Getting Bob Dylan’s Look: Filming for Singer-Songwriter’s Biopic Begins

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Biopics have become increasingly popular in recent years. Prominent historical and pop-culture figures, including physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, have started making their way to the big screen. For some, more than once.

One singer-songwriter who is no stranger to biopics is Bob Dylan. Most recently, actor Timothée Chalamet has been spotted filming for the Bob Dylan biopic titled “A Complete Unknown.” The film, directed by James Mangold, made headlines as early as 2020 and soon faced multiple delays. This included the pandemic lockdowns and the recent SAG-AFTRA strike. Now, filming has officially begun. While we’re yet to find out any release dates, we can expect to see further updates on the film by late 2024 or early 2025.

As mentioned above, while biopics have been especially popular recently, many pop-culture and music icons have long been on the big screen. Dylan was the subject of a biopic by director Todd Haynes in 2007, in which he cast six different actors as Dylan’s many personas.

The upcoming “A Complete Unknown” will be one of several other Dylan films, including a documentary and concert film in 2019 from esteemed filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Incidentally, Chalamet’s recent sighting as the famed multi-Grammy-winning songwriter is close to the anniversary of Dylan’s debut album in 1962. While the album didn’t sell too well back in the day, Dylan quickly proved doubters wrong with a second album the year after.

Getting Dylan’s look

One of the many things fans started speculating upon the announcement of the Chalamet-led biopic is whether or not the young actor would capture Dylan’s essence and aesthetic. While Dylan isn’t necessarily known for his fashion flair and may look more “tame” compared to his more eccentric contemporaries, he always conveyed a vibe of laidback confidence.

Throughout his prolific career, Dylan was often captured wearing a very specific pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses— the timeless and iconic Wayfarer. Shaped slightly differently from the modern Wayfarers of today, Dylan’s pair had a modest stretch to its silhouette, like sharper and more angular cat eyes. However, Dylan has also been photographed wearing other Ray-Ban frames, like the Aviators.

Aside from his preference for Ray-Ban shades, Dylan also had his share of hats. The iconic Dylan hat is a souvenir of the singer-songwriter’s later eras in his career but remains a memorable piece of the artist’s look. Renowned hatmaker Baron Hats made Dylan’s headwear, and a trip to their workshop will show a handwritten thank you note from Dylan, accompanying a Rolling Stone magazine cover of the singer wearing a silver hat.

The music of Bob Dylan

Finally, another key aspect fans may be focusing on in regard to the upcoming biopic is how much of Dylan’s music and artistry it may offer. So far, director James Mangold has chosen to distance the film from the “biopic” category, instead describing it as a “moment in the singer’s life.”

This moment, Mangold explains, centers on the early 60s building up to the start of Dylan’s career. Essentially, Chalamet portrays the folk-rock singer as a 17-year-old traversing 60s New York.

Notoriously, fans were shocked and intrigued to find out that Chalamet had opted to do his own singing and vocals for the movie. The actor hired and is working with the same vocal and dialect coaches responsible for Austin Butler’s turn as Elvis in another musical biopic.

Ultimately, there’s still too little to go on for fans to fully understand or speculate what Mansgold’s Dylan biopic will look like. Either way, the film would be yet another celebration of the singer’s legacy and career. In a previous post, we highlighted William Robinson’s cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” — a 1963 Dylan piece popularized by Peter, Paul, and Mary. While it may be a bit late in Dylan’s career to make it into “A Complete Unknown”, who knows if we’ll be seeing and hearing Chalamet’s version of it soon.

Article written by Ressie Johns

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