Visual poetry through music

Timothée Chalamet portrays Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown,” a rhythmic biopic unpacking his rise to rock ’n’ roll stardom. The spark behind his musical journey is the “Freewheelin’” singer’s decision to uproot from his Minnesota hometown for New York to play a song he wrote for folk icon Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who lies unwell in a hospital. Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael embraced the grit of the New York streets, capturing the texture with vintage anamorphic lenses, a decision that allowed for “an intimate closeup” while “not isolating the character from the environment. We were leaning into photographers like William Eggleston primarily for the color, contrast and saturation,” Papamichael says about the look that has a celluloid quality to it, though it was shot digitally on the Sony Venice 2. The muted hues subliminally punctuate a tone that organically shifts with Dylan’s popularity. “As the story progresses, and he decides to go electric, the colors become more vibrant, and we are a little bit faster-paced with the whole language of our storytelling,” he says. “The movie is about this kid who leaves his family, and then creates a new family, and then leaves them. He keeps redefining himself.”