Bob Dylan started off as just a regular folk banjo player before he became super famous. He really took off in the 1960s when his music got popular, and he ended up selling about 125 million records, making him one of the best-selling artists ever. The movie about his life shows how he got his start and became famous during that time. Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan, and he spent five years preparing for the role by learning to play guitar and sing.
What’s cool is that he performed all the songs live in the movie instead of using pre-recorded tracks. The film also includes Johnny Cash, who was a good friend of Dylan’s. Since they didn’t have cell phones back then, they kept in touch by writing letters, and the ones shown in the movie are actually real letters from Bob Dylan’s archives.
Bob Dylan was considered one of the most important musicians of his time, often referred to as the “Shakespeare of his generation,” which made him highly influential. Most of the movie about his life takes place in New York City and at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, even though Dylan was actually born in Minnesota. I found this especially interesting because I want to learn to play guitar and will be starting lessons soon. One of the more surprising parts of the movie involves historical events, such as the assassination of President Kennedy.
Another controversial moment in the movie is when Dylan switched from folk music to using an electric guitar. When he performed “Like a Rolling Stone” with the electric guitar, many fans didn’t like it at first because they were only used to hearing him play folk music.
When Bob was a little boy he was a rebellious child and would usually run away from home; later on he denied some stories. In reality he lived a fairly normal and middle class childhood. Later on in his life he began to love music; therefore that inspired him to play the guitar, harmonica and the piano as well.
While he was a young adult he didn’t really have a relationship with his parents. He kept his wedding private from his family when he was getting married in 1965, or when he had a very serious motorcycle accident back in 1966. So he didn’t really get along with some of his family members.
Dylan’s family lived in Duluth until he turned 6 years old, while his father contracted polio and the whole family returned to their mothers hometown in Hibbing Minnesota; in which they lived there for the rest of Bob’s childhood, and his father and his fatherlike uncles ran a furniture and appliance store.
