Happy New Year, readers! And it’s an even happier 2007 for fans of that caterwauling jumped-up busker, Bob Dylan, for The Artists Formerly Known As Miramax, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, have snapped up the rights to Todd Haynes’ Dylan biopic, I Can’t Sing A Note.
Sorry, apparently the movie is actually entitled I’m Not There. Whatever it’s called, the Weinsteins will release the movie later on this year in the US, and very possibly in the UK as well.
As you would expect from Haynes, the maverick-minded auteur whose films include the likes of Safe and Velvet Goldmine, I’m Not There takes an experimental approach to Dylan’s life, with a whole host of Hollywood A-listers – including Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and yes, the fabulous Ms Cate Blanchett – each taking a stab (not literally, thank God) at various portions of the life and alleged music of the shaggy-haired troubadour.
Sadly, this intriguing experiment will be marred somewhat by inclusion of actual Dylan ‘songs’ performed by the man himself on what, for want of a better word, we’ll call the ‘soundtrack’. Happily, for an artist whose best songs are those that were covered by other people, the likes of Willie Nelson and Yo La Tengo will also contribute to the OST, which promises to be a vast epic filled with dozens of Dylan songs. Woo and, indeed, hoo.