I'm Not There (2007)

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Six incarnations of Bob Dylan: an actor, a folk singer, Rimbaud, Billy the Kid, and Woody Guthrie. Put Dylan's music behind their adventures. Put each at a crossroads, the artist becoming someone else. Jack, the son of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, finds Jesus; handsome Robbie falls in love then abandons Claire. Woody, a lad escaped from foster care, hobos the U.S. singing. Despite the terrific cast that it has I'm Not There was a huge waste of time and talent, it was boring, dull and even the actors seemed bored out of their own mind definitely not a movie that i would never recommend to anyone to see in the end of the day especially if you loved Ledger's perfomance as Joker . (0/10)

As a disclaimer, I think it is important to say that I do not know a whole lot about Bob Dylan. I thought I knew enough when I started the film, and quickly learned I was wrong. "I'm Not There" excels as a work of art, and an anti-biopic – though it can be very enigmatic at times. The story tends to be hard to follow, as it jumps between characters and aspects of Dylan's work. This is most likely done on purpose, but it makes the narrative difficult to understand. This film is not one that allows the audience to sit back, an relax as they watch. It requires an attentive eye, and allows for an ambiguous definition, as the viewer must come to their own conclusion. After the movie has ended, you have to take the pieces of evidence given, much like pieces of a mosaic, and put them together yourself. In creating your own picture, you may find yourself missing a piece, not liking what you see, or wondering if you've put them together correctly. But that too is purposeful.

First and foremost, Bob Dylan is a genius and a perfect subject for interpretation. A great idea with mixed results in I'm Not There. Cate Blanchett opens as Jude Quinn, a mid 1960s era Dylan getting on stage but quickly shown in a motorcycle accident. The British actress looks uncannily like the folk singer, especially in silhouette. Marcus Carl Franklin portrays Woody Guthrie and the eleven year old boy proves to be a major talent. He travels the country by train and in a time shift travels to a hospital to perform a song for the real Woody Guthrie. Christian Bale is in a documentary style portion as fans praise the great artist as the voice of a generation as he treats and reporters with contempt. Bobby does not come off to well as a human being.Later on, Bale reappears as a born again pastor, which showcases Dylan's brief Christian period , preaching to a congregation and singing the gospel tune "Pressing On" from the album "Saved."Heath Ledger is in a film within the film as an actor playing the Christian Bale character in the least interesting part of I'm Not There. The second unnecessary segment is Richard Gere as Billy the Kid looking for his dog and meeting Pat Garrett and a convoluted storyline with a funeral, a jail break and back to the train once again. I found the whole experience a disjointed mess with some fine acting. I love Dylan's work, so this is a wasted effort.

On May 30th of this year, pollster Scott Rasmussen conducted a national telephone survey on Bob Dylan, and thirty seven percent of the respondents stated they didn't know enough about him to voice any kind of opinion at all. If I had to guess, that roughly one in three who doesn't know Dylan is only going to grow, and I say that with no disrespect or put down of his music. It's just that time goes by and people move on to other things, and Dylan isn't very topical today, considering how ubiquitous his voice was during the turbulent era of the Sixties.Fortunately, I've seen the documentary "No Direction Home", and was able to draw enough parallels between that film and this biopic to have a hint of what was going on. Otherwise, one could easily get lost among the character switches that comprise the story, seeing as how the players are so disparate and seemingly unconnected. My favorites were Cate Blanchett as your basic Dylan, and young Marcus Carl Franklin who traces the singer back to his early blues roots. What I found frustrating though, is that in his attempts to defy classification, Dylan goes to the extreme of a Bill Clinton who once got hung up on what the definition of 'is' is. But I think the frustration went both ways. In "No Direction Home", Dylan tries to answer a reporter about the meaning of an album cover, when all it was to him was his picture on an album cover. For Dylan, it didn't have to get more complicated than that.This film won't be for everyone, but I found it entertaining enough to give it a whirl again some time down the road. For your musical tastes, there's only a brief sampling of the early stuff that gained him his reputation, but I found it all to be a nice mix that didn't overwhelm the picture.What I found odd however was a statement following the closing credits that you had to hang around for until the very end. There in black and white, it said "This motion picture is fictional, but certain characters and actions have been inspired by real people and real events". Seeing as how Dylan wasn't mentioned by name even once, that statement seemed to offer the film maker cover for any artistic stretches provided by the story. I've never seen or heard a response by Dylan to the film, so I have to wonder what he thinks, or if he was even there.