The Ventnor Film Society Presents …. I’m Not There. Todd Haynes’ film about Bob Dylan, is one of the greatest rock’n’roll swindles of all time.
The hero is “not there”. He’s officially a ghost.
Yet this mythic account of his life is one of the best pieces of cinema of 2007. Six brilliant actors play Dylan and they are as madly various as the artist’s album covers.
For the record, Dylan himself was so bewitched by the project that, for the first time, he actually yielded up his precious song rights.
The sprawling anthems provide a spine to Haynes’s fabulous mulch of newsreel and concert footage. He’s perfectly aware that the history of indie cinema chimes wonderfully with Dylan’s growing power.
The crazy gamble – casting different actors to express different parts of Dylan’s elusive career – is repaid by magic. Everyone takes on a name, job, and demeanour that is only inches away from the musician’s public life.
Christian Bale, Ben Wishaw, and Heath Ledger are unspeakably brilliant as various shades of Dylan. Cate Blanchett is simply fabulous as the frizzy-haired 1960s troubadour who is staked out by the BBC’s media inquisitor, Mr Jones, to test if Dylan is a fraud.
Dir: Todd Haynes USA 2007 135 mins Cert 15
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Kris Kristofferson, Heath Ledger, Marcus Carl Franklin
Prices
Venue: Ventnor Winter Gardens
Single Ticket: £4.50 (£3.50 Concessionary)
Concessionary tickets are available to students, senior citizens and the unwaged.
All VFS presentations (apart from special events) take place on Tuesday evenings and start at 7.30pm. There is a bar in the building and guests may take drinks into film presentations. All are welcome; you do not have to belong to the Society in order to attend.
