This notion of using two different actors to play one part was famously used by Luis Buuel in That Obscure Object of Desire , in which two actresses played the same role. Critics have said this casting decision reveals two aspects of the character's personality as well as Buuel's surrealist inclinations. But there are also reports that it was a casting decision based on necessity that one actress either walked out or was dismissed. A film like Nicholas Roeg's Performance used two actors to play a rock star (played by Mick Jagger) and a gangster in hiding but then blurred the line between the two characters. So Haynes' casting and approach is bold but not entirely unheard of.
Marcus Carl Franklin as yet another "Dylan" in I'm Not There (TWC)
I have to confess that I'm not sure what everything in the film means or where Haynes ultimately wants to take us, but I certainly enjoyed the journey and the playful way this Chinese Box of a film keeps changing. What's fun is trying to determine exactly how this box folds in on itself. Like having Heath being an Dylan alter ego playing another Dylan alter ego on screen. Or the connection to Billy the Kid weaving through the fact that Dylan appeared in Sam Peckinpah's movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and that Dylan was something of a rebel and an outlaw.
But ultimately, what I think the film does succeed in doing is offering not so much a portrait of Dylan but rather a portrait of celebrity using Dylan as the perfect example of someone not particularly comfortable with his fame and who has kept reinventing himself as a means of both coping with the celebrity status and just making things a little more fun along the way. In some ways this harkens back to Haynes' banned short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story . In that short film, Haynes provided a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the famous pop the singer considering that he had her played by a Barbie doll. In fact, everyone was played by dolls but Barbie as Karen proved particularly effective because of the physical image of beauty that Barbie projects combined with the fact that Carpenter died of anorexia. That short and I'm Not There both employ innovation devices in order to explore the dynamics between the public and the private persona. And Haynes returned to notions of celebrity in Velvet Goldmine about a reporter covering a glam rock star.
Cate Blanchett as Dylan in I'm Not There (TWC)
Blanchett's character delves into this notion of celebrity most as she engages the press more than any of the other characters. Her stunt casting works as Blanchett gets to deliver some of the best lines about fame and celebrity. At one point, her Jude reveals his annoyance with not only the press but the kind of public that is interested in celebrity news by saying, "Who cares what I think, I'm not the president, I'm a storyteller." He also suggests, "Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted." This plays nicely off an amusing scene of a group of what appear to be Black Panthers listening to a recording of a Dylan song and then one person says, "Wait, stop the song. I missed it." Then another Black Panther tries to explain the meaning of the song and how it should be interpreted in a political way. Blanchett's Jude seems constantly uncomfortable in the public eye and almost eager to say or do things that will just tweak expectations as if to say, "I'm not going to conform to whatever image or role you have laid out for me."
In one sense, each story is separate and each is told in a completely different visual style. The scenes with Christian Bale are like a documentary. The scenes with Heath Ledger are like a French New Wave film, while Blanchett's scenes are a cross between Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night and a BBC documentary. Yet in the end, we feel as if we've been looking through a prism that has fragmented this one man into many. It's fun, it's provocative, it leaves you asking questions. And the smile on Cate Blanchett's face at the very end I think says it all -- it's sly acknowledgment that it's all been a fun game. I'm sure some will find this merely an exercise in pretentious, self-conscious artiness, but I decided to kick back and enjoy. Plus there's a lot of Dylan's great music to enjoy.
I'm Not There (rated R for language, some sexuality and nudity) is refreshing because unlike so many films in theaters right now, Haynes' film is one in which you never know where it's going to go. And it reveals a filmmaker who is still interested in playful with the narrative possibilities of a story.
Listen to our Film Club discussion of I'm Not There.
Companion viewing: Don't Look Back, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Masked and Anonymous, Performance, That Obscure Object of Desire, Performance, Renaldo and Clara, Celebrity
