WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for A Complete Unknown.
Bob Dylan had a historic and controversial electric performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in real life and in the new biopicA Complete Unknown. Starring Timothée Chalamet as the legendary folk singer/songwriter,A Complete Unknownwas released in threats on Christmas Day 2024. Thecast ofA Complete Unknownalso features Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Dan Fogler, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, and Edward Norton as Seeger. While the film is a biopic of the icon’s rise to fame,A Complete Unknownchanges several true story detailsabout Bob Dylan’s real life.
Directed by James Mangold ofFord v. FerrariandLoganacclaim,A Complete Unknownhas one ofthe best performances of 2024. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 79% and an audience score of 95%,A Complete Unknownwas nominated for three Golden Globes and four SAG Awards.The film follows Bob Dylan’s early years when he first arrives in New Yorkand quickly becomes a local legend through the help ofmusician and activist Pete Seegerafter meetingone of his folk heroes, Woody Guthrie. The 1965 Newport Folk Festival became a pivotal event that changed the course of Dylan’s career.
The Newport Folk Festival Crowd Really Did Boo Bob Dylan During His 1965 Performance
Some fans were outraged by Dylan’s new loud electric style
As depicted inA Complete Unknown, the crowd at the1965 Newport Folk Festival booed Bob Dylanwhen he started playing some of his newer songs from his electric rock catalog. It’s believed that the booing was the result ofDylan symbolically turning his back on folk music by plugging in and playing loud, which went against the spirit and foundation of the historical music festival. This debate over acoustic and electric is at the heart ofA Complete Unknown’sendingas Dylan refuses to conform to the expectations of the festival even though Pete Seeger tried to level with him on the morning of his performance.
8 Bob Dylan Movies That Still Deserve To Be Made After A Complete Unknown
Bob Dylan has lived many lives throughout his more than 60 years of career, and there’s far more to his story than what’s seen in A Complete Unknown.
Others speculate that the booing was more due to the poor amplified sound quality that made Dylan’s performance uncomfortably loud, which was a stark contrast to the mostly acoustic performances before it. Additionally, as shown inA Complete Unknown, the booing wasn’t unanimous among all attendees at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, showing that some spectators enjoyed the new sound or at least were excited to see Dylan in the flesh.Dylan and his band opened with “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone”, followed by “Phantom Engineer”, an early version of “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” before walking off stage to a chorus of cheers and boos.
Pete Seeger Did Want To Cut The Sound To Bob Dylan’s Set
He was trying to improve the distorted playback, not kill his electric sound
Another true story detail captured inA Complete Unknownwas Pete Seeger’s desire to cut Bob Dylan’s set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It wasn’t, however, an act of disapproval, but more so a response to the distorted playback. In a 1990 letter to Dylan, Seeger wrote: “Bob! Someone just told me that you too think I didn’t like your going electric in 1965. I’ve denied that so many times. I was furious at the distorted sound – no one could understand the words of ‘Maggie’s Farm’.“Seeger explains in retrospect that he was trying to improve Dylan’s electric sound, not prevent it.
Seeger continued to explain in his letter that he “dashed over to the people controlling the PA system. ‘No, this is the way they want it,’ they said. I shouted, ‘if I had an axe, I’d cut the cable’, and I guess that’s what got quoted. My big mistake was in not challenging from the stage the foolish few who booed. I shoulda said, ‘Howlin Wolf goes electric, why can’t Bob?’ In any case, you keep on. Best, Pete(viaFar Out).” It appears thatSeeger, who died in 2014, regretted not doing more to endorse Dylan’s electric shiftat the time.
Bob Dylan Played Two Non-Electric Songs As An Encore
“Mr. Tambourine Man” & “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
A Complete Unknownalso captures Dylan’s acoustic encore at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to help smooth out the rowdy crowd before his abrupt exit. Dylan returned to the stage solo with an acoustic guitar to play “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Despite the crowd becoming unified and overjoyed, Dylan left after the two-song encore anddidn’t play at the Newport Folk Festival again until 2002, when he performed a two-hour set in a fake beard and wig several decades after the events ofA Complete Unknown.
A Complete Unknown
Cast
A Complete Unknown is a biographical movie that follows a young Bob Dylan as he integrates with New York and catches the eye of the folk singers in the area, eventually propelling him into stardom.
