A Complete Fabrication: Which scene in ‘A Complete Unknown’ is made up?
When James Mangold went to Bob Dylan to get permission to make A Complete Unknown, a biopic about his life in his early career, Dylan said yes, under one condition. As a man famously private about his life who has weaved a veil of mystery around himself through both his ambiguous lyricism and his own lies about his life, it wouldn’t be Dylan unless he messed with his audience a little. So, he demanded that the film include one totally made-up scene, but no one can know which one it is.
Obviously, like any film, there is a level of truth-twisting needed to make a good story. Even though A Complete Unknown is a biopic based on real life, informed by the book Dylan Goes Electric! by author and journalist Elijah Wald, who spent time researching Dylan for the text, there are always bound to be some exaggerations or additions just to make it a good watch. Very few people’s real lives would make a good movie, so even for someone like Dylan and for years as exciting as his busy 1961 to 1965 period, his life would still have to be neatened up into a sharp, entertaining, 140-minute package.
However, it is clearly pretty reflective of Dylan and those years, given that the musician himself signed off on the script. While Mangold answered “I honestly have no idea” when asked if he thought Dylan would ever watch the movie, the musician was involved with the making of it. Mangold said that he not only read the script but provided notes and suggestions. The film’s producer, Peter Jaysen, said that Dylan even went so far as to host a table read with just himself and the team behind it, going over every detail.
He said, “At one point, they sat there, and they read the entire script out loud, with Jim Mangold reading every part and stage direction, and Bob Dylan only reading lines of dialogue for himself.” So, given the level of care even the musician afforded to make sure he was happy with the depiction of himself and his life, it’s likely that he thinks it’s pretty accurate.
However, he had one condition for the film’s production. Edward Norton revealed that Mangold told the cast that Dylan had demanded that one made-up scene be added to the movie. While the rest could tell the truth, he wanted to add one lie.
That’s pretty typical of Dylan, given that he lied about his childhood, claiming he’d run off to join the circus. So, the musician has never had a problem with fabrication in favour of a good story. But the question remains: what scene is it?
Some people theorise that it has something to do with the relationship between Dylan and Johnny Cash. The film shows the two musicians becoming pen pals, and Cash appears as a kind of mentor, confidant, and supporter to Dylan during his bold move to the electric guitar. However, given the humour written into these moments, like when Cash crashes his car during a silly conversation between the two, the detail feels almost too perfectly comedic to be real, potentially.
The same goes for when Dylan is punched in the face by a fan as his fame becomes utterly overwhelming. It’s another almost too-perfect moment that’s not only funny but utterly encapsulates Dylan’s experience at that moment, possibly that is fake.
But realistically, the likely answer is probably to do with the character of Sylvie Russo. While every other character in the film is addressed by their real name, Dylan requested that the role of his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, be changed.
“It was a character who I felt—and I think Bob very much agreed when we talked early on—was the only one who wasn’t a celebrity and an icon in and of themselves with a kind of public persona,” Mangold explained, “Everyone else is up for the gauntlet and has been in that game a long time. And Suze was just a real person … And there was just a feeling for Bob of not subjecting her to that.”
Given that Rotolo wasn’t a celebrity and how precious that relationship was to Dylan, it seems that the musician wanted to protect her in some way and offer her a slight level of privacy as the movie rehashed his life and, therefore, inevitably, their connection. Especially as it includes some painful moments where Sylvie Russo is left devastated by Dylan’s betrayals, perhaps the musician wanted to honour her memory by not casting her pain onto the screen but putting it onto a character instead.
As he already went so far as to fictionalise a name for her, it feels most likely that the made-up scene also involved the two of them. People have theorised that it’s as minor as changing how they met or what they did on their first date, just something small as a way to further protect their personal relationship from the glaring eyes of audiences.
In reality, though, no one knows. It’s clear that Mangold deeply respects the covenant he entered into when working closely with Dylan on this project. Holding onto a copy of the script that Dylan personally annotated with notes and suggestions, it’s a possession incredibly dear to him that he’ll never share, telling even Timothee Chalament that he’ll “never get his hands on it”.
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