What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown is James Mangold’s second music biopic after the Joaquin Phoenix-starring Walk the Line, which spanned decades to unravel the myth of Johnny Cash. This time, the director takes a more intimate approach, following a young Bob Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) from his first arrival in New York in 1961 to his infamous electric performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks highlight some of the earliest figures in Dylan lore, including Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and, in a funny crossing of the beams, Johnny Cash (this time played by Boyd Holbrook) — early supporters whom, after Newport ‘65, Dylan mostly leaves behind.

The film is based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties. The book depicts (and, some fans would argue, simplifies) the beginnings of Dylan’s early career as a battle between Seeger’s warm yet strict traditionalism — Norton plays Seeger as a Mister Rogers type with a banjo — and Dylan’s desire for uncompromising commercial and artistic success, with Newport ’65 as their breaking point. A Complete Unknown is most interested in this father-versus-son-like struggle, and it puts us in the shoes of café, theater, and festival audiences hearing classics like “Masters of War” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” for the first time. It’s a good biopic with great moments, the best moments happening when everyone is silent and lets Dylan play.

Mangold doesn’t play it completely straight though. In a recent Rolling Stone cover story, Mangold revealed that Dylan told him to insert one totally made-up anecdote into the film. It’s an eye-rolling decision for fact-checkers — we have a guess below on what Dylan told Mangold to add — yet it’s one that feels on-brand for an artist with such a deliberately strained relationship with the truth. Using Wald’s book as a guide, let’s break down what’s fact and what’s fiction in A Complete Unknown.

Dylan’s first days in New York

Did Dylan really hitchhike into New York?

We first see Chalamet’s Bob Dylan hitchhiking with his guitar from New Jersey into New York. He then walks around Greenwich Village asking strangers the location of Greystone Hospital, where a sick Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) is staying. An unnamed bar patron (played by Joe Tippett, credited as Dave Van Ronk) confirms that Greystone is back in New Jersey.

The real Dylan did come to New York to find Guthrie at Greystone, though these opening scenes make his search and his meeting with Ronk feel like they took place in one afternoon. There are some reports that Dylan even first traveled to Guthrie’s family home in Queens before going back to Jersey. Ronk was also an important influence on Dylan and the rest of the Village folk scene; Ronk’s 2005 memoir, co-written by Wald, was the basis for The Coen Brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis.

Pete Seeger, rebel and father figure

Did Pete Seeger bring his banjo to court while on trial for Communist subversion?

Seeger’s introduction in the film is based on a real event. As detailed in Wald’s book, in 1961, Seeger went on trial after being subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which accused him of Communist-friendly activities. As he does in the film, Seeger countered the allegations in court by asking the judge if he could perform some folk songs that expressed his views, which the judge denied. The real Seeger was also found guilty of contempt of Congress.

Was “This Land is Your Land” really controversial?

Norton’s Seeger performs this Woody Guthrie classic on the courthouse steps with the press singing along after he was found guilty. “This Land is Your Land” might be one of American folk’s most beloved songs. It also has a controversial backstory, with its earliest lyrics including verses about hunger and private property as a direct response to the patriotic schmaltz of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” Those original verses were taken out of later recordings.

Did Dylan meet Pete Seeger at the same time he met Woody Guthrie?

In the film, Dylan, guitar in hand, comes upon Guthrie’s hospital room already occupied by Seeger. The shy Dylan plays “Song for Woody,” impressing both musicians. Seeger takes the young artist under his wing, even driving Dylan to his upstate New York cabin to spend the night with his family.

The real Dylan would often visit and play songs for Guthrie at Greystone, who was suffering from Huntington’s disease, and Seeger did become a quick supporter of Dylan. Wald doesn’t mention what would otherwise be a significant evening in the young Dylan’s life. This is a candidate for the totally made-up moment that Dylan wanted Mangold to add into A Complete Unknown. The real Seeger did at least build an upstate cabin with his wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune).

Dylan’s rise to fame

Did Joan Baez, manager/promoter Albert Grossman, New York Times critic Robert Shelton, and Columbia Records rep John Hammond all hear Dylan for the first time at the same show?

No. However, this scene quickly introduces us to many key real-life figures who had a tremendous impact on Dylan. This show was likely inspired by his 1961 performance at the fabled Gerde’s Folk City, famously reviewed by Robert Shelton in the New York Times. That review caught the attention of Columbia Records’s John Hammond, who would sign Dylan. (According to Wald, Shelton also wrote the liner notes for Dylan’s debut LP under the pseudonym Stacey Williams.) The real Grossman, a frequent goer to Gerde’s Folk City who promoted Baez and became aware of Dylan after his Columbia signing, became his manager in 1962.

Did Dylan tell people he used to work at the carnival?

Yes! Dylan tells his girlfriend Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning’s character, based on the real-life Suzie Rotolo) this self-made fable that the real Dylan told to strangers. Tall tales like these served to hide the truth that Dylan was a normal middle-class Minnesota kid who grew up loving rock ‘n’ roll and blues before switching to folk. Dylan also told strangers that he grew up in New Mexico, ran away from home several times, had already met Guthrie while traveling through California, and that he learned slide guitar from a one-eyed Black musician named Wigglefoot. Dylan tells Baez about Wigglefoot in the film, to which she says he’s full of shit.

Did Dylan write “Masters of War” as a direct response to the Cuban Missile Crisis?

A memorable scene in A Complete Unknown finds Dylan alone watching the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis unfold on TV. After looking through his neighbors’ windows and seeing everyone’s terrified faces also glued to their TVs, Dylan performs “Masters of War” at a nearby club. Baez finds her way into the audience and is immediately won over.

In real life, according to Wald, Dylan wrote “Masters of War” during a month-long visit to London and took most of its inspiration from the Appalachian folk standard “Nottamum Town.” But the Cuban Missile Crisis did weigh heavy on Dylan, with Wald reporting that he wrote to Rotolo feeling like “the maniacs were really going to do it this time” and he was now “waiting for the world to end” and to “die quick and not have to put up with radiation.”

Were Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash really pen pals?

Cash and Dylan indeed had a real-life bromance. Mangold depicts Cash in both Walk the Line and A Complete Unknown as nervy mysteries always on the edge of a breakdown, though Boyd Holbrook plays him as more mischievous and good-humored compared to the brooding Joaquin Phoenix. Both versions of Cash are smitten by Dylan’s music.

The exact contents of the letters are hard to verify, but Cash and Dylan did write to each other. The real Cash also defended Dylan’s decision to move away from explicit protest songs by writing to the pages of the influential folk magazine Broadside. “Don’t bad-mouth him, till you hear him,” wrote Cash. “He’s almost brand new … SHUT UP! … AND LET HIM SING!”

Dylan’s love triangle with Joan Baez and “Sylvie Russo”

Why is Elle Fanning’s character named Sylvie Russo and not Suze Rotolo?

A curious change made by A Complete Unknown was to cast Elle Fanning not as Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s real-life girlfriend who appears on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but as Sylvie Russo, a fictional depiction of Rotolo who shares her general backstory, looks, and characteristics. It’s an interesting decision, considering that every other major character goes by their real name. According to Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan himself requested of Mangold that Rotolo’s name be changed.

In the film, Dylan and Russo’s meet-cute happens during a Riverside Church show where we are also introduced to musicologist Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz). Their meeting turns into a fictional night-long date involving Russo bringing Dylan up to speed on the politics and activism of early ‘60s Greenwich Village. The two also go to a screening of the 1942 Bette Davis film Now, Voyager. It’s unclear if the real-life Dylan and Rotolo saw this movie together, but its double-cigarette scene comes back in a touching moment at the film’s end.

Did Russo leaving for Rome for 12 weeks open the window for Dylan to get together with Baez?

The real Rotolo did spend half a year in Italy, but according to Wald, Dylan and Baez officially debuted as a real-life couple later during their duet at Newport ’63. In the film, the two first get together the night Dylan performs “Masters of War,” while Russo is in Italy. Their tense yet fictional morning after — Dylan compares Baez’s songs to oil paintings at the dentist’s office, Baez calls him an asshole — followed by their near-perfect duet on an early draft of “Blowin’ in the Wind” sums up their real love-hate relationship.

Did Dylan and Baez not get along on their joint tour?

By 1965, the pair’s relationship has soured, and during one of their shows, Dylan wanders away from the microphone and refuses to play his biggest hits, claiming that his guitar broke. This frustrates the crowd and Baez, who gladly plays Dylan’s hits without him. In reality, the duo did not fight on stage, though these shows were indeed tense. “The kids were calling out to him to do the songs that meant something to them,” says Baez in Wald’s book. “[Dylan] didn’t care.” Dylan agreed. “The only thing that dragged me when I played with [Baez] was that the audience was just such a morgue,” he said. “It was like playing in a funeral parlor.”

Cash Goes Electric!

Did Johnny Cash really play an electric set at Newport before Bob Dylan?

The scenes set at Newport ’64 depict the peak of the folk revival, now on the verge of larger mainstream attention thanks to Dylan, who in the film performs “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and enjoys an impromptu Johnny Cash electric performance. Here, too, the film collects anecdotes and smashes them together as if everything happened in one afternoon. Dylan did not actually play “The Times They Are A-Changin,’” but Cash did play an electric set at Newport ’64; his appearance cleans up the frequent misconception that Dylan was the first artist to use electric instruments at Newport.

Bobs Dylan and Neuwirth

Did Dylan really get punched in the face after meeting Bob Neuwirth?

A Complete Unknown places a lot of emphasis on the influence of Bob Neuwirth (Will Harrison), a musician who in real life became Dylan’s close friend and road manager. In the film, Neuwirth acts as a sort of angel (or depending on who you talk to, devil) on the shoulders of Dylan, who has begun to feel burned out from all his friends and fans asking him to keep playing and rewriting “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Neuwirth encourages him to not worry about what others think of him.

How they met, however, was not as dramatic as what’s depicted in A Complete Unknown. In the film, the two meet in an elevator after Dylan storms out of a tense party with his new girlfriend Becka (played by Laura Kariuki), with Neuwirth inviting Dylan to his show and Dylan attending and enjoying a show without anyone recognizing him … until someone recognizes him, and Dylan must escape, getting punched on the way out. It’s a good story that visualizes how Dylan felt trapped by his early success, but it didn’t really happen. Maybe this is another moment the real Dylan suggested for the film?

Recording Highway 61 Revisited

Did Dylan pick up the police whistle that he would use on “Highway 61 Revisited” from a street vendor on a whim?

In the film, we occasionally see Dylan in the studio recording some of his albums, most notably Highway 61 Revisited. The police whistle acts not unlike the feather from Forrest Gump: A recurring sign that pushes Dylan along toward his eventual decision to shake up the formula and trade folk for rock ‘n’ roll. In reality, the whistle came from musician Al Kooper.

“At the time, I wore that police whistle around my neck like a necklace,” Kooper told Rolling Stone in 2016. “I would use it in certain situations, mostly relating to drugs — my sense of humor at the time. When we were recording the song, it just sounded great to me. I took the necklace and put it around Bob’s neck and said, ‘Play this instead of the harmonica.’ And there you go.”

Did Kooper rush into the studio last-minute and, in a moment of panic, come up with the famous organ riff from “Like a Rolling Stone”?

Kooper indeed was a late addition to the Highway 61 Revisited sessions and was told by the producer to switch from guitar to organ. As it happened in real life, by happy accident, Kooper came up with the riff that pushes “Like a Rolling Stone” into the atmosphere — the rare time in the film when we see Dylan smile. The film shows Kooper coming up with the riff on his first try; in real life, the final version took two rehearsals and four takes.

Folkies vs. Dylan at Newport in ’65

Did Alan Lomax demand that Dylan not come to Newport to play his new electric songs?

If A Complete Unknown paints Seeger as a complicated father figure to Dylan, musicologist Lomax becomes the film’s villain, the ultra-traditionalist most opposed to Dylan performing his new electric songs at the folk festival. The real Lomax was quite the folk purist, yet according to Wald, there’s no evidence that he demanded Dylan to not come to Newport with an electric guitar.

Did Seeger and Dylan have their final showdown the morning of Dylan’s set?

In the film, Norton comes to Dylan’s hotel room to confront him about whether or not he’ll perform electric. This is Norton’s chance to deliver his Oscar reel speech — Seeger’s final attempt to get Dylan to return to playing traditional folk music, which Grossman likens to Seeger’s desperate plea to keep pushing candles, while Dylan has moved on to selling lightbulbs. (There’s no evidence that this specific argument took place, though.)

Did Johnny Cash give Dylan his blessing to go ahead with his electric set?

Immediately after Dylan’s tense moment with Seeger, Dylan walks out to find a loaded Cash trying (failing) to back his car out of a parking lot. An artist not unfamiliar with fans and critics telling him how he should sound, Cash encourages Dylan to not let other people tell him what to play. It’s Holbrook’s own Oscar-bait moment … except the real Cash was not at Newport ’65.

Dylan takes the stage

What really happened at Newport ’65?

The film’s climax is an extended cut of Dylan performing “Maggie’s Farm,” “Phantom Engineer” (an early version of what eventually became “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry”), and “Like a Rolling Stone,” followed by a solo acoustic encore of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” the set that changed his life and rock history. This is also the hardest scene to fact-check. In his book, Wald admits to the challenge of trying to parse through what happened during Dylan’s set and what has grown into myth. In the film, chunks of the audience are cheering, jeering, or crying, in joy or frustration regarding Dylan’s decision to trade folk for rock music, or because of the poor sound quality. Grossman and Lomax get into a fistfight over the sound. A frustrated Seeger spots an axe and stomps over to cut the power before his wife stops him. Cash hands a distraught Dylan an acoustic guitar so that he can finish his set. It’s a lot.

We can confirm a few things. Seeger did not use an axe on anything, but he later recalled that he wished he had an axe to chop the sound cables due to how uncomfortably loud it sounded. Grossman and Lomax did get in a fight, but that happened earlier in the festival when The Paul Butterfield Blues Band played their own abnormally loud electric set to Lomax’s frustration. By all accounts, Dylan and his band did not play well, their fumbling of the songs overshadowed by the sheer distorted volume. Later, members of Dylan’s band admitted that they were practicing these songs for the first time together during soundcheck. And Dylan played an additional song after “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”: “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

Did someone yell “Judas!” during Dylan’s set?

Yes … but not at Newport ’65. In what is the film’s most obvious smudging of real events, the exchange between the “Judas!” fan and Dylan responding by telling his band to “I don’t believe you … Play loud” is a near beat-by-beat recreation of Dylan’s real-life infamous 1966 Free Trade Hall show, forever preserved in The Bootleg Series Vol 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert.

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