What were you doing two years after you graduated from high school?
Going to college? Raising kids? Turning a wrench? Perhaps you were fighting a war in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Or maybe you were fighting one of 22 wars in the Call of Duty video game franchise.
Me? I was commuting from Hibbing, Minnesota, to Superior, Wisconsin, studying journalism and reporting news for a public radio station. In my free time, I got married and took out a mortgage. Those were good times, but I doubt it would make a very exciting movie. Furthermore, there’s no way this time in my life “shaped a generation.”
Not so for Bob Dylan.
In 1961, just two years after his graduation from Hibbing High School, making musical history was just another day at the office for Dylan. And by “office,” I mean smoky beatnik folk cafe.
The erstwhile Robert Zimmerman confounded his peers at the time. Some saw a budding genius. Others found a strange, twitchy young man striving to absorb five centuries of poetry, stealing riffs to make them his own. They didn’t know that he was an undercover misfit from the Iron Range who would one day become the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Timothée Chalamet toured Hibbing this past February in preparation for his role as a young Bob Dylan in the upcoming biographical film, “A Complete Unknown.” That visit played a prominent part in a splashy Nov. 18 profile of Chalamet in Rolling Stone. You might recall reading about Chamalet’s drop-in visit with some very surprised drama students.
Now that the trailer is out, we see that Chalamet makes a convincing Dylan in both look and sound. Dylan’s life always zigged and zagged with stylistic changes and new endeavors, and now — at 83 — it has become increasingly long. There’s no way a single movie can depict his whole story.
So instead, director and co-writer James Mangold takes us through what is arguably Dylan’s most impactful period. In 1961, a 20-year-old Bob Dylan signs a record deal shortly after leaving Minnesota. By 1965, he’s a superstar who’s written some of the most important songs of the 20th century.
It was a stunning accomplishment, one that even Dylan himself can’t explain. In 2004, Dylan spoke to Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” in a rare public interview.
“I don’t know how I got to write those songs,” Dylan said. “Those early songs were almost magically written.”
Artists the world over hope for such moments of divine creative infusion. Few achieve them. Creation like this owes as much to its surroundings as it does to conscious human action.
It’s often said (far too often by people who don’t actually know) that Dylan “hates” his hometown of Hibbing. I’ve can only repudiate this view so many times. Something Dylan said in that same “60 Minutes” interview probably most accurately depicts his view of Hibbing at the time of his departure.
“I really didn’t consider myself happy or unhappy,” Dylan told Bradley. “I always knew that there was something out there that I needed to get to. And it wasn’t where I was at that particular moment.”
If you don’t at least understand that feeling, you probably didn’t actually grow up on the Iron Range. Thousands of Rangers left feeling this way, and we understand that most don’t hate their hometowns. Dylan has since made references to iron ore, Range culture, and his education and upbringing that signal affection for the place. But he’s not coming back to throw money around, and that’s the real problem for some.
Time heals old rifts and tiresome jealousies. Hibbing has come a long way in recognition of its famous son in the past 25 years. The lyrical sculpture erected at the high school makes a permanent connection between Dylan and the school that influenced him so much. And today’s kids are less interested in the culture wars that swayed their grandparents and great-grandparents. They might prove more interested in how greatness can come from anywhere, including here.
“A Complete Unknown” opens Christmas night at the theaters across the country. The film already enjoys rampant Oscar speculation, especially for Chamalet. And though Hibbing is not depicted in the movie, the town will get an early look at the film. Searchlight Pictures is screening a special preview at 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 20 at Mann’s Cinema 8.
Chamalet made a surprise appearance in Minneapolis on Dec. 5 for a screening of the film at the University of Minnesota. Next came the Dec. 10 Los Angeles premiere and a Dec. 15 special showing at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Before the Dec. 20 Hibbing preview, the Hibbing College Foundation will hold a fundraiser in honor of Dylan called “A Guy From the North Country: An Evening Celebrating the Legacy of Bob Dylan.” The event will take place from 4-7 p.m. at Mike’s Pub and includes live music, food, memorabilia raffles and stories from Dylan’s time in Hibbing. Money raised will benefit students attending Minnesota North’s Hibbing campus.
Dylan is no longer a complete unknown, but perhaps when the next generation sees him through new eyes he will be less misunderstood.
Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.
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