Directed by Todd Haynes • 2007 • United States, Germany
Starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin
How can a film portray the many sides of the shape-shifting enigma that is Bob Dylan? Director Todd Haynes’s audacious gambit is to enlist six actors to play him in this innovative, brilliantly inspired antibiopic. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw all star as Dylan—or some version of him, anyway—embodying different aspects his elusive persona. Poet, prophet, phony, folk hero, rock legend: all and none are the true Dylan, whose tantalizing unknowability invites us to consider the very construction of identity itself.
Up Next in Rock Biopics That Don’t Suck
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Nowhere Boy
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson • 2009 • United Kingdom
Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Anne-Marie Duff, Kristin Scott ThomasBased on the memoirs of John Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird, this revealing account of the future Beatle’s formative years vividly recreates the world of 1950s Liverpool,...
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24 Hour Party People
Directed by Michael Winterbottom • 2002 • United Kingdom
Starring Steve Coogan, Paddy Considine, Sean HarrisBlown away by an unknown band called the Sex Pistols, TV personality Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) is inspired to invent a uniquely anarchic record label. Soon he’s promoting everyone from N...
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The Buddy Holly Story
Directed by Steve Rash • 1978 • United States
Starring Gary Busey, Don Stroud, Charles Martin SmithAn Oscar-nominated Gary Busey gives one of the most electrifying portrayals of a musician ever committed to the screen in this irresistible portrait of Buddy Holly, the bespectacled genius from Lu...
