How Bob Dylan stole Christmas
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With much-anticipated Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ arriving in the US on Christmas Day, Kevin E G Perry looks at how the crotchety singer-songwriter became an unlikely festive favourite. When I catch up with him at his home in Philadelphia, Wald sounds as if he’s barely recovered from the shock. “It was astonishing,” he says. “Completely unexpected. Historically, he simply hasn’t done that. I had asked his manager at some point whether he had seen the book, and the response was: Bob doesn’t read Dylan books. So this was a very pleasant surprise.”.
![[Bob Dylan with Santa Claus in the ‘Must Be Santa’ music video]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/13/15/newFile-2.jpg)
For his part, Wald says he was pleased with how Walk the Line director James Mangold handled the adaptation. While A Complete Unknown is “not historically accurate,” he tells me, “it is poetically accurate”. Wald’s book examines the connection between folk’s elder statesman Pete Seeger and the young Dylan, intent on leaving the folk scene in his rearview mirror. “In the film they take that idea and personalise it,” explains Wald. “Dylan and Seeger, in fact, were not in the same room very often but in the film they make it a personal relationship and it’s pretty extraordinarily true to who they were. It didn’t happen that way, but it could have.”.
While there are no sleigh bells to be heard on the soundtrack, and no scenes of Chalamet and co-star Elle Fanning nuzzling under the mistletoe, there’s something fitting about the fact that the film will be released in the US on Christmas Day (although, sadly, it will take another three weeks to reach the UK). Nick Pupo, the comedian and actor who plays Peter Yarrow of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary in the film, says the movie’s cross-generational appeal fits snugly with the festive spirit.
