An Audacious Portrait Of Bob Dylan

Timothée Chalamet stars in 'A Complete Unknown,' which follows the singer-songwriter during his rise to stardom as a folk-rock revolutionary

- KYLE SMITH

The world may be divided between those who do and do not still feel a little thrill from hearing the drum lick that launches Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." It was the starting gun on what we now think of as the '60s. After that June 16, 1965, recording, the culture flipped from black-and-white to color.

"A Complete Unknown" luxuriates in that moment and re-creates the first public performance of the song weeks later at the Newport Folk Festival. Dylan is the revolutionary of the gathering, provocatively playing the electrified and electrifying rock number and stunning the folkie reactionaries gathered for the acoustic orthodoxy of the likes of the toxically mild Pete Seeger, who is so angry that he contemplates shutting down the act by taking an ax to the soundboard.

All of this plays out delightfully in writer-director James Mangold's exhilarating biopic covering Dylan from 1961 to 1965, with a beguiling Timothée Chalamet and an endlessly amusing Edward Norton starring as Dylan and Seeger, a memorable pair of friends turned ideological adversaries.

I'm told that Dylan's name (unlike Mr. Chalamet's) means nothing to young people today, and I have no idea whether the movie will renew his legend for the next generation. But I can't imagine a better cinematic effort to remind all of us who are Boomers or Gen X why we adore the man.