Bob Dylan In The Movies

Bob Dylan loves movies—his songwriting is filled with cinematic references ranging from Gregory Peck to Sophia Loren to Titanic—but it’s not always clear that movies love him back. Unlike music, in which his creative dominion is so overarching as to seem boundless, Dylan’s experiences with the film business have been far more checkered. He’s written and directed movies, been the subject of many documentaries, acted in small roles and cameo appearances and the occasional lead, if that’s what you’d call his roles in Renaldo and Clara and Masked and Anonymous. He has been a key inspiration for such wonderful, ambitious films like Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There and the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. On the looming occasion of James Mangold’s new biopic A Complete Unknown, we’ve taken the opportunity to survey the man’s long, strange journey through the silver screen. Get your popcorn, pour yourself a glass of Planet Waves and, as Warner Wolf says, let's go to the videotape.