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A Complete Unknown

2024 film directed by James Mangold

A Complete Unknown is a 2024 film, set in 1961, in which an unknown 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar and forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world.

Directed by James Mangold. Written by James Mangold and Jay Cocks, based on the book "Dylan Goes Electric!" by Elijah Wald.
He defied everyone to change everything.taglines

Bob Dylan

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  • Everyone asks where these songs come from, Sylvie. But then you watch their faces, and they're not asking where the songs come from. They're asking why the songs didn't come to them.
  • Your songs are like an oil painting at the dentist's office.

Pete Seeger

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  • More and more people have been showing up, and they're bringing their teaspoons. Teaspoons for justice, and teaspoons for peace, and teaspoons for love, and that's what we do. And, gosh, you showed up, Bobby, and damn it, if you didn't bring a shovel.

Joan Baez

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  • You know, you're kind of an asshole, Bob.

Others

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  • Dave Van Ronk: You can call it country or blues or rock'n'roll - we all keep rewriting the same song.

Dialogue

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Sylvie Russo: What do you want to be?
Bob Dylan: A musician. Who eats.
Sylvie Russo: Well, I like your songs.
Bob Dylan: My record comes out in a couple weeks.
Sylvie Russo: Some of the songs you played today on your record?
Bob Dylan: It's mostly covers. It's traditional stuff. Y'know, folk songs are supposed to stand the test of time, like Shakespeare or something. They say no one wants to hear what a kid wrote last month.
Sylvie Russo: Who's 'they'?
Bob Dylan: The record company. Manager.
Sylvie Russo: I'm sorry, but, "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" is not Shakespeare. There was a time when the old songs were new, right? Someone at some point had to give the songs a chance. [they get up and begin to leave the restaurant] I mean, there's a civil war going on down south. The biggest military buildup in history. Nuclear bombs hanging over us. It's not all about the Dust Bowl and Johnny Appleseed anymore.
Bob Dylan: I don't think they want to hear what I want to play.
Johnny Cash: Who's they?
Bob Dylan: You know, the people who decide what folk music is or isn't.
Johnny Cash: Fuck them, I wanna hear you. Go track some mud on somebody's carpet. Make some noise, B.D.
Joan Baez: Who taught you to play?
Bob Dylan: I taught myself, really. Picked up a few licks at the carnival.
Joan Baez: [in disbelief] At the carnival?
Bob Dylan: Oh yeah, there was singing cowboys that come through teach me all sorts of funny chords. They'd pass through doin' shows in Kansas or Dakotas. These chords I learned from a cowboy named Wigglefoot.
Joan Baez: You were in a carnival? [pause] You are so completely full of shit.
Bob Dylan: [in elevator after leaving fancy Harold Leventhal party] Two hundred people in that room and each one wants me to be somebody else. They should just fuck off and let me be.
Bobby Neuwirth: Be what?
Bob Dylan: Excuse me?
Bobby Neuwirth: They should fuck off and let you be what?
Bob Dylan: I don't know. Whatever it is they don't want me to be.
Bobby Neuwirth: Y'know, I'm not a horse, so... I don't like carrying other people's weight.
Bob Dylan: Yeah, well, I got a hundred pounds on me that don't show on the scale.
Bobby Neuwirth: How do you sing then?
Bob Dylan: I put myself in another place. But I'm a stranger there.
Bob Dylan: [in voiceover reading the letter he's writing to Johnny Cash on an airplane] Dear Johnny, Thanks for that letter. I am now famous -- famous by the rules of public famiosity. It snuck up on me and pulverized me. To quote Mr. Freud, I get quite paranoid.
Johnny Cash: [in voiceover reading the letter he's writing to Dylan on an airplane.] Bob -- Got your letter. Tonight I sit in the wake of one more hard rain. I was in New York last week. Saw a bunch of folk singers that couldn't hold a chigger on your ass. Well, I'll see you in Newport come spring. Until then, track mud on somebody's carpet.
Sylvie Russo: It was fun to be on the carnival train with you, Bobby, but I think I gotta step off. I feel like one of those plates, you know, that the French guy spins on those sticks on the Sullivan show.
Bob Dylan: Oh, I like that guy.
Sylvie Russo: I'm sure it's fun to be the guy, Bob. But I was a plate.
Joan Baez: Well you finally got it.
Bob Dylan: Got what?
Joan Baez: Freedom from us and all our shit. Isn't that what you wanted?
[Bob doesn't answer and rides away]
Joan Baez: [as Bob joins her on stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival] Pick something appropriate.
Bob Dylan: [Sarcastically] Appropriate.
Joan Baez: Just fuck off and sing.
Bob Dylan: Appropriate.

Taglines

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  • He defied everyone to change everything.
  • The ballad of a true original.

Cast

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