Positively Bob Dylan

Cate Blanchett has won the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe award for playing Bob Dylan in the biopic “I’m Not There”. “I wish circumstances would allow me to be there,” the actress said in a statement, adding “None of this would be possible without the great man himself, Bob Dylan, wherever you are, whoever you are, I thank you deeply.”
The strike by the Writers Guild of America resulted in a simple news conference to announce the recipients, without any winners around.

A clip of Todd Haynes’ upcoming biographical Bob Dylan movie has leaked on YouTube. The 90 seconds long video features Cate Blanchett (!) in the role of Bob Dylan driving in a car with Mike Bloomfield in 1965, when Alan Ginsberg drives by for a short conversation. The clip was shot in authentic “Don’t Look Back”-style B&W and you can even see the time code below.

The Harvey Weinstein production shows episodes out of Bob Dylan’s life from the early 1960s onwards. Dylan is embodied by 7(!) different actors, including Cate Blanchett (1960s) and Richard Gere (1970s).
The movie is named after a song recorded in 1967, “I’m Not There” from the legendary “Basement Tapes”. It will open in cinemas in autumn 2007.

> Official trailers

The last time we heard a new original Dylan composition was “Cross the Green Mountian” 2 years ago on the “Gods & Generals” soundtrack. After a time in which Dylan wrote his autobiography “Chronicles, Volume One”, a new song now surfaced on the soundtrack compilation “Music From The Motion Picture North Country”: “Tell Ol’ Bill”.
Apart from the new track the collection also includes “Lay Lady Lay” from “Nashville Skyline” (1969), “Sweetheart Like You” from “Infidels” (1983) and “Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)” from “Slow Train Coming” (1979), plus a cover version of “Girl of the North Country”.

Following the release of his autobiography Dylan told in an interview that he was working on new songs. So far only “Tell Ol’ Bill” was released, but we’re all hoping for a new album some time soon, maybe next year.

You can listen to “Tell Ol’ Bill” and the other tracks from the soundtrack on http://www.columbiarecords.com/northcountry/ .

Movie director Todd Haynes (”Velvet Goldmine”, “Far from Heaven”) is currently working on the script for a movie called “I’m Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan” (working title).
The biographical movie on Bob Dylan will be finished in 2005 and released by Paramount Pictures. Dylan himself will not appear as an actor, but he has cleared rights for the usage of his original songs for the movie score. Regarding the producers (Killer Films and Wells Prods.) “I’m Not There” will be “inspired by Dylan’s music”.

Movie production details: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368794/