Todd Haynes, director of "Far From Heaven," at The 8th Annual Critic's Choice Awards |
Raise your hand if you're Bob Dylan: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six Bob Dylans?!
In Todd Haynes’s anachronistic film world, he creates a life journey through employing a diverse palette of indiewood--and Hollywood--heavyweights who represent various incarnations of Bob Dylan, to whom this biopic serves as an experimental love letter.
Whipping its way through space and time, the haltingly visual story charts the oft enigmatic folk singer whose career took rise in the 1960s and was a composite of a world he often touched, sometimes denied and even fetishized, during a time when his generation was trying to rise-up; meanwhile Bob was trying to dig down … into his tangled up roots.
I'm Not There bravely serves a virtual triptych that cleverly meanders through the invisible and imagined life path charted by iconic ‘folk’ singer Bob Dylan.
I'm Not There |
With his prickly biopic that revels in its dynamic re-staging of a living legend’s life, Todd Haynes carries a heavy helming burden--however, alongside his powerful cast, he lifts the weight with visionary glee.
We caught up with the risk-taker at Walter Reade Theater as he shared about his latest work.
HW: Has Bob Dylan seen the film, and what are his thoughts on it?
Todd Haynes: I wish I knew--but he hasn’t seen it yet as far as we know. We gave Jesse [Dylan], his oldest son, a DVD. Dylan didn’t want to come to any big public events but rather wanted to watch it in the quiet of his own home.
HW: What drew you into this story, even before clearing rights to use Dylan’s music?
TH: I found myself at a time in a curious desire to listen to Dylan music again and I hadn’t really been in that mode, quite like that, since high school. It drew me ever deeper into his music, his life, his unreleased recordings, stuff I hadn’t really known before. I found myself getting this little itch to respond to it creatively and possibly make a film.
HW: You've had past issues with your films in getting music rights.
TH: I had a very difficult history as a filmmaker with music rights at different stages in my career, one of my first short films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story which still can’t be publicly shown due to the fact that I used the music without permission as a young, sort of guerilla filmmaker; and then later [using music] with David Bowie’s Velvet Goldmine about the glam rock era, which he did not want to give us [rights to]…
Jesse Dylan |
HW: So were you proactive about securing the music rights for this film prior to scripting it?
TH: I called Christine Vachon, my producer, and said almost 'guilt-fully', “I’m thinking about doing a film about Bob Dylan…this kind of cluster of different selves…” And she said, “Look, don’t write it. Don’t do anything rash. Let’s just see what happens.” We started by approaching Jesse [Dylan’s son], we set up a meeting; he’s an independent filmmaker … Jeff Rosen, Bob Dylan’s manager, was on the phone.
HW: Can you take us for a moment into the I'm Not There pitch meeting?
TH: I just described the concept; Jesse and Jeff Rosen found it very interesting. But said, “We might like it to bits--but there’s no way of knowing what Bob would say. He’s basically said ‘no’ to any film version of his life up until this point.” They both said to write it out on a one-sheet page and keep it very simple. They told me all these [terms] to avoid like: “voice of a generation!” or “genius of our time!” or any major accolade.
I'm Not There |
HW: Why did you choose to focus on making ‘six Dylans’ as opposed to more?
TH: In the original concept there were seven different Dylans. There was even an additional character in the proposal called “Charlie” who kind of got absorbed into the Woody story. I liked seven because it came up in a lot of Dylan lyrics and it had a kind of seven stages of man logic to it--I guess I had to stop somewhere!?
HW: How was it to work in cinemascope?
TH: It was exciting. It was so exciting. It really felt like this film, the first of any of mine, I think really called for a more panoramic format. It has a kind of epic, American calm about it, in feel and in breadth.
HW: Do you feel you were given enough ‘creative license’ in charting Dylan’s life?
TH: Jeff [Rosen] gave me a huge amount of creative space that Dylan obviously approved and didn’t really need to hear more about what’s the terms were set.
I'm Not There |
HW: What's your directorial point of view on charting 'time travel'?
TH: That’s an interesting term that came to mind when I was looking at Dylan’s life and particularly things he said--like, “Yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room, and there’s no telling what can happen.” That came out of a period where he was studying with this unique painter in the mid-‘70s--the theory the teacher was putting out there was that on a canvas all of these separate realities can co-exist.
HW: How do you interpret Bob Dylan's play with concept of temporality?
TH: It inspired Dylan, I think, to take more liberty with playing around temporal representation and meaning in his lyrics, and also put together different stories in single songs. His song “Tangled Up in Blue” seems to be talking about a woman that he once knew--but suddenly he’ll be talking about 'a revolution' [that's] in the air...and [then] he’s then talking about slaves. This idea of mixing-up temporal experience seems to be what a lot of great artists, and people in the sciences, and people in the philosophical work all kind of end up veering toward.
Photo(s) by Hollywood.com- © 2003- Hollywood.com Staff- All Rights Reserved
Photo(s) by Hollywood.com- © 2003- Hollywood.com, Inc- All Rights Reserved