When You Ain’t Got Nothing: On Bob Dylan and A Complete Unknown

Bob Dylan isn’t dead, but he may as well be. With a slate of books, think-pieces, and, now, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, we’ve condemned the man born Robert Zimmerman to a fate usually reserved for those already playing their great gig in the sky: becoming fodder for a few Golden Globes. It would be heartrending if it weren’t so absurd. The insanity of it all was not lost on a group of young cinephiles attending the Angelika in late October who, during the previews, caught their first big-screen glimpse of Timothée Chalamet’s mannered impersonation, and began laughing.