I’m Not There is a biography, but not a biography. It is “inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan.” It uses many of Dylan’s works, portrays many events in his life, and much of the dialogue is from things Dylan said, but technically, there is no Bob Dylan in this movie. Instead there are six Dylan stand-ins: Woody (played by Marcus Carl Franklin) represents his “Young Romantic” phase of 1959-61; Jack (Christian Bale) shows us Dylan as “The Prophet” in 1962-64 and “The Spiritualist” in 1979-81; Arthur (Ben Whishaw) is “The Enigma” of 1965; Jude (Cate Blanchett) is “The Innovator” in 1966 when Dylan went electric; Robbie (Heath Ledger) actually doesn’t serve as a Dylan clone, per se, but rather an actor who plays a Dylan clone and serves as a representative of Dylan as “The Restless Lover” between 1964-73; and Billy (Richard Gere) is “The Lone Gun”, a rather anachronistic and surreal representation of “The Lone Gun” of 1967-???

Some of these clones seem very accurate (Blanchett’s Jude and Whishaw’s Arthur are dead on), others are far more imaginary (Gere’s Billy and Ledger’s Robbie have no physical resemblance.) But in this film, catching the mannerisms is less important than capturing the essence of the man. And Dylan has so many different spirits to capture.

By using different actors and personae to show different periods or aspects of Bob Dylan is not just a way of making the film innovative; it also represents the central theme of the film: that change is a constant and often those changes are resisted.

It is especially obvious in this treatment of Dylan’s life and work that he refuses to be locked into any given form of music. His earliest work was telling the same stories of earlier generations of folk singers, but then he shifted to “finger pointing songs,” songs with a message about the world of that day. Still later he shifted more to a rock sound (which displeased many of his fans.) He also ventured into gospel music. His personal life went through just as many shifts, as do most lives. While most of us have lives that tend to evolve slowly through the years, Dylan’s (at least as portrayed in I’m Not There) has sudden jumps, but also certain ongoing themes that overlap all the changes.

Early in the film, while Woody is still a basic folk singer, he is taken to task by a woman for telling stories of troubles of long ago when there are plenty of troubles now that need to be told. She tells him, “Live your own time, child.” Those words seem to be the impetus for many changes that take place. The Dylan of this film is one who refuses to stay in the past. The thing his fans complain about is that “he’s different than he was at first.” The criticism about change keeps coming up in different ways throughout the film. At one point, Jude and Alan Ginsberg stand before a large crucifix in a cemetery doing their own version of the mocking of Christ on the cross. Their mocking though isn’t about Jesus; it focuses on the criticism they hear. One of Jude’s lines is, “Do your early stuff,” which is what the crowds want from Dylan.

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