A Complete Unknownis easily one ofTimothéeChalamet’s best roles withthe impressive work he does in transforming into Bob Dylan.But the biopic extends beyond Dylan, and one memorable real life figure is folk music legend and activistPete Seeger, in a warm performance byEdward Norton.Seeger helped Dylan get his big break, but the relationship between them soon grows increasingly fraught over the young singer’s shift away from traditional folk music. Because of where the film ends, it leaves plenty of questions. When it comes to Seeger, did he really try to stop Dylan’s performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and what happened after their falling out?
‘A Complete Unknown’ Might Not Have Been Accurate With Its Ending
The climactic musical number inA Complete Unknownis hectic, to say the least, with loud sounds and big emotions. Dylan stubbornly keeps playing to a crowd that becomes increasingly chaotic. His manager gets into a brawl. The biggest surprise, though, is seeing the normally calm-headed Seeger frantically trying to stop Dylan’s band from continuing their electric performance. The sequence is great for the big screen, but the 1965 Newport Folk Festival didn’t quite go down exactly as directorJames Mangoldrecreated. In 1990,Seeger clarified in a letterto Bob Dylan what he was doing.
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The movie comes from ‘Walk the Line’ director James Mangold.
Seeger wasn’t trying to shut down the band, but trying to improve Dylan’s electric sound that was too loud for the singing to be heard, writing, “I shouted, ‘if I had an axe, I’d cut the cable’, and I guess that’s what got quoted. My big mistake was in not challenging from the stage the foolish few who booed. I shoulda said, ‘Howlin' Wolf goes electric, why can’t Bob?’ In any case, you keep on.” An interview with someone else at the festival offeredanother perspective on the crowd’s reaction to Dylan.
The Real Life Music Festival in ‘A Complete Unknown’ Was Unruly for a Different Reason
Al Kooper, who performed with Dylan and is played byCharlie Tahanin the film, explained that many young fans in the audience had arrived to hear Dylan, not the other performers. “Well, they went nuts,” Kooper said, “Not ’cause he played electric. But because they’d paid all this money and spent all this time and suffered all this other music, and heard 15 minutes of Bob Dylan, and they went nuts.” Even without knowing these facts, the film doesn’t attempt to force viewers to take a side.Edward Nortonpraised this choice in aninterview withVariety.
“Dylan’s a protagonist,” the actor said, “but Pete Seeger’s integrity and value system can coexist with Dylan’s, in a weird way. I love the lack of judgment in the film.”The film depicts how Dylan wanted to move away from the acoustic soundsand the political/social advocacy that folk music was known for. All the while, several notable scenes emphasize the anxieties in the U.S.during the 1960s: Seeger’s introduction is at the court hearing where he is convicted of a contempt of Congress charge due to a song; then a hectic night has NYC spiral into a worried panic during coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Viewers can understand Dylan’s need to distance himself, as well as Seeger’s hopes the young singer won’t reject traditional folk. Both the 1990 letter and Kooper’s memory reveal a different side to the 1965 event, but what happened to Seeger after the music festival?
Pete Seeger Continued His Activism After 1965
According toThe Guardian, Seeger faced a different kind of setback that didn’t include Dylan.His performance onThe Smothers Brothers Comedy Hourin 1967 was censored by CBSdue to the song, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," where he criticizedPresident Lyndon B. Johnson(referred to as “the big fool” in the lyrics) and the escalation ofthe Vietnam War.It was only after heavy protesting that the performance aired, months later. Seeger again protested the war in 1969 at the Washington Monument where he sang “Give Peace a Chance” byJohn Lennonin front of a crowd that soon joined in. “After three minutes, four minutes, a hundred thousand were singing. At the end of eight minutes, all five hundred thousand were singing,” he recalled in aNew York Timesarticle.
Along with his anti-war stances, which included protesting the war in Iraq, Seeger also focused on environmental activism. He started a non-profit organization in the mid-1960s tohelp clean the polluted Hudson River, which got federal legislation passed in 1972. Seeger was recognized for his decades-spanning career that contributed to American culture atthe 1994 Kennedy Center Honorsand when he died in 2014 at the age of 94, the folk singer’s activism was as important in his remembrance as his music career, withPresident Obama calling him, “America’s tuning fork.”WhileA Complete Unknownreaches a dramatic conclusion, there was still more to come for many of the musicians featured. Like with Bob Dylan and the years that aren’t seen on-screen, Pete Seeger’s story wasn’t over in 1965.
A Complete Unknownis now playing in theaters.
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A Complete Unknown
A Complete Unknown: Set in the vibrant New York music scene of the early 1960s, the film follows the journey of 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan. It captures his rapid ascent from a budding folk singer to a prominent figure in concert halls and on the charts, highlighting his impact on the music world.
