‘A Complete Unknown’ director addresses doubts about Bob Dylan’s input in film

A Complete Unknown director James Mangold is opening up about doubts that consulting with Bob Dylan on the script meant the biopic would be a hagiography.

It didn’t help that Bob’s manager is an executive producer on the film. However, the film has gotten mostly positive reviews, and Mangold has been hailed for creating a biopic people didn’t think was possible.

Addressing the speculation, Mangold told Variety: “Well, when I came on, I definitely felt like Jay Cocks, who preceded me as a writer, had his hands tied a little bit. He had written some beautiful stuff that I made sure made it into the film, because it was just exquisite work. But there was a level where the script was skipping the early years.”

He explained: “I really felt that there was something to seeing the stages of Bob transitioning, but also the relationships, romantic, sexual and otherwise, with the women in the movie. And that was what that trip-wired Bob’s management team feeling nervous about what I was doing when I came on board to the material.”

During COVID, the musician had time on his hands to read the script: “Let me read this script that’s got you guys worried,” said Bob.

Mangold continued: “And then he read it, and he liked it, and that changed everything. That then instigated the series of meetings with myself and Bob, and Bob read the movie you saw. I didn’t think he had an issue with how he was being depicted.”

The director even shared that he wrote many scenes he thought the End of the Line hitmaker would have an issue with, but he didn’t.

Mangold continued: “…I had many points like that where I thought he was gonna flag things. I wrote this thing where he goes, ‘You know, people ask where the songs come from, but they don’t really want to know where the songs come from. They want to know why the songs didn’t come to them.’ I was sure that was something he was gonna put a big X through, and he didn’t.”