If a word rings true in these days of movies and/or biopics, it is biopicand if not, there is the life of Oscar Natalio Bonavena told in the chapters stars+, inside Ringo – glory and death.

The resource, in Hollywood – it is known – is as old as the cinema. In this case, the character portrayed -once again- will be Bob Dylanwith the actor Timothee Chalamet putting himself in the shoes of the Minnesota bard.

The film, which just announced a few years ago, was virtually standby due to the pandemic, it will be directed by James Mangold (Innocence interrupted, Glutton AND Loganoof the X-Men family), who started revealing some details to the media, confirming it Shooting will begin in August.

“It’s an incredible moment in American culture: the story of a 19-year-old Bob Dylan who arrives in New York with two dollars in his pocket and becomes a worldwide sensation in three years,” Mangold described, in just one paragraph. the essence of the film.

To be more precise, we are talking about January 1961, something like that natal dylanitawhen Robert Allen Zimmerman, hitchhiked from Minnesota, arrives in Manhattan. Of course, he doesn’t know yet that in a few years he will change the history of folk (first), that of rock (then) and – without exaggerating – that of popular music in general.

From the Borgo to history

Mangold goes on to tell what can be said: “The first thing for that young Dylan was to be accepted in the ‘closed and demanding’ folk family, concentrated in the New York Village. A relationship that would go from ‘brotherly and friendly’ to contentious as Dylan’s star rapidly grew.”

That initial phase of Dylan is indivisible from some key characters of the scene popularAS Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. When Mangold was asked if they would star in the film, he said, “Everyone has a role to play in this film.”

But most revealing, no doubt, was when a subject was addressed that, of course, is sometimes overlooked in biopics about singers and/or musicians, where the actor is “forced” to sing or act. Questioned about (“Who’s Gonna Sing Like Dylan?”), Mangold was blunt: “Chalamet, of course.”

with your own voice

If it’s about singing, Chalamet has already done it: he sang Everything happens andChet Baker’s theme, in Woody Allen’s 2019 film A rainy day in New York. In addition, he told the British edition of Vogue That he would play seven musical numbers in the next wonkain which he will play the iconic character of candy man based on the book of Roald Dal.

Chalamet’s role in call me by your name he confirmed that he can also play piano and guitar. So it’s not hard to imagine him right now, at home, with an acoustic -a harmonica- trying to bring out classics like Blowing in the wind, masters of warfare OR Don’t think twice, everything is fineto name but a few early Dylanesque phase classics.

Chalamet will also be seen in the next one Duna part 2 with Austin Butler (Elvis), Florence Pugh, Zendaya and Dave Bautista. You will reprise the role of Paul Atreides, a young ruler at the center of a galactic conflict.

Neither folk nor rock: folk-rock

Regardless of these statements by Mangold, if there is a world with too many precision-fit Guardians, that world is that dilanology.

And just as Mangold makes it clear that it all starts with the folky initiation stage in the Village, what’s not so clear is how far it goes. Without being very precise, due to various data leaked by the production, there is talk of a key climax of the film. Dylan’s transition to rock.

This brings us to the traditional Newport Festival, July 25, 1965: a pivotal point in rock history. Or rather, folk-rock, a path followed by many since then… Here, for example, Think Sui Generis with their debut album, Life, since 1972.

First Cash, now Dylan

And for those who light candles on how the matter will end, a precedent pays credit to Mangold: in 2005 he filmed Walk the Line, THE biopic Johnny Cash, friend and admirer of Bob Dylan.