I'm Not there (4) Jesus and Rimbaud

I could do without the Jesus and Rimbaud bits.

First, the Rimbaud, because the content would have been just as effective if placed in the press conference scenes with Cate Blanchett, without the confusion of another actor and another character. Then the Pastor John because The American Religion is beyond Haynes’s grasp and probably way outside of his interests.

He does nothing to illuminate the effect of this religion on either Dylan or the period. Neither does he see the of parallels of Dylan’s conversion with those of such poets as T.S. Eliot, who sought the shelter of Christ after a close call with the demonic.

One of the clever bits in the Heath Ledger segment finds him offending his wife and friends with the statement that women cannot write poetry, an idea that Dylan took from Robert Graves, an author who, ironically, was introduced to him by his wife Sara. The song “Changing of the Guards” is a monumental epic, based on a tarot card reading, that finds the poet being liberated from the chains of paganism (as Blake wrote of Milton :he was a true poet / in the devils’ camp without knowing it”) by an ebony angel.

In the early seventies, a Jesus movement spread throughout America’s disaffected subcultures and soon morphed into a web of cults spanning the moral suicide of Moses David to the empire of property amassed by Love Israel. Such groups had been praying for the conversion of Bob Dylan for a nearly a decade before it happened, some even believing that “New Morning “ was evidence that God had won the boy’s soul as early as 1971.

The cult that Dylan joined was typical of those that emerged in the early 70’s, and he did not stay with it long. However, his continued singing of hymns such as “Rock of Ages,” :”I Am the Man, Thomas,” and “This World Can’t Stand Long” in concert is evidence of his continued faith in the American religion, eclipsed as the Christ figure might have become by the dominance of Hebraic imagery.

One thing that has always intrigued me is that American audiences have had no issue with Southern bad boys such as Elvis Presley recording gospel albums, but were overtly hostile to the gospel leanings of a Northern Jew. Like so many other fascinating elements of Dylan’s religious conversion, this is not addressed in Haynes’s film. Since he has no interest in exploring the issues, the Jesus segment is completely extraneous to the structure of the film, which would be much better were the episode removed.

It also doesn’t help that John Doe, dubbing the singing for Christian Bale’s Pastor John, does a wretched job with “Pressin’ On.” Whatever one may think about the content of the songs Dylan wrote during this period, his vocal performances were among the best in his career. Bale looks good in the part, and his wardrobe is suitably grotesque, but the whole episode is pointless.

There is a Gnostic arc that runs from Franklin’s Woody to Gere’s Billy that could have been centralized in Bale’s John, but Haynes dropped the ball completely.

The Rimbaud bit fails to play off the influence of French poetry on Dylan’s writing just as the Pastor John bit fails to capture his religious dimensions. Ben Whishaw’s character is not Rimbaud but the 1965-66 Dylan, who is already played by Cate Blanchett. What was the point in doubling this character and giving him another name?

Although the Christian period could be excised from the film without any structural damage, this Arthur needs , for better or worse, to remain. He serves some small narrative function as an internal voice of sorts. But I find it the weakest of the characters, and feel Haynes could have found a better way to achieve the narrative function he serves.