I once did a brief Bob Dylan impression at one of my neighborhood bars in New York City. The bartender, with his back to me, didn’t turn around to ask, sincerely: “Are you doing the Swedish Chef?” I was going for a string of jumbled words spoken with enough bounce to be convincing as Dylan, instead I apparently landed on a gibberish Muppet.
I thought of this after seeing Timothee Chalamet as Dylan in A Complete Unknown, a biopic that should not be thought of as a historical lecture but as just one interpretation of a young musician — a storyteller — whose rise to fame both seemed predestined and entirely startling to both himself and the people around him. Dylan’s cadence of speaking and singing has been mimicked by many and the reality is that anyone doing an impression of him is doing only that: an impression. Chalamet’s version is clearly well-studied, practiced, earnest and meant to support Dylan’s on-screen identity, not distract from it.
I’m not a linguist, but I believe I know something about the way Dylan speaks, seeing as I also hail from the quasi-North Country. We both grew up on the Great Lakes in towns that once boasted industrial glory, where winters are unforgiving, summers don’t last very long and Canada is a place you can practically throw a rock at and hit. There is a flat, nasally quality to our vowels — mine is more prevalent when I’m tired or had a drink, though apparently any more than one and it becomes Swedish Chef-like. Take the word “ballad” for example, as in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Or the phrase “how does it feel?” from “Like a Rolling Stone.” The short “a” and “e” sounds come out strongly and swiftly — not even Dylan’s words and the way he pronounces them will wait for you to catch up. Better get on the train.
Watch a Trailer for ‘A Complete Unknown’
Dylan has a much more rubbery way of delivering his words than I do — his sentences sounds similar to a motorcycle engine revving up, stretching from low to high and back again. His lips and mouth don’t move much thanks to those flat vowels — so flat it sometimes sounds like someone’s got half his nose pinched while he’s singing.
Timothee Chalamet’s Approach
None of this is a particularly easy thing to convey as an actor, much less one who grew up in Manhattan and spent summers in France, two places where the people decidedly don’t sound anything like midwestern Minnesota boys.
But Chalamet is not only a professional, he’s a student to his character. He was loaned special early recordings of Dylan from around the time of his move to New York City in 1961, unreleased to the public and highly coveted by Dylan scholars, and I can also state with full confidence that he and I attended the same Dylan concert last fall in Brooklyn, where an acquaintance of mine sat directly behind him. He was enthralled the entire show, but also spent time before it began chatting with fellow fans in his row. In a recent video clip he posted to social media, he can be seen gesturing and gyrating in public while singing along to 1966’s “Visions of Johanna,” a song that does not appear in A Complete Unknown. The point being: Chalamet has done the research and then some, and isn’t afraid to get weird with it.
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So it should come as no surprise that his Dylan voice seemed to expertly capture the bard’s rhinal way of singing, the way it sounds as though he hasn’t taken a full breath but gets the words out anyway, the way his speaking voice still retains a tone of measure even when he’s upset with his manager, his girlfriend or the fans who don’t really seem to understand him at all.
A Complete Unknown faced the real possibility of doing disservice to both Dylan and Chalamet, and even if the former would have paid no mind, the latter’s diligent approach and close attention to detail has earned him a Golden Globe nomination. If Chalamet’s performance is one of the ways in which Dylan’s human identity — the very physical voice that spoke to fans, fellow artists and social justice leaders — is chronicled for future generations to absorb, it’s a job well done.
Listen to Timothee Chalamet Perform ‘Like a Rolling Stone’
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“In one way I don’t consider myself a filmmaker at all. In another way I do,” Dylan once said.
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
