Bob Dylan gave James Mangold notes for A Complete Unknown
Bob Dylan gave notes on the 'A Complete Unknown' script to James Mangold.
The music legend is fully supportive of the movie in which he will be played by Timothee Chalamet and the director has had the pleasure of several face-to-face meetings with the 'Like A Rolling Stone' hitmaker.
Mangold told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: "I've spent several, wonderfully charming, days in his company, just one-on-one, talking to him.
"I have a script that's personally annotated by him and treasured by me. He loves movies. The first time I sat down with Bob, one of the first things he said to me was, 'I love 'Cop Land'.'"
The movie features Chalamet, Elle Fanning and Benedict Cumberbatch and tells the story of how Dylan shakes up the folk music world by plugging in his electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, although Mangold explained that is "not really" a biopic.
The 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' director said: "By the way, it's not really a Bob Dylan biopic.
"The reason Bob has been so supportive of us making it, is it's about, as in all cases I think of the best true-life movies are never cradle to grave but they're about a very specific moment.
"In this case, it might sound Altman-esque, but it's a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early 60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pocket hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of a nerve disease."
James insists that the tale of Bob's electric shake-up has "tremendous relevance" still almost 60 years on.
The 59-year-old filmmaker said: "It all has tremendous relevance even now because of the way we are all so tribalised with rules about what our music should be, about what our rules are, how we speak, how we express ourselves.
"And Bob from the beginning has always been someone who is always pressing against those boundaries."