Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 12

A Complete Unknown: A Nearly Completely Superb Bob Dylan Biopic

My wife and I just got back from seeing A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic. We both loved it. The following is my take on the movie.

Dylan recently famously tweeted (on X) that Timothée Chalamet is "a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me." Unsurprisingly, Dylan got it entirely right. Every biopic ever made is about someone inevitably a little or lot different from the subject of the movie. Not only can the actor not possibly look 100% like the subject -- unless they are the subject's identical twin, and the producer somehow managed to go back in time and talk the twin into playing the subject's part in the biopic -- but there's inevitably dialogue left out or changed, streets and buildings that don't look the same as the originals, etc, etc. Look, frankly, even a documentary is never entirely truthful. It may be more truthful than the biopic, but the director inevitably has to make easy and painful decisions to leave certain things out, etc, etc. In a phrase, all biopics and docu-dramas are alternate histories, and documentaries, too, just a little less so.

But A Complete Unknown is so good because it managed to get so many things right. Chalamet as Dylan and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger were letter and note perfect in the words they spoke, the songs they sang, and even what they looked like and how they moved. Monica Barbaro was not quite there singing as Joan Baez, whose rich mellifluous voice back then is unmatchable, but Barbaro hit all the notes well, and certainly captured Biaz's attitude, energy, and intelligence with style. I don't know what Suze Rotolo at that age was like even in video. She was inspiration for the part of Sylvie Russo in the movie, because Dylan (to his credit) in our current time didn't feel right about having her character by name in the movie, because she left the world in 2011 and couldn't give her consent to be portrayed in the movie -- but Elle Fanning did a fine job in the part. (The obvious explanation is Dylan wanted the name changed because some of the interactions with Dylan and Russo in the movie are at variance in some significant way with what really happened between Dylan and Rotolo.)

In addition to Dylan's songs, which were immensely enjoyable to see written, and see and hear performed, there was a symmetry, a kind of rhyme, which I expect will stay with me for a long time. One of my favorite examples is Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You". It starts off the movie, which begins in 1961, as Dylan comes to New York, and goes to see Woody Guthrie, who was already seriously ill (in reality, he'll live until 1967), and meets Pete Seeger (who had a wonderful cover of the song). At that point, it seems like the song is about Dylan and Seeger saying goodbye to Guthrie. But when the movie ends, with Dylan going the apostate electric way, the song is played again, and the goodbye is to the Dylan who has forsaken acoustic folk for an electric band with Al Cooper et al.

The implication in the movie -- actually a little more than an implication -- is that Dylan wanted to be as famous as the Beatles. I don't know Dylan personally, and have no idea if that's true, but I do know that both kinds of Dylan -- "Blowing in the Wind," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," and "Masters of War" evolving into "Like a Rolling Stone," "Just Like A Woman," and "Positively Fourth Street" (I don't think the last two were in the movie) -- were equally works of genius in their own ways. And I also know, for whatever it's worth, that Dylan's lyrics are at the top of the best lyrics ever written, surpassing Cole Porter, John Lennon and Paul McCartney as timeless lyricists.

There was one scene I found annoying in the movie. One of the highlights of the momentous Newport Folk Festival scene has Joan Baez singing "There But for Fortune," a huge hit for her, written by Phil Ochs. Dylan is shown offstage, not looking very happy. Maybe he's understandably nervous. Or maybe he's jealous. But the song isn't identified by Baez. And in fact there's no mention of Oaks anywhere in the movie. Whether an accidental oversight or a deliberate cut of something that was filmed ... who knows. It certainly doesn't make sense given the prominence of the song in that scene, not to tell the movie audience who wrote it.

I'm also sorry we didn't hear any of "God On Our Side" -- especially relevant on this day -- the most irrefutable anti-war song, pinpointing the hypocrisy and insanity of war, ever written.

But I guess that's just personal opinion, and I also think that, just like Dylan's songs, this movie will never grow old. It will be watched long into the future, after which people might watch Peter Jackson's documentary about The Beatles, and then Martin Scorsese's. But there's no need to wait for the future. My recommendation is see A Complete Unknown as soon as you can.

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For more on the movie, see David Browne's piece in Rolling Stone.

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I haven't written an alternate history as yet about Dylan, but here's one I wrote about The Beatles, in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover

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Published on December 25, 2024 16:01

Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Jared Moshe about Aporia

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 403, in which I interview Jared Moshe about his movie Aporia, a time-travel movie on Hulu that explores, in a way I've never seen before, the wrenching ethical dilemmas that arise when you try to change the past.

Relevant links:

my written review of Aporia Aporia on Hulu more about Jared Moshe here my best-known time travel novel my best-known alternate history novel

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Published on December 23, 2024 11:46

Dune: Prophecy Season One Finale: Truths Coming Out

Dune: Prophecy put up a powerfully long finale tonight on Max -- an hour and twenty-one minutes -- for its short six-episode debut season. And it made every minute and sound of the Voice count, as it dealt out a series of blows and retributions and affirmations of what we already knew and suspected.

[I'm not going to give you a detailed recap, but I suppose I should warn about spoilers anyway ... ]

First, we learned more of the brutal truth about what Valya was willing to do, and did, to insure that the Sisterhood went her way. That way was to keep AI as an essential weapon in the Sisterhood's arsenal. I agree with Valtya's view of AI, But as to her methods ... well, we see that she killed not only Dorotea but a vast majority of the Sisterhood in that room, because they opposed her view, and thought AI was a blasphemous threat to humanity.

Later, we're also treated to a battle royale between Valya and Desmond Hart. It's pretty much a draw. As readers of my reviews here of Dune: Prophecy know, I've been a bigger fan of Hart than Valya. They might both have well died, had not Tulya arrived and rallied her sister Valya -- and then, after convincing Valya to let her son Hart be, because she as his mother not only loved him but was sure she could control him, Tula goes and tends to her wounded son. I said a few episodes ago that I thought Tulia would ultimately be a more potent character than Valya, and I think she proved it in that scene and in this episode.

One thing I didn't like, though, was the Emperor's self-inflicted death. He wasn't a bad Emperor, as far as Emperors go. But leaving a Bene Gesserit in the palace, who now through face- and body-shifting looks just like Princess Ynez, I thought that was a pretty cool move.

All in all, I think these six episodes have offered a memorable and captivating prologue to the Dune saga. Kudos, again, to Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert who wrote the novel Sisterhood of Dune, which I haven't yet read and on which Dune: Prophecy is based, Frank Herbert who got the Dune saga going with a series of masterpiece novels, and everyone who starred in this TV series.

I'll see you back here when the second season comes along.

and Dune, Part One: Half the Movie, Twice the Power of Most Other Complete Films ... Dune, Part Two: Not As Good as Part One

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Published on December 22, 2024 20:45

Outlander 7.13: Good Scenes, Ad Hoc Metaphysics

Lots of good scenes in Outlander 7.13, but the story -- or, more precisely, mostly Roger's story in 1739 -- was a little muddled, at least to me.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Here are the scenes that I really liked:

Young Ian and Rachel getting married, and later that night in bed. Both were handled with sensitivity, intelligence, and passion.Jamie and Claire in bed together was good to see, too.Roger and his father in 1739 was excellent, too.But speaking of Roger in 1739, although I was glad to see him at the end of the episode realize that Jem was likely no longer in the past -- important, because we need to see him get back to Brianna in the 1980s -- the time travel, the conduit through time via the stones having never been crystal clear, was even less clear as we hear Roger musing about it. The way the stones are now working, or maybe always worked that way, is if you think really hard about someone when you touch the stone, you're more likely to end up in that person's precise time? I got that Roger said the stones brought you in general back and forth over a 200-year period between the 1900s and the 1700s. We knew that already. But this fine tuning ... I don't know. As I've said lots of times in these reviews, I haven't read the books. Maybe that fine tuning is made more clear on those printed pages. But it seems a bit like some kind of mind-over-matter hocus pocus in the television series.

Time travel of course is science fiction, and not real either. But I guess I like my science fiction to be governed by a somewhat discernible series of cause-and-effects. You have these stones in places on both sides of the Atlantic, and touching them in the right place can get you back and forth in time, 200 years either way. But giving the time traveler the power to affect the exact arrival date or year, that's quite a lot more.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how all of this plays out in the remaining episodes in this second half of the seventh season.

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Published on December 21, 2024 21:58

Juror #2: Hitchcockian Courtroom

Just saw Juror #2 on Max, directed by Clint Eastwood (in his early 90s), and "rumored" (Wikipedia's word) to be the final movie he'll be directing. I can tell you that the movie is powerful indeed, a twisty legal thriller, reminiscent of some of Hitchcock's work -- the writer, Jonathan Abrams, deserves some of the credit for that -- and I surely hope that Eastwood is able to direct a few more.

[And there will be spoilers about the set-up ahead ... ]

The set-up is ingenuously provocative: Justin finds himself on a jury hearing and then deliberating the case of James, on trial for murdering his girlfriend, Kendall. The two were seen arguing in a nearly violent way in a bar, but Justin knows that James didn't do it, because based on where Kendall's body was found, he's horrified to realize that the deer he thought he struck on the road on a rain-swept night was actually Kendall. Justin is a fundamentally decent person. But his wife Allison, who lost their earlier twins, is now very pregnant, not to mention that he wouldn't want to go to prison anyway, so his dilemma is how can he make sure James does not go to prison for a crime he didn't commit, while Justin stays out of prison himself?

That's what I mean about the movie being Hitchcockian. In movies like Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock excelled in heroes or anti-heroics caught in the grips of world-class ethical dilemmas. Juror #2 is also lifted by excellent acting. Nicholas Hoult and Zoey Deutch -- I don't recall seeing Hoult on the screen before, and I've seen Deutch just once, in The Outfit, where she was excellent -- were just perfect as Justin and Allison. J. K. Simmons and Kiefer Sutherland play characters who are medium important, but memorable.

I won't tell you what the ending is, except it certainly leaves the door open for a sequel. If you're a fan of the order part -- aka the courtroom part -- of Law & Order and its spinoffs, you can't go wrong with Juror #2.

***

Here, in case you're interested, is the true story of the time I was foreperson on a jury here in Westchester, NY.

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Published on December 21, 2024 18:14

Podcast Review of Dexter: Original Sin 1.1-1.3

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 402, in which I review Dexter: Original Sin on Paramount+Showtime.

Relevant links:

written reviews of Dexter: Original Sin 1.1 and 1.2-1.3 (with links to written reviews of all episodes of Dexter: New Blood and all eight seasons of the original Dexter) audio podcast reviews of Dexter: New Blood 1.1 ... 1.2 ... 1.3 ... 1.4 ... 1.5-1.6 ... 1.7-1.8 ... 1.9-1.10

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Published on December 20, 2024 20:21

Dexter: Original Sin 1.2-1.3: "The Finger is the Message"

Paramount+Showtime was good enough to put up both the second and third episodes of the prequel Dexter series -- Dexter: Original Sin -- and the result was double all the things we enjoy about Dexter. Including at least two prime pieces of interior commentary from Dexter (the young Dexter) with the older Dexter -- voiced by Michael C. Hall -- speaking the commentary.

[Some spoilers ahead ... ]

One comes when Dexter, now working in his father Harry's Miami police unit, hears their Captain, at a press conference, comment that they had received a finger of the boy who had been kidnapped, sent to them by the kidnapper, with no other message. Dexter thinks/says in internal dialogue "that's because the finger was the message". A nice homage to McLuhan, intended or not (and I put the quote in the present tense because I wanted to emphasize the McLuhanesque quality of the line).

Dexter has another especially apt interior line -- "hello darkness my old friend" -- borrowed from Paul Simon -- and Dexter is honing his skills, managing to get back the earrings he took as souvenirs from his first killing, which Debra gave to Sophia. Here I'll say I'm not clear why Dexter is shown rebuffing Sophia's advances. The adult Dexter certainly was not immune to the charms of women. So what's the point of making younger Dexter not interested? He's too much in love with discovering he's truest love, which is murder of those who deserve it? If so, I think this aspect of the narrative is being handled a little too heavy-handedly at this point.

But it was good to see young Batista get so much story, and young LaGuerta introduced. In many ways, they were the most important characters other than Dexter and Debra, in the original series -- well, everyone was important -- and Batista comes back in the Dexter: New Blood sequel. One of the great strengths of Original Sin is how much most of the characters look and sound like their older selves that we came to know in Dexter. That applies not only to Patrick Gibson of course as Dexter, but to James Martinez as Batista. At one point in Original Sin 1.2, his voice sounded exactly like David Zayas, which made wonder if Zayas actually did that voicing.

In any case, as of the first three episodes, Dexter: Original Sin is doing one fine job, and I'm looking forward to more.

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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Published on December 20, 2024 17:39

Dune: Prophecy 1.5: Revelation and Seduction

There's more than one revelation in the riveting Dune:Prophecy 1.5, but I'll focus here on only one, clearly the most important in this series:

[And of course, there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

We learn about Hart's parentage. First, let me say again how much I enjoy the ambience of this prequel series, which feels so much like I felt in the 1960s, when I first read Dune and Dune: Messiah, the original Dune novels. My eyes on the streaming screen give me the same feeling as my eyes on those paperback books. They feel the same and smell the same, though of course, anything my brain perceives in watching Dune: Prophecy is entirely a product of my brain processing what I'm seeing on my laptop. I'm not touching any paper or perceiving what subtle stimuli it delivers to my nose.

But what is Hart's heritage? Anirul -- the aptly named AI system that the Bene Gesserit illicitly utilize (also a sensory pleasure to see in action) -- delivers its conclusion: Hart comes from both Atreides and Harkonnen lines! Now we saw the two lines mate, as it were, just a few episodes ago. Young Tula Harkonnen and her Atreides lover, whom she kills the morning after. It makes sense, doesn't it, that someone with the powers of Desmond has to be the product of the two most powerful lines that stretch across the Dune saga, of course making their appearance in the very first novel by Frank Herbert.

Meanwhile, apropos love making, it was good to see Empress Natalya seduce Desmond -- God knows what that will produce if she becomes pregnant -- and Sister Francesca doing the same to the Emperor himself. I tell ya, they got the royal couple coming and going in this episode, fortunately or unfortunately not together.

My only regret about this series is that it's a mini-series with a vengeance, the first season ending next week with only its sixth episode. But it's shot to the top of my list, and I'll be back here not only next week with a review, but whenever its story continues on HBO: Max.

and Dune, Part One: Half the Movie, Twice the Power of Most Other Complete Films ... Dune, Part Two: Not As Good as Part One

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Published on December 18, 2024 15:27

US Supreme Court Completely Right to Take Up the Tik Tok Banning Case

The New York Times just reported that the US Supreme Court has decided to hear TikTok's challenge to the law that would ban TikTok from the USA on January 19, 2025 unless its Chinese owners sold it to a non-Chinese company. I've been very critical of our current Supreme Court for all kinds of important reasons, but I think it is doing the right thing to take up this case. I applaud its decision to take up this case, and I further hope that it strikes down the law that would ban TikTok as blatantly unconstitutional -- because it is -- a clear violation of the First Amendment.

As everyone knows, including the bipartisan Congress that passed the law, and President Biden who signed it into law, earlier this year, the First Amendment to our Constitution says "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." The only exception is speech or any communication that contributes to a criminal act. So, to use an obvious example, you can't put an ad in a newspaper or on a social media site saying you're looking to hire a hitman as competent as the Jackal. Now, I get that China is our adversary in the habit of spying on us in all kinds of ways, but I haven't seen any evidence or proof that such spying, which would be a crime, is actually happening via TikTok. Have you?

I've also heard, by people who should know better, that the First Amendment applies to the United States and its citizens, not its Chinese owners who are bringing the case to the Supreme Court. That argument either accidentally or deliberately misses the crucial fact that it is Americans, people who are living in the United States, more than 120 million of us, whose First Amendment rights will be violated the moment we're no longer able to post videos on TikTok, talk to people on the site, etc. How anyone could miss that point is beyond me.

Congress and the President have been muddled about the First Amendment and it how it applies to the Internet since Congress passed and Bill Clinton signed into law the Communications Decency Act in the 1990s. It was left to the US Supreme Court to strike down that unconstitutional law, which made it a crime punishable not only by hefty fines but a few years in prison for anyone to post anything on the Internet that was "objectionable" and potentially viewable by minors. I hope the current Supreme Court once again rises to the occasion, and lets the well-meaning but muddled members of both political parties that they need to take the First Amendment, and the rights it guarantees, which are fundamental to our democracy, a little more seriously.

Here is what I had to say about this impending ban, shortly after the law was enacted this past Spring

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Published on December 18, 2024 10:15

Outlander 7.12: The General

Episode 7.12 of Outlander was one powerhouse of an episode, firing on all kinds of cylinders, in what is one wild ride of a second half of a season.

(And there will be spoilers ahead .... ]

There were many favorite moments and interludes, but the most momentous in terms of alternate history is Jamie appointed General Fraser by none other than George Washington himself. What could be in store here, in futures we'll see and not see, but certainly can imagine. Will General Fraser replace not Washington but Adams as President, and succeed Washington to become our second Command in Chief? In our reality, you have to be born in America, or have at least one parent who is a naturalized American, to be eligible to be elected President. But those restrictions are in a Constitution -- ours -- which hasn't been written yet at this point in Outlander.

Many of the other highlights concern carnal knowledge, which is the title of this episode. Among the best:

Jamie and Claire finally getting back together, after John tells Jamie he had "carnal knowledge" of Claire and Jamie comes home and demands an explanation from Claire. (I didn't like Jamie beating John, but I suppose that makes sense.) At least he didn't raise a hand to Claire, who gives Jamie a good, responsive explanation.William sleeping with the prostitute was good to see, too.John didn't have time to sleep with the doctor who alerted John that he had to get out of that American camp in a hurry, but all of that was good story, too.And I liked seeing Rachel forgo her Quaker beliefs and slap William.The show is really on a knife's edge now. A lot of lives hang in the balance. All we know for sure is that the Americans win the war -- because, so far, none of the alternate histories set in motion in Outlander have changed history on that level. So far, only personal lives have been changed.

I rather like that restriction, because it's one of the things that makes the Outlander narrative different from most time-travel stories. But with less than a season-and-a-half left, I reckon almost anything is possible. (I'm spending so much time watching life in the late 1700s that I'm beginning to write a little like people did back then, too.)

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Published on December 14, 2024 22:15