Line #25 Film/ImNotThere


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/29x169.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Confused yet?]]
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5	->''"People are always talking about freedom. Freedom to live a certain way, without being kicked around. Course the more you live a certain way, the less it feels like freedom. Me, uhm, I can change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time. It's like you got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room. There's no telling what can happen."''
6	--> -- '''UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid''' (closing narration)
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8	''I'm Not There'' is a 2007 biopic--[[MindScrew sort of]]--based on the life and different personae of Music/BobDylan. Directed by Creator/ToddHaynes, the film uses six different actors ([[CrossCastRole one of whom is a woman]]) to portray him, all playing Dylan at different roles in his life.
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10	* Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin) is a black 11-year old boy traveling across America trying to find his place. He represents Dylan's MysteriousPast and lies. His name comes from Dylan's idol [[Music/WoodyGuthrie of the same name]].
11	* Jack Rollins (Creator/ChristianBale) represents Dylan's folk era. Done in the style of a documentary looking back, this section chronicles Rollins' rise to fame and his ultimate disillusion with it. Jack later becomes Pastor John, showing Dylan's exploration into Christianity.
12	* Jude Quinn (Creator/CateBlanchett) is Dylan in his rock stage: abrasive, fragile, and drug-addicted. Haynes wanted the role to be played by a woman to capture Dylan's felineness in this period of his life.
13	* Robbie Clark (Creator/HeathLedger) is a [[MindScrew film star that plays Jack Rollins]] in the film ''Grain of Sand''. However, this section focuses mainly on his relationship with Claire (Creator/CharlotteGainsbourg). He displays Dylan's attitude in relationships and his misogyny.
14	* Billy the Kid (Creator/RichardGere) is an outlaw in the bush - the little town of Riddle. He represents Dylan in our times.
15	* Arthur Rimbaud (Creator/BenWhishaw) seems to be in a court scene. Not really having a storyline of his own, he pops in and out throughout the film with small sections of script, mostly actual Dylan quotes. Named for the poet.
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18	!!This film provides examples of:
19	* ActorIsTheTitleCharacter: As the poster proudly displays, the six leads are ''all'' Bob Dylan.
20	* AnachronicOrder: The Dylans are introduced in chronological order, but thereafter the film jumps between them.
21	* ArcWords: "Freedom."
22	* CaptainErsatz / NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The Dylans obviously, but other characters count too, such as Alice Fabian (Joan Baez), Coco Rivington (Edie Sedgwick), and Claire (who is a CompositeCharacter of Dylan's wives/girlfriends).
23	* ChekhovsGun: Woody's guitar.
24	* CloudCuckooLander: Jude Quinn, big time. Deconstructed, of course, as he is in fact a very erudite and intelligent person, but his drugs and alcohol abuse, and his mainly jerkass attitude, has left him as a really fried mad artist. This is true for the mid-60s Dylan, as he was constantly using drugs and going to clubs, and meeting people like Edie (Andy Warhol's diva), and Music/BrianJones, and Music/TheBeatles.
25	* CrosscastRole: Creator/CateBlanchett as Jude Quinn.
26	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Most of the Jude Quinn section is shot in black and white.
27	* FauxDocumentary: The [[Creator/ChristianBale Jack Rollins]] story.
28	* FilmWithinAFilm: The in-universe {{Biopic}} ''Grain of Sand'' stars [[Creator/HeathLedger Robbie Clark]] as [[Creator/ChristianBale Jack Rollins]].
29	* FramingDevice: Several, including Rimbaud's court scene, the funeral home, and the train.
30	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: After Jude hangs with--and turns on--"John Paul and George" ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed a.k.a.]] Music/TheBeatles), the latter group exits with their fans chasing them (a la ''Film/AHardDaysNight'').
31	%% * GainaxEnding
32	* TheGhost: Arthur Rimbaud's interrogators.
33	* InsufferableGenius: Jude Quinn has shades of this.
34	* InTheStyleOf:
35	** The Jack Rollins segment is in the style of various Dylan documentaries, such as ''No Direction Home'' by Creator/MartinScorsese.
36	** The Jude Quinn segment is directed in the style of [[Creator/FedericoFellini Fellini's]] ''Film/EightAndAHalf''.
37	** The Robbie Clark segment was inspired by the films of Creator/JeanLucGodard (particularly ''Film/MasculinFeminin'').
38	** Richard Gere's was shot in the style of Creator/SamPeckinpah's "hippie westerns" of the 1960s. Don't forget that Dylan appeared in Peckinpah's ''Film/PatGarrettAndBillyTheKid'', besides composing "Knockin' on Heaven's Door".
39	* JerkAss: Jude Quinn
40	%%% * MindScrew
41	* MisaimedFandom: An in-universe example, as the Black Panthers use Quinn/Dylan's song ''Ballad of a Thin Man'' as a rallying cry for their cause. This is TruthInTelevision.
42	* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Woody Guthrie is named after Music/WoodyGuthrie.
43	* RecursiveReality: Jack Rollins is the "real life" version of Jude Quinn (as evidenced by his appearance in "her" yearbook). The story featuring Billy the Kid is implied to take place within the mind of Jude Quinn, too (Pat Garret is [[ActingForTwo played by the same actor]] who plays the British reporter who harasses Jude/Jack). [[spoiler: Accentuated in the end when Billy the Kid finds Woody Guthrie's guitar on the boxcar train.]]
44	* {{Retraux}}: Mostly the Jude scenes.
45	* ShoutOut: Contains various ones to Dylan's life and work, some more subtle than others.
46	%%* SweetOnPollyOliver: Cate Blanchett. Period. - ZCE
47	* TitledAfterTheSong: A previously-unreleased Dylan tune that--until this movie--existed only in bootleg form.
48	* UnreliableNarrator: Woody in particular, but practically the whole movie counts as one.
49	* ViewersAreGeniuses: The movie understandably is loaded with Bob Dylan references, some more subtle than others. It takes an absolute expert to get them all.
50	* WildMassGuessing: The movie portrays all interpretations of Dylan's music as this.

Context Film / ImNotThere