I'm Not There

As audacious as its subject, I’m Not There manifests Bob Dylan’s shifting states of being, influences, and relationships through distinct performances by six actors. Each performance belongs to its own narrative and musical thread (Todd Haynes acquired the rights to use Dylan’s songs) and is filmed with different materials—16mm, 35mm, or 8mm B&W and color filmstocks—quoting an array of cinematic styles and references. Including shot-by-shot re-creations of scenes from D. A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back, with Cate Blanchett as Dylan proxy Jude Quinn, and quotations from Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2, Haynes’s mixtape/cine-collage/essay-poem is an imaginative, multifaceted portrait of an artist and his times.