Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Dominic Lee: I'm Not There- Dir Todd Haynes

There are different ways to tell a story; in this case director Todd Haynes chose a multi-dimensional, fragmented form of storytelling in the Bob Dylan documentary " I'm Not There". He does this by using multiple characters to, in my interpretation, show the different trials and aspects of Bob Dylan's life and career, and also in a way gives life to some of the fantasy and questions Dylan had to probably face in his career and how he felt.
The runnaway youth, the charasimatic turned somber musician, The actor who has everything but nothing, the hermit, the addicit; it's easy to see where the plot goes as soon as you understand that aspect of the film, but the parts that interest's me the most was the cinematography. To effectively pull off each character and get the viewer into the frame of mind that each character is in, while cutting all this up into segmentes, and then placing each segment into a not so random order, is to me a beautiful accomplishment that does the film justice.
The black and white life of the musician who has become a sellout in the eye's of the fans, The wild west type setting for the hermit, who has in a way become an outlaw in the metaphorical sense (until he literally does in the end), the musician and the poet chastising and mocking the statue of the crusifix, the portrayal of the journalist in the circus cage replacing the musician; settings like those and the way they were shot, stood out to me as a way to make what may seem to some confusing and drawn out, worthwhile.

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