Searchlight Pictures has released a trailer for A Complete Unknown, its upcoming Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet as the singer-songwriter. The film is based on Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties.
Wald’s book, published by Dey Street in 2015, is the story behind Bob Dylan’s controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965. Dylan, at the time mostly known as a folk singer, played with an electric band, performing his now-legendary rock song “Like a Rolling Stone” and angering many traditional folk fans. A critic for Kirkus called the book “an enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan’s music or persona.”
The film adaptation is directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) and also stars Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, and Monica Barbaro.
The trailer opens with Norton as folk legend Pete Seeger telling an audience, “I want to tell you a little story. Few months back, my friend Woody Guthrie and I, we met a young man. He dropped in on us out of nowhere, and he played us a song. In that moment, we got a feeling we were getting a glimpse of the future.”
The trailer then cuts to Chalamet as Dylan, performing “A Hard Rain’s A‐Gonna Fall,” which continues to play over scenes of him walking by New York’s legendary Cafe Wha?, being accosted by clamoring fans, and riding a motorcycle.
A Complete Unknown is scheduled to premiere in theaters in December.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
