Franklin’s frizzy curls and profile. The kid looks so much like the young, rawboned Dylan that it’s scary.
2. Franklin and Richie Havens singing “Tombstone Blues” on the porch of a country shack. (And how about that dinner of catfish, tomatoes and greens?)
3. The haunting shot of Woody Guthrie lying in the hospital bed, set to Dylan’s beautiful lament, “Blind Willie McTell.”
4. Ed Lachman’s saturated photography. Especially the way he captures the autumnal colors of Elliot Landy’s classic ’60s photos of Dylan and The Band in Woodstock.
5. The romantic ’60s montage of Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s characters meeting and mating in Manhattan. That shot of them driving through the countryside, their hair blowin’ in the wind, is just the way we imagined love in the ’60s. And did The Shamus detect a little Hepburn-Finney “Two For The Road” feel there?
6. The Jack Rollins album covers. Did Haynes purposely pick the name of Woody Allen’s old manager?
7. The Richard Gere “Billy the Kid” sequence. It’s the most derided part of the movie, but it might be The Shamus’ favorite segment. Just imagine if Altman had directed “Renaldo and Clara” as a side project using all the actors from “Buffalo Bill and the Indians.” Full of that old, weird America — the phrase that Greil Marcus highlighted to describe Dylan’s “Basement Tapes.”
8. The glasses that Gere wears. Don’t they look like the glasses Dylan wore to play Alias in Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid”? Remember when Alias reads off the can labels, “Beans…succotash…beans…”
9. Julianne Moore’s dead-on cameo of Joan Baez. She nails Joanie’s bitter, catty side about Bob, especially when she describes Christian Bale’s Dylan as a “little toad.” (Bale was the weakest Dylan, though, wasn’t he?)
10. Bruce Greenwood! What a marvelously underrated actor. He plays both Jude’s snide inquisitor in the Blanchett segment and Pat Garrett in the Gere segment, and it made The Shamus wonder whether he will ever get the great breakout role his talent deserves.
11. The joy of Kris Kristofferson’s crusty opening narration. How about the way Haynes connects the dialogue to Kristofferson’s “he’s a poet/he’s a preacher” lines from “The Pilgrim”? Clever.
12. How Gainsbourg’s character gives us a feel for Bob’s ex-wife Sara, without us having to go through the garbage like Weberman. (Although she looks more like Suze Rotolo.)
13. The unbelievable editing by Haynes and Jay Rabinowitz. The way the different stories weave together. It’s nothing short of masterful.
14. The joky segment where the Black Panther tries to convince Bobby Seale that “Ballad of A Thin Man” was about their struggle. And did you see somebody naked walk into the room?
15. A Shamus question: Who was the actor that played the Albert Grossman part? He looked very familiar, but couldn’t quite place him.
16. The playful way that Haynes used the film to celebrate other films, especially those of the ’60s. There’s a bit of Godard’s “Masculin Feminin,” a silly bit of Lester’s “A Hard Day’s Night” and even a moment of “Stardust Memories” (or maybe it’s supposed to be “8 1/2″). It gave the film another layer of meaning.
17. The tarantula.
18. Pete Seeger and the ax fable at Newport. As apocryphal as any Dylan story, but still funny as hell.
19. The sly handling of Dylan’s born-again phase and his little-known marriage to his backup singer. Todd knows his trivia.
And finally…
20. What? You thought The Shamus forgot? CATE BLANCHETT! Let me say it again: CATE BLANCHETT! It’s almost beyond description what she does here. Sometimes, she seems like she’s just doing an imitation, then she slips so fully into the character that you forget it’s her. How does it feel? Like she’s gonna be knock, knock, knocking on Oscar’s door, as Walter Monheit might have said. And here’s a bit of trivia to wrap this up: If she wins, it will be the second time she wins an Oscar for playing an Oscar winner.

One thing The Shamus should mention: Ain’t it funny how all the critics are mooning over “I’m Not There” but gave the Beatles fantasia, “Across The Universe” a hard day’s whacking? Because other than Dylan just being cooler to a certain generation of critics, The Shamus found both films to be very similar. Perhaps not in their approaches, but in the basic idea of romanticizing the era and the music. Both films will make my Top 5 of 2007.