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| I'm Not There (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) | 
 enlarge | List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $10.25
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 81 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1283
Category: DVD
Actors: Christian Bale, David Cross, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Richard Gere, Bruce Greenwood
Director: Todd Haynes
Publisher: Weinstein Company, The
Studio: Weinstein Company, The
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
Label: Weinstein Company, The
Format: Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 135 minutes
Number Of Items: 2
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 81090
UPC: 796019810906
EAN: 0796019810906
ASIN: B0013D8L7C
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Theatrical Release Date: November 21, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Inspired by the life and songs of Bob Dylan I'm Not There is "a profoundly personal and passionate film" (A.O. Scott The New York Times) that captures the essence of this elusive genius. Six different actors - including Heath Ledger Christian Bale Richard Gere and Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett in a "soon-to-be-legendary performance" (Peter Travers Rolling Stone) - each embody part of the Dylan legend: from Greenwich Village folk singer to electric guitar trailblazer to born-again preacher. Directed by Academy Award nominated writer/director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) I'm Not There is "unquestionably the year's most original American movie" (Thelma Adams US Weekly).System Requirements:Running Time: 135 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:DRAMA/BIOGRAPHY Rating:R UPC:796019810906 Manufacturer No:81090
Amazon.com
Unapologetically audacious, I'm Not There is more post-modern puzzle than by-the-numbers biopic. A title card sets the scene: "Inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan." Yet the film features no figure by that name. Instead, writer/director Todd Haynes presents six characters, each incarnating different stages in the artist's career. Perfume's Ben Whishaw, a black-clad poet, serves as a slippery sort of narrator. The action begins with the wanderings of an 11-year-old black runaway named "Woody Guthrie" (Marcus Carl Franklin)--his raucous duet with Richie Havens on "Tombstone Blues" is a highlight--and ends with a silver-haired Billy the Kid (Richard Gere) watching the Old West die before his eyes. In the interim, there's the folk singer-turned-preacher (Christian Bale), the actor (Heath Ledger), and the rock star (Cate Blanchett, who has Don't Look Back Dylan down to a science). The chronology is purposefully non-linear, and editor Jay Rabinowitz cuts rapidly, Jean-Luc Godard-style, between cinema verite black-and-white and saturated color, Richard Lester-like slapstick and Fellini-inspired surrealism (Ed Lachman served as cinematographer). What makes the picture fun for Dylan fans--and potentially frustrating for neophytes--is that every album and movie bears an alternate title. Ledger's Robbie, for instance, stars in "Grain of Sand," actually a reference to the Pete Seeger song. As in Haynes' glam rock reverie Velvet Goldmine, the trickery involves the entire cast. While Julianne Moore plays former lover Alice, a dead ringer for Joan Baez; Michelle Williams embodies elusive scenester Coco, i.e. Edie Sedgwick. If I'm Not There is less affecting than Control, the year's other big music film, it rewards repeat viewings like few biographical features. The soundtrack mixes originals with covers, like Jim James's heartfelt "Goin' to Acapulco." --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Enormous letdown August 30, 2008
I've been a big Todd Haynes fan since Safe and a big Christian Bale fan since the Land of Faraway. What a letdown. "Artsy" doesn't capture the pretentiousness of this film. If you wanna know the 'essence' of Bob Dylan, you'd do much better buying a few albums and reading his bio on Wikipedia. Be warned- it's your money you're spending.
What a yawner! August 30, 2008
Had high hopes, watched it for about 20 minutes and was bored out of my mind!
No narrative mechanism. August 29, 2008
I just saw "I'm Not There." My conclusion: it fails on multiple levels. For one it is completely imbued with a film-school experimental ambiance that does not translate into what a mainstream biopic should be. And believe me this film's intentions are certainly mainstream, when you account for its handsome budget and roll call of A list celebrities. Second, it embodies no "thread of narrative." Even someone like myself who is well versed on Dylan's history is troubled incessantly by this intentional lack of the narrative mechanism. The film treats all Dylan-philes as dunces who cannot reinterpret episodes of Dylan's career into their own words. It denies individualism within the cloak of a supposed "articulate intellectual work." It is a facade and a caricature of Dylan's past. I cannot even defend the film as an experimental work either. Todd Haynes knew this film would have a wide mainstream release. He then set off to do a "no holds barred" unconventional "art" film in order to rise amongst the intelligentsia with instantaneous street cred. What a sham. The only redeemable qualities present here are if you dropped acid and then saw the film with a new take. Even art films have structure. Even experimental films have a underlying form. Genuine art films present the subject matter with a heavily laden "emotional quotient." They then take on two to three of these "quotients" and tie the film thematically around them. Haynes overburdens the viewer by presenting something like two to three emotional quotients per ten minutes of film with no thematic underlying structure. Not only does this make the film arduous and painful to watch but it makes a mockery of the work done by "real" artists. I can envision film students jeering and laughing at this piece of "eye candy." Each emotional quotient requires the viewer to reflect upon it in a contemplative manner. When you overburden the viewer with excessive quotients then it cheapens all the objectives of the film regardless of how honorable those intentions are. The only way and I mean the only way this film would have been successful is if Haynes adjusted the ratio of emotional quotients to the running time of the end result. That means the film needs either to have three/four of the caricatures removed (i.e. pick say the Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and trash them entirely) or extend the film to a running time of like thirteen to fifteen hours so that the ratio remains fulfilled. But Haynes being an ardent capitalist understands that his financial backers want a profit therefore a fifteen hour film won't be commercial in his eyes. This is why Haynes has no understanding of the potential this film could have been. All he cared about was the almighty dollar.
Waste of time August 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Nothing can save this movie: not a cast of talented actors and not even a good soundtrack. I was confused about this movie from the start. So many of the actors are Bob Dylan - who is not Bob Dylan, but has 16 different names. Is this movie in black and white or is it in color? Does this person try to send a message, or is the screenplay some sort of mumbo-jumbo? Or, do we pretend that we get it - yes Bob Dylan is the great one: he trascends race, gender, country origin (he is American and citizen of the world - or ahem, some sort of Jewish wonderer) - his message is universal, his poetry and music understood by people from all walks of life. Well if that is the message, than I did not need to see this movie. I already knew that.
Are you kidding me? August 7, 2008
A complete waste of time. I watched this once and Im selling to my local used record shop. (Hopefully they'll give me at least $2.00) I bought it for $6.99 at Best Buy. Wonder why they dropped the price from 19.99 to 6.99? I dearly love Bob Dylan's catalog and can't believe he approved this mess. Pawning this off to Dylan's fan base is disgusting, I will be very wary of any future related Bob purchases I work too hard for the money. He's lost it completely this time.
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