Times were a'Changing!

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Director: James Mangold

Clip from Youtube

One of my earliest memories from the late 1960s is of my uncle spending weekends at my house. He was a university student, a rare sight in Malaysia then. I was fascinated by the shaving cream he and his friend, who accompanied him, applied to their faces and skillfully shaved off. What intrigued me even more was the fragrant aftershave lotion they put on afterwards. I was captivated by the lovely containers it came in. I later discovered it was 'Old Spice'. Its logo, a pirate ship, left a lasting impression on me. They spoke a great deal in English, and I often wonder what they discussed—perhaps the societal changes about which Bob Dylan wrote in his songs? I could not comprehend the messages as they were mainly in English, the lingua franca of the educated lot in the country.

As we know, the 1960s were tumultuous times. The Americans were the de facto leaders of the free world, whilst developing countries struggled to free themselves from the yoke of colonisation. Communist ideology gained popularity among young rabble-rousers who believed Marx's teachings could save their nations and the world from annihilation. The US viewed it as its moral duty to curtail leftist ideas and promote the message of a free world. The Americans, however, wised up. Seeing the devastating effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, the inhumane expulsion of tribes from Bikini Atoll and seeing bodybags returning from Korea and later Vietnam, in the carefree times of rock and roll, people started expressing their discontent.

At about this time, a young Bob Dylan packed his guitar and landed in New York to meet his ailing idol Woody Guthrie. He soon got into the folk music scene there. The film tells about Dylan's rise to stardom and the opposition he got as he decided to introduce electric guitar and other band instruments into his presentation. The folk music purists feel that he was damaging the essence of folk music by going electric. The movie ends in 1965 when Dylan finishes a stunning performance by introducing his electric make-over, performing on his acoustic guitar, and riding into the sunset on his motorbike.

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/bob-dylan-motorcycle-crash/

The movie is not a full biopic but a part of Dylan's life. I was looking forward to knowing about his most talked about alleged bad motorcycle crash that cracked several vertebrae, a concussion and facial lacerations, but it was not included. Upon researching, I discovered that it happened a year after the timeline where the story ends. Like many of Bob Dylan's great stories, famous for half-truths, and outright lies, the motorcycle accident is shrouded in mystery. There is a possibility that the accident never took place as there was no record of hospital admissions for an injury so severe. Dylan could have just burned out. Possibly, such an accident never took place; he just wanted to be 'out of the rat race'.

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