When Bob Dylan plays an electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in A Complete Unknown, an audience member yells out, “Judas!” Most biopics attempt to cover the entire lives of their subjects, but A Complete Unknown tackles a specific chapter in Dylan’s career. It begins with his arrival in New York City in 1961, chronicles his meteoric rise on the folk scene, and culminates in the controversy over his use of electric instruments in his 1965 Newport performance.
As with any fictionalized account of real events, A Complete Unknown makes some changes to the true story and takes a few artistic liberties. Dylan didn’t really buy the whistle for “Highway 61 Revisited” from a street vendor; it was provided by Al Kooper. He didn’t really speak to Johnny Cash before his Newport performance; that scene was included to tie A Complete Unknown to James Mangold’s previous biopic, Walk the Line. The “Judas!” moment is another example of artistic license — but it’s not complete fiction.
Bob Dylan Was Famously Called Judas, But Not At Newport Folk Festival
An Audience Member In Manchester Compared Dylan To Judas A Year Later
Dylan was, indeed, called “Judas!” for supposedly betraying his folk roots by playing an electric guitar on stage, but it didn’t happen at the Newport festival in 1965. Instead, Dylan was called Judas by an audience member at a show at Free Trade Hall in Manchester on May 17, 1966. A live recording of this concert can be heard on the two-disc album The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966. Although the early bootlegs named Liverpool’s Royal Albert Hall as the venue, it was actually recorded at Free Trade Hall.
A Complete Unknown gets everything about this performance right, except for the venue and the year.
The “Judas!” comment can clearly be heard on the recording. There’s a mix of applause and heckles, and Dylan continues to play defiantly. He tells his band, “Play it f***in’ loud,” before launching into a performance of “Like a Rolling Stone,” now regarded as one of Dylan’s best songs, just like in the movie. And, just like in the movie, Dylan eventually wins over the crowd. A Complete Unknown gets everything about this performance right, except for the venue and the year.
It Streamlined The Electric Controversy Into One Climactic Sequence
Moving the “Judas!” comment to Newport in A Complete Unknown is a simple case of economic screenwriting. The controversy over Dylan’s use of electric instruments lasted all throughout 1965 and 1966. To show all the key events from that controversy accurately, it would require a long, disjointed montage jumping all over the place with little snippets and vignettes, which would’ve hurt the pacing of A Complete Unknown. Mangold rearranged some of these events to streamline the most significant moments from the Dylan electric controversy into one climactic sequence.
A Complete Unknown
6/10
- Release Date
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December 25, 2024
- Runtime
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140 minutes