In a Rolling Stone piece not yet online (seeing a trend?), “I’m Not There” director Todd Haynes and one of the music supervisor’s Randall Poster (“Rushmore,”Velvet Goldmine”) talked about the Bob Dylan music covered in the biopic and track down the elusive titular track.
We just revealed the producers behind every track on the soundtrack CD.
Apparently getting their hands on a workable version of the obscure bootleg, “I’m Not There,” wasn’t an easy task. “We had to dig to the ends of the earth to dig up a version we could use,” Poster told RS. Evidently, their search ended at Neil Young’s California Ranch where the tracks had been locked away since 1968 – a Dylan associate sent him a master copy accidentally.
BTW: Jim Dunbar is also one of the music supervisors on “I’m Not There” and it was he who tracked down the near-impossible to find “I’m Not There” song. The RS piece doesn’t mention him at all.
Of the various covers in the film Todd Haynes singled out the track done by the husky-throated Pearl Jam singer. “Eddie Vedder did an awesome job with ‘All Along The Watchtower,’ ” Haynes said. “But that’s a hard task for anybody. It’s very exciting to take songs that are much lesser-known and make them something really special and unique.”
Indeed the soundtrack (due October 30) tends to skew towards the more obscure Dylan tracks and doesn’t feature classics such as, “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Blowin’ In The Wind,” (though the disc does feature Antony and the Johnsons on “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and Mason Jennings tackling “The Times They Are A Changin’ “, but these are the only super-obvious tracks on the disc).
“I still really can’t believe it, given who he is and how ornery he can be and how much he doesn’t want people to continue to do this to him,” Haynes told the Associated Press at the Toronto Film Festival of Dylan allowing him the rights to all his music.
Haynes enlisted Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo to assemble the crack team of musicians behind the Million Dollar Bashers (check the dates, we revealed their identities first) act as the backing band for five tracks on the album (Haynes directed Sonic Youth’s “Disappearer” video which is collected on the DVD video “Sonic Youth – Corporate Ghost: Videos, 1990-2002 (2004)“).
The most important member of that band might be longtime Dylan bassist and touring musical director Tony Garnier. “Tony had some really helpful hints about the songs” Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelly said, of helping the Bashers capture the “wild mercury” of the sound of Dylan’s 1966 tour featuring the Band.
Poster said one of his personal music highlights was My Morning Jacket’s Jim James’ take on “Goin’ To Acapulco” (from the Band abetted The Basement Tapes), which as reported, he actually sings in the film with Dylan’s white-faced Rolling Thunder Revue-era makeup. “Filming that scene was one of those great moments,” said Poster. “Just being there and feeling the power of the music – I think everyone felt it.”
It’s All About Cate
Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett, who plays the main Bob Dylan character in the film, Jude (or at least she’s garnering all the accolades) told W magazine one of main reasons she took the role was because of Hayne’s work on the Barbie-doll starring “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.” “It was really emotionally honest, this Barbie doll barfing into the toilet,” she said without a trace of irony (she apparently strapped down her breasts for the role of Dylan to match his then near-emaciated state).
H0wever, she wasn’t entirely convinced about the movie at first. “The script was verging on impenetrable,” she told W. “It’s like an algebraic equation. You think: This makes sense in the mind of the mathematician. I knew that if you assembled it, somehow Bob Dylan would emerge, but only Todd knew how.”
But she’s happy with the final product, a portrayal which is already giving her Oscar buzz. “It’s very mysterious and incredibly poetic, and if the audience is expecting a straight narrative, then they’re going to be surprised. It’s kind of true in a way to his music, which is what Todd really tried to do,” Blanchett told the AP.
[PS. You can watch all of “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” on google video, and can download the whole thing at Illegal Art]
Watch: Sonic Youth – “Disappearer” (directed by Todd Haynes)
Download: Bob Dylan and the Band – “Going to Alcapulco”
Download: Bob Dylan – “I’m Not There”
Watch: Bob Dylan “Isis” from the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour (much of which is featured in the obscure surrealist Dylan-directed1978 film, “Renaldo & Clara“)
