“You’ve got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room/There’s no telling what can happen…”

So says Richard Gere as he hops on an old boxcar train near the end of Todd Haynes’ experimental and visionary anti-biopic, "I’m Not There."

With this simple line and gesture Gere is at once –
1) paraphrasing Bob Dylan talking about his songwriting style in a 1978 interview
2) playing a phantom-like Billy The Kid who
a) represents the “Reclusive Dylan” who went into exile after his 1966 motorcycle crash in Woodstock, New York
b) references Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 film "Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid," which Dylan co-starred in and composed the music for
-- AND --
3) serves as a helpful template and guide into understanding Haynes’ schizophrenic, ultra non-linear meditation on all things Robert Allen Zimmerman.

Got it?

It’s OK if you don’t – Dylan was/is the ultimate sphinx, the classic riddle wrapped in an enigma – and Haynes smartly doesn’t even try to impose order or traditional story structure to a personality as elusive and iconic as his. Instead, he creates a strange world where the past, present and future walk hand in hand with myth, half-truth and legend.

Constantly cross-cutting between three decades, two continents, six “Dylans” (more on this later), different film stocks, black & white and color, alternative story types – documentary, fantasy, historical, music video, dream narrative, movie-within-a-movie (the list goes on), “I’m Not There” is a tour de force of style and concept, never settling for the easy pay off or the big Hollywood moment that we have come to expect in movies like “Ray” and “Walk The Line” (one of the most compelling aspects of “I’m Not There” is how truly “indie” and outside the mainstream it actually is...kudos to Killer Films, et al for leaving Haynes alone and supporting his eclectic vision – this doesn’t happen much anymore).

The centerpiece of this daring, non-traditional story idea is enticingly simple and sexy (like most good things): six different “Bob Dylans” played by six different actors.

Up first is Marcus Carl Franklin, Haynes’ ballsy choice to portray Dylan as a vagabond black boy in an inspired hommage to Woody Guthrie (Dylan circa 1962). Next is Ben Winshaw fleshing out Dylan’s admiration for French poet Arthur Rimbaud (~1965). Christian Bale gets double duty, playing both “The Times They Are A-Changin’"(~1964) and the born again Christian (~1980) Dylans. Cate Blanchett hits a home-run as the “Blonde On Blonde” Dylan who goes electric and trips out in the surreal London hipster scene with Allen Ginsberg and the Beatles (~1966). Heath Ledger takes on the “Blood On The Tracks” Dylan as troubled husband, narcissist movie star, and womanizer - mirroring Dylan’s real-life relationship troubles with painter Sarah Lownds (~1975). And, the aforementioned Gere takes us home as the secluded folk hero, hanging out in the woods like a ghost (~1966).

Back and forth, in and out, one story spilling into the next, one persona melding with another – Haynes keeps moving like a shark through the deep, dark waters of Dylan’s psyche, never stopping to pronounce that this is the “real” Dylan.

Because, how can we ever really capture what a man is truly like, Haynes seems to be asking? One person/actor is not enough, let alone six, to rightfully do the job. We can only catch fragmentary glimpses into the image and idea of who someone is and what they embody.

Like Orson Welles on steroids, Haynes gives us six “Rosebuds” to ponder and then lets us take our own journey through the extensive Dylan catalogue, to find our own meanings, our own conclusions. The real truth, the lasting power, has been staring back at us all along: its in the music.

by Matthew Sidney Long