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Dylan Director Comes Clean

3:16 PM GMT 06/12/2007

Dylan Director Comes Clean

MOJO: What kind of a Dylan fan were you, growing up?

Todd Haynes: I definitely began as a pure fan in my high school years. I’m sure I’d heard the folk Dylan when I was a little kid but it was in high school that I discovered the records for myself: Greatest Hits, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks. And for those few years in LA at High School I was into Dylan, Joni, Neil Young… then in the late ’70s I basically stopped listening to Dylan, for about 20 years, from the lesser Christian records onwards. I feel very lucky that I was a child under the hippies, an adolescent for punk, and a young adult for later Bowie and the new-wave, alienated, ironic music that followed. I was very in the right place at the right time and at the end of my thirties when I was wearing out on my New York life after Velvet Goldmine I found myself hungering for Dylan again and it was some bizarre signal that I needed some of that change in my life… It wasn’t for the Dylan of the moment but a return to the Dylan I knew who was fearless about change, about the promise of what was around the corner. That’s what started this new obsession with Dylan, which in turn led to this film. This film would be about change and regeneration and there’s no more powerful place to look for that than Bob Dylan.

What was the starting point for this idea of the six Dylans?

That came right on the tail end of this flood of interest in Dylan. I was being taken back into his music and discovering “new” old stuff like the complete Basement Tapes collection and the first Columbia Bootleg series. Greil Marcus’s Invisible Republic chaperoned the experience and was so creatively inspiring. Then there were his mid-’60s interviews – particularly the Playboy interview with Nat Hentoff – which I found to be such wildly performative acts that they almost begged to be performed again. Then I’d read biographies that continued to reiterate this description of somebody changing in front of your eyes, for whom each change was wholly committed where there was an almost built-in disavowal of everything that came before. OK, I thought, this is the way to get to the core of this character, let’s split him up into different people… Wow, that would be a cool way to make a movie! I called [producer] Christine [Vachon] and said, almost sheepishly, “I have an idea… Dylan!” thinking we’d just laugh at each other and she said, “Don’t write anything yet. Let’s approach the powers that be.” So the concept that was presented to Dylan was almost identical to the finished film we would make seven years later. I met with [Bob’s son] Jesse Dylan and [Dylan manager] Jeff Rosen, and described the idea. They told me to write something out on one sheet of paper… It was called I’m Not There: Suppositions On A Film Concerning Bob Dylan. It had the descriptions of seven characters…

Which Dylan missed the cut?

This character named Charlie. Traces of Charlie remain. It would have been a silent-screen all-in-one story that would show a magical figure, a little tramp, coming to Greenwich Village and performing these feats of magic and being an arbiter of peace between the beats and the folkies. Dylan’s described as Chaplinesque so many times in those early performances… and this is where I see the direct line from his middle-class Jewish roots where he had that ability to be completely innocent while his cap rolled off his head and fell on the floor and he reached down and fell off the stool. There’s a direct line there to the ’50s Borscht Belt comedians, especially those talking blues songs he sang, which had a droll, innocent wit.

Did you have a favourite Dylan?

It wasn’t my plan or project to have a favourite but the film does reflect my own interests and I guess Jude [Cate Blanchett’s electric Dylan] carried a dramatic weight. He was such a weird marionette figure then, with his huge head, and I wanted to re-infuse that period with strangeness and it had to be made more strange, the way gears would start to shift around him, the residual cost of self-abuse, of putting yourself out there and the repercussions of disappointing and confusing people, the psychic weight of that, despite how much it seemed that he was just kicking the dust back in their faces and charging ahead. It was an incredibly dangerous period for him physically and psychically. That felt like the film’s three-quarter mark, and would propel us into the final chapters of the movie as well as being one of the most fascinating moments in his life…

It’s an astonishing performance, the most famous Dylan and being a woman playing a man and all the expectations that brings. It could have become superficial but she circumvented that and went straight to the core. It’s really astonishing.

Has Dylan seen it?

We don’t know yet. He has a DVD of it in his suitcase and that’s the last I’ve heard. It’s crazy. It’s probably sitting next to all the bolo shirts that he wears every night and the weird old westerns and film noirs he watches…

Interview: Andrew Male

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 3:16 PM GMT 06/12/2007

Related MOJO content:

Bob Dylan , I'm Not There , Todd Haynes

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  • "It was in high school I discovered the records for myself...Greatest Hits...then I basically stopped listening to Dylan for about 20 years. . ."
    shallow-minded twat. no wonder the movie is such superficial crap.

    Posted by terry shute at 1:37 AM GMT 20/01/2008 Report Abuse

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  • RE: terry shute

    missing the point mr shute

    Posted by the rainman at 11:07 PM GMT 21/01/2008 Report Abuse

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  • When i first heard Bob Dylan, I went into song writing and playing guitar mode,i new then he was the best song writter in the world, I still write songs to day, my new song called ( The Dylan and Elvis Files song), is on my site now, www.myspace.com/countrydavemurray, I take my song writing very serious, i do a lot of book reading to research my subject, well here it is hold tight. There is a book called (All Across The Telegraph, A Bob Dylan Handbook), written by Michael Gray and John Bauldie and introduction by Bob Willis. Now my song is set around the information in this book, if you listen to the song, Bob Dylan and Elvis Files, in the lyrics I ask Bob Dylan is it fact or is it fiction, Bob you meet up with Elvis. Now because i am a major Elvis fan and i understand, you may think its not true, well i did when i was told by a real life Bob Dylan fan of 40 years, he said "Bob recorded with Elvis, unknown to me", I stood back and just said prove it well all I can he said, its in a book which sold millions. So here its is, I will write the reference to the meeting, between Dylan and Elvis word by word from the book, I thank you for your kindness for feeding back to me. Here we!

    ALL ACROSS THE TELEGRAPH BY Michael Gray and John Bauldie
    Reference page 267

    "This information emerged from Presley- fanatic sources. Here is the song list from the Presley and Dylan session of May 1971 in Nashville! Elvis was booked in to do Christmas songs; for atmosphere's sake, they had Santa’s and angels, Christmas trees and holly and - not duet-ting on all titles, we believe (no tape has yet surfaced) - they sang: Set list Below"

    · All I really want to do My Garden Pray
    · Blowing in the Wind In The Ghetto
    · Caroline One To Many Mornings
    · House Of The Rising Sun She Belongs To Me
    · It Ant Me Babe Say You Love Me One More Time
    · Jodie And The Kid Silent Night
    · Like A Rolling Stone Subterranean Homesick Blues
    · Me And Bobbie McGee Walk Down The Line
    · Mr Tambourine Man Satisfied
    ·
    Reportedly they got back together again, sometime in 1972, at which session they only managed only ' If Not For You.

    Well it is there in black and white man, that’s why my song is called the (Dylan and Presley files,) this song is causing a bit of a stir, its been it 1145 time in one day on myspace, but man I got the written prove so has it says in my song come on Bob Dylan is it fact or is it fiction.

    My new album is called, ( SONGS ABOUT THE KING ), check it out on www.myspace.com/countrydavemurray.

    thanks so much
    Dave Ciarella Murray

    Posted by Dave Ciarella Murray at 8:43 AM GMT 31/07/2008 Report Abuse

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  • RE: the rainman, how is mr shute missing the point? The movie is just awful, pretenous, garbage.

    Posted by Murry Small at 6:07 AM GMT 17/10/2008 Report Abuse

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  • My Mom will be happy to hear that Dylan likes his tunnel!Ava knows where I pt hers away & she goes & bginrs it to me to set it up for her,it's her favorite :)I need to have Mark add Dylan & Lilys links to Avas website again because I think everyone relied on those to check Dylan's site!I love Dylan in his overalls,he looks sooo cute!What will he wear for his Birthday?I'll try to call you t/m,but I work so it's going to be a crazy day,hope I talk to you soon,I miss you!Love you,Brit

    Posted by Debasis at 9:03 AM GMT 09/07/2012 Report Abuse

    Reply to this post

  • My Mom will be happy to hear that Dylan likes his tunnel!Ava knows where I pt hers away & she goes & bginrs it to me to set it up for her,it's her favorite :)I need to have Mark add Dylan & Lilys links to Avas website again because I think everyone relied on those to check Dylan's site!I love Dylan in his overalls,he looks sooo cute!What will he wear for his Birthday?I'll try to call you t/m,but I work so it's going to be a crazy day,hope I talk to you soon,I miss you!Love you,Brit

    Posted by Debasis at 9:03 AM GMT 09/07/2012 Report Abuse

    Reply to this post

  • My Mom will be happy to hear that Dylan likes his tunnel!Ava knows where I pt hers away & she goes & bginrs it to me to set it up for her,it's her favorite :)I need to have Mark add Dylan & Lilys links to Avas website again because I think everyone relied on those to check Dylan's site!I love Dylan in his overalls,he looks sooo cute!What will he wear for his Birthday?I'll try to call you t/m,but I work so it's going to be a crazy day,hope I talk to you soon,I miss you!Love you,Brit

    Posted by Debasis at 9:04 AM GMT 09/07/2012 Report Abuse

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