Music's 'outsiders and outlaws' put their own spin on Dylan
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
I'm Not There uses six actors to play Bob Dylan, but the soundtrack employs more than three dozen singers and musicians to create new versions of his songs.
Not all of the tracks will make it into the finished film, set for release Nov. 21, but the producers hope to put out a two-disc soundtrack album with the extras.
Dylan gave the filmmakers his blessing, but he hasn't been involved in the creation of the film or soundtrack.
The title of the film comes from an obscure song on The Basement Tapes, a heavily bootlegged collection of experimentation that Dylan recorded in the late 1960s. That recording will be included in the movie, says director Todd Haynes, and Sonic Youth does a cover version of it as well. "He has one imperfect recording of it, and it feels raw, but it's just gorgeous," Haynes says of Dylan's original. "It's a fragile, enigmatic song, and he clearly is filling in the cadences of the lyrics as he's performing. He's not even saying coherent words in some of the lyrics, which adds tragic mystery to the whole piece."
Other artists on the soundtrack are Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder singing All Along the Watchtower, Jack Johnson on Momma You've Been on My Mind, Willie Nelson covering Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), and Dylan's longtime friend Ramblin' Jack Elliott — a fellow disciple of Dylan's hero Woody Guthrie — performing Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
The filmmakers wanted artists with certain artistic integrity, not just recent chart-topping pop acts, says music supervisor Randall Poster. "We went with a lot of outsiders and outlaws. That's the connection they share with Dylan," says Poster, who has spent two years compiling the collection. "We needed a certain caliber of artist to record the songs and lend their own style rather than just do imitations. But they are certainly flirting with Dylan."
Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo produced the film's backup band, The Million Dollar Bashers, named after another Basement Tapes song. The group includes guitarist Tom Verlaine of the band Television; jazz keyboardist John Medeski; Tony Garnier, Dylan's bass player; Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; roots guitarist Smokey Hormel; and Wilco guitarist Nels Cline.
The film features an international, interracial and cross-gender group of actors as Dylan. The young black actor Marcus Carl Franklin plays Dylan as a boy and sings 1963's When the Ship Comes In.
Stephen Malkmus, formerly of the band Pavement, sings Maggie's Farm and Ballad of a Thin Man for the segment in which Cate Blanchett plays an androgynous Dylan.
When Christian Bale portrays Dylan in his "freewheelin' " early career, Minnesota-based singer Mason Jennings performs the songs The Times They Are a-Changin' and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.
Later, Bale plays Dylan in his early '80s Born Again religious period, and alt-country/punk star John Doe provides the vocals on the gospel infused Pressing On and the folk-oriented I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine.
"At that point in his life, he is an evangelist. He is having a kind of catharsis," says Doe, who is touring with his album A Year in the Wilderness.
Doe adds he was careful not to be too faithful: "For me, Bob Dylan kind of set people free. You're allowed to do anything you want. The only thing about Bob Dylan is you've got to be careful because it's really easy to try to be him. He's so inspiring, you can find yourself doing 'Bob Dylan lite,' and it's terrible."
Other artists in the collection include Jeff Tweedy performing Simple Twist of Fate, Yo La Tengo doing 4th Time Around and I Wanna Be Your Lover, Charlotte Gainsbourg covering Just Like a Woman, and Iron & Wine with Calexico doing a version of Dark Eyes.
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, currently in theaters starring in the Irish street-musician romance Once, perform You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.
The I'm Not There filmmakers say Dylan is uncomfortable looking back too much on his life, and Hansard says he picked up the same vibe. When he met Dylan, they talked about Guthrie instead: "Anyone who's ever been around him will tell you, if you know Bob, you don't talk about Bob," Hansard says.
If the film intrigues its own subject, it's probably because it's a playful interpretation of his life rather than a re-creation.
As Doe says, it's best never to imitate Dylan too closely.
