Elle Fanning reveals her favourite Bob Dylan song: “I kind of got obsessed”
The biopic is a genre that has always divided people, and the more devoted the fanbase, the more controversial the project, so when the announcement of a Bob Dylan biopic was made back in 2020, it certainly caused some alarm among fans, especially with young heartthrob Timothée Chalamet attached to star as the iconic singer.
It raised doubts about whether Chalamet could pull off the difficult task of embodying the spirit of young Dylan, someone whose rise has already been well catalogued through documentaries and recordings from the moment he emerged on the scene, like in Don’t Look Back. With Dylan still alive and kicking, there were even more stakes, and some fans just weren’t interested because biopics rarely hit the mark, instead emerging as Oscar-baiting fodder.
Some people saw Chalamet’s performance in the resulting film, A Complete Unknown, as nothing more than him gunning for an Oscar, with the actor making no secret of his desire for greatness and accolades, but you have to hand it to him, as his preparation for the part was extensive, and he really did do a pretty great job of embodying Dylan.
Appearing alongside him was Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, while Elle Fanning played Sylvie, a fictional character based on Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo, with the singer’s romantic relationships forming a large part of the narrative.
Fanning does a great job as Sylvie, her performance subtle yet full of emotional depth. For the actor, it was a big moment getting cast, because she was a Dylan “fanatic” as a teenager, having been introduced to the singer’s music when she was 13 on the set of Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo. “I’m a huge fan,” she told Gold Derby, explaining, “He [Crowe] introduced me to Bob Dylan and all of his albums, and I kind of got obsessed and would listen to the Blood on the Tracks album every day going to set.”
She even had “posters of Bob on my wall” and would “write in cursive ‘Bob Dylan’ on my hand every day in junior high”. Clearly, this was a part that was meant to find her, so which from his massive catalogue of songs stands as her favourite? Appearing on Track Star, she revealed that it’s ‘Hurricane’ that stands out as her go-to, which comes from the singer’s 1976 album, Desire.
A protest song about the racism and murder conviction against Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, it’s a powerful number, and Dylan even performed a benefit concert for the boxer upon the release of the album, helping to bring further attention to the case.
While Fanning admitted that Crowe would constantly play ‘Buckets of Rain’ from Blood on the Tracks, it’s ‘Hurricane’, which was released almost a year later, that sticks out as her favourite. The track utilises a strong storytelling narrative, with Dylan attesting to Carter’s innocence following a wrongful accusation and conviction of murder. It’s this impressive storytelling skill that the singer has long possessed that makes him such a formidable figure in the industry, always using his platform as an artist for good.
He’ll always be an icon, so of course, he was going to get a biopic, or several made about him, and luckily, roping in existing fanatics, like Fanning, helped bring authenticity to a movie that could’ve easily flopped, but instead was Oscar-nominated, while Fanning bagged an award from the National Board of Review for her flawless performance.
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