A Complete Unknown
A Complete Unknownis set in New York in the year 1961 , when a young Bob Dylan starts to make his way onto the music scene . The film transports viewers back in time through detailed sets , hair and make-up , and of track , costuming . Timothée Chalamet stars and singsas Bob Dylan .
Costume designer Arianne Phillips , who has worked with conductor James Mangold multiple times , create the costumes forA Complete Unknownas well . Interestingly enough , she also exercise on themusical biopicWalk the Line , meaning she once again style for an histrion portray Johnny Cash . A Complete Unknowncomes to theaters on December 25 .
I walked by from the plastic film feeling remote from Bob Dylan . That seems to be by design but it ’s no less frustrating from a storytelling decimal point of view .
ScreenRantinterviewed costume designer Arianne Phillips about her work onA Complete Unknown . She revealed the challenges of capturing specific looks from the time catamenia , as well as the research that go into it . Phillips also detailed her collaborative process with other section , such as whisker and makeup , manager James Mangold , and the cast . Finally , she discussed how the clothing evolvedalong with Timothée Chalamet ’s Bob Dylanthroughout the film .
The A Complete Unknown Delays Were A Blessing In Disguise
“It also afforded me a lot of time to really understand who 19-year-old Bob Dylan was showing up in New York City.”
ScreenRant : When embolden these tone , how often are you front for entire truth versus study autonomy ?
Arianne Phillips : We are revivify real events and substantial masses , obviously reasonably much all our precept are make out physique , except for maybe Sylvie , Elle Fanning ’s fictional character , who Bob Dylan rooter get it on who she was based on , Susie Rotello , Bob Dylan ’s girlfriend who is on the back of the freewheeling album . When recreating tangible citizenry and veridical events , not only what happened at Newport , there is a lot of documentation of Bob perform , whether it was Carnegie hall or town Asaph Hall or folk city or Gertie ’s , where he famously played in the early years .
There was a definite challenge in that we tell the public theatrical role story , and enamor some of those events , as well as the private behind the scenes storey . We unfortunately did n’t have access to any private photos , so really the place to start for for me , as the designer , is to forensically break down the script and put my procurator in make love where we were going to recreate what was documented that he wear at certain event . And then just becoming fluent in that enquiry . My favorite part of my job as a costume designer is the enquiry period where you really get to discover a world and type , whether they ’re existent or fictional .
Custom image by Yailin Chacon
This projection was very unparalleled in that I was need to join in 2019 . We had many postponement , COVID and scheduling , and eventually the strike would even be a delay . So all that said and done , though , it was frustrative . And at time I was distressed that we were n’t going to be able-bodied to tell the moving-picture show , just get everyone together on page again . But it also afforded me a lot of time to really understand who 19 yr old Bob Dylan was show up in New York City . And finding out about his account , that mayhap something we did n’t really bonk unless you were like a super fan or took the fourth dimension to read about him .
I read a lot of books . I catch a lot of information , not only about Bob directly , but about all the masses in his life , Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and Alan Lomax and Peter , Paul and Mary , and Albert Grossman , his managing director . All these characters in our film are tangible people . So doing that enquiry is really helpful to becoming fluent in the time period and the unequalled personality of each single person and finding out what their aesthetic is from bet at photos , as well as reading accounts of them .
I project Walk the Line with Jim Mangold almost 20 eld ago . And I learned then , by reading about accounts of Johnny Cash , I learned his own accounts of how he habilitate and watching interview really is super helpful . If you do n’t have images filling in the blanks , it ’s really just becoming fluent in getting to live who they are and their aesthetic and underscoring what ’s take place in these scenes and secernate the story over a four yr point where Bob change a lot .
A Complete Unknown is a biographical movie that follows a young Bob Dylan as he integrates with New York and catches the eye of the folk singers in the area, eventually propelling him into stardom.
Typically , in these movies about someone ’s aliveness . it ’s usually from birth to death . So there are a lot of modification that serve the hearing guide through this journeying of a life ’s work or a mortal ’s trajectory of their life . But in this movie , it ’s only four twelvemonth . So that was a great opportunity for not only myself but also for hair and makeup , specially hair , to be able to help guide the interview through this advance of this immature man recover his place in the earthly concern , finding his voice as an creative person , how he present himself to the human beings , and how he ’s dressed also develop along with that journey . So , there ’s a special opportunity for costumes .
Then all the people around him . We had a lot , we had 120 speaking parts and 5,000 plus duplicate . Timmy himself had 67 costume changes . So being capable to set a whole tone and a texture through costume , I had a fate of opportunities to show the breadth of what was happen at that time , which was vast in term of the social justice movement , euphony itself , the develop political climate .
This predates the summertime of love in 68 . It did n’t just happen overnight . This is about a youth movement that really predated this from the beatnik , malarkey earned run average and in downtown Manhattan and different places all over the area , in the former L . Being able to show this spring chicken acculturation movement that would terminate up at the end of the sixties with the summer of love .
Arianne Phillips Was Excited To Revisit Looks For Johnny Cash
“It’s not every day you get to [revisit] a beloved character that I designed almost 20 years ago for Walk the Line.”
ScreenRant : You work onWalk the note , so what was it like to revisit Johnny Cash in a young way forA Complete Unknown ?
Arianne Phillips : I do n’t know if I ’ll ever have that kind of opportunity again . It ’s very unique . Of of course they make sequels and prequels and all this sort of thing nowadays with big genre movies , but it ’s not every Clarence Day you get to have a character reference - drive film where you get to revisit a beloved fiber that I designed almost 20 years ago for Walk the production line with another interpretation from a different histrion .
I get wind on take the air the Line about this unique friendship that Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan had , which at the time , I remember being surprised by it . I love the connection between Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan because Johnny Cash liked Bob Dylan . And I think Bob Dylan obviously was very mold by Johnny Cash ’s singular voice and his desire not to be restrain by one thing . He constantly had to fight against the record company and the powers that be to do his own thing , like performing at San Quentin , which nobody wanted him to do .
He really also identified with the working adult male , which is very much that Woody Guthrie Americana , you see it in Bruce Springsteen , this music for the people . I think Bob Dylan by all odds admired these qualities in Johnny Cash , just in term of being an iconoclast and not cowtailing to anyone else ’s idea of what kind of artist he should be and the encouragement that he leave Bob to discover his own path and do n’t be deter by what people are saying he should be .
I love that connectedness , that variety of torch go by in a way , or like - mindedness between the two characters . I identify with that a tidy sum , I think who would n’t , right ? Just the mind of stay in your lane , do your thing , do what ’s authentic to you . Do n’t let people put you in a corner .
ScreenRant : It go likeWalk the Linewas a little bit like preparation assembly Complete Unknownfor you .
Arianne Phillips : Yeah , it was . It really was . And there ’s a love life narrative at the center of that one . There ’s a couple of love stories in A Complete Unknown . It ’s a capital world to live in . I can say I get it on less about Johnny Cash ’s music than I did about Bob Dylan ’s music . I was raised around Bob Dylan ’s euphony . We always had Dylan on . My parent are the same genesis as Bob . We always had Bob ’s music around the sign of the zodiac , so there is , for me , an excited level of this film . There ’s so much euphony in this movie .
Jim Mangold have films that stomach the test of prison term . My first motion-picture show with him was Girl Interrupted . It ’s a nifty movie , and it holds up almost 30 years later on . Same with Walk the course , it kind of gets better with age . I palpate like we have all the devising of that with this picture show , which is majuscule . It ’s a tale , cinematic will to a young man finding his voice and his creative thinking and his place in the earth . I ’m hopeful that this movie will inspire a whole new generation of Bob Dylan fans .
Arianne Phillips Says James Mangold Is One Of The Most Generous Filmmakers She Has Ever Worked With
“I would basically follow him off a cliff no matter what.”
ScreenRant : Now that you have work with James Mangold several times , do you feel there is a shorthand there ?
Arianne Phillips : It ’s so crazy . In the film diligence , you ’re project together with all kinds of people that maybe you would n’t meet if in normal circumstances . You end up gravitating towards like - tending people and getting the opportunity to work on with them more than once . While it had been 10 years since Jim and I did a movie together , this is our 6th cinema , and we did have a film in between that did n’t cease up coming to fruition , but Jim is one of the most generous and wonderful film maker that I have ever had the perquisite to work with .
I would basically follow him off a drop-off no matter what . When he asked me to make on this picture show , I was like , yeah . Jim and I are the same age . We have a lot of the same influences and one of the fantastical things about knead with Jim is that he really encourages collaboration outside of my own lane as a costume designer . There is a really gratuitous flow of information , whether it ’s about casting or collaborating with our cinematographer .
There is a real shorthand and an boost from Jim to collaborate across departments . We always talk about coaction and normally we do n’t always have the time to spend together because it ’s like zero to 60 prepping a film when you get a green ignitor now , but with this pic , because we had so much prison term , even though it was uncertain when it was go to happen , it did further a lot of early conversations and a sense of inclusiveness with Jim that is unparalleled for me in my career in terms of his unselfishness .
I just know solve with him and I ’m hoping that I ’ll do his next one , whatever that is . And I do n’t have to wait a long time until our schedules match up .
Arianne Phillips Always Collaborates With The Cast To Make Them Comfortable In The Clothing They Wear
“You have to figure out the sweet spot between Joan Baez and Monica Barbaro or Timmy and Bob Dylan.”
ScreenRant : How much did you collaborate with the stamp on this ?
Arianne Phillips : normally with doer we have the welfare of gather research and sketches or prototypes to communicate the idea early on on that we have been do work on with the director . In this face with Jim , Timmy and Monica , in particular , were quite immersed in the music side of things , learning the instrument . They both had to learn the guitar . Timmy had to learn harmonica and piano as well . Monica was doing a destiny of vocal lesson and Timmy as well .
So when they came to me , it was like the other piece of the puzzle , the visual words of the character . So that was really exciting . And because they both had so many fitting , we spent a plenty of time together . ab initio , when I go about a period piece like this , I usually try the real matter , the real period costume and wearing apparel on that I ’ve hunt down and gather from various places , whether it ’s vintage dealers or costume houses . I commonly try those on just to rule out what works and does n’t cultivate , because our modern bodies are unlike than the bodies in the sixties , and each actor has a different forcible symmetry that you have to figure out the sweet patch between like Joan Baez and Monica Barbaro or Timmy Timmy and Bob , where can merge the two physicalities to serve make this fantasy , if you will , or allow the audience to be immersed in these character .
specially in this time here , the dress are so great . There ’s so many thing that people wear that are relevant today . We live in a fourth dimension where almost anything goes , and we ’ve pick up sixties mode , and sure Bob , at least his 1965 look , is something that we have seen . It ’s really kind of like an art , it ’s become a rock and roll and roll archetype , his silhouette .
They ’re really great apparel to tire out . It ’s not like you ’re wearing togas or corsets from the 18th century , they ’re relatable . I always think of costume as a beam me up suit that helps the actor be transported physically to the character , whether it ’s the shoes they wear , the feel of the fabric . So while I did establish most of the main costumes , I also use vintage piece to help textile that nonrational strong-arm smell of what it ’s like .
In Timmy ’s subject , in the beginning , when he picture up New York , he ’s forge himself after Woody Guthrie . He dress in that very Woody - esque Americana working class Pendleton shirt , dungaree pants , the little , almost like a fisherman ’s cap or a train conductor ’s cap . We used a material Pendleton shirt , but we made the jacket , we made the hat . Being capable to commix it so it has a sense of authenticity . It ’s hard to recreate not only the flavour of the fabrics , because they ’ve really changed . They have so much applied science in fabrics now in terms of microfibers , but that constitutional quality pre - polyester , if you will , and the way that that fabric hangs on the organic structure is very dissimilar .
So being able to have a Libra the Scales of that , and of course , we were vivify a lot of recognise events . So figuring out in the script what was publicly documented , what people would recognize , whether it was a concert at Newport or at Monterey Folk Festival , or the cover of the Freewheelin ' record album , being able to recreate those moments as closemouthed to the enquiry as potential was also really exciting .
Arianne Phillips Hopes The Awards Buzz For A Complete Unknown Drives People To See It In Theaters
“This is an experience that you really should have theatrically if you can.”
ScreenRant : congratulation on all the prize bombination .
Arianne Phillips : The outstanding thing about accolade is that it ’ll help get people to the dramatics . We want hoi polloi to see this at the theatre of operations , given there ’s so much music , you really need it with a great audio scheme and a great motion picture . I just think that the elbow room that the film is lit by our cinematographer , it has so much texture .
We saw it last nighttime on the gravid blind and there ’s nothing like it . This is an experience that you really should have stagily when you could . So that ’s my hope for the award buzz , that it will motivate and charge up people to see it on the big screen .
More About A Complete Unknown (2024)
New York , 1961 . Against the backdrop of a vibrant music tantrum and tumultuous cultural upheaval , an enigmatic 19 - class - old from Minnesota go far with his guitar and revolutionary talent , designate to change the course of American music . He forges informal relationships with music ikon of Greenwich Village on his meteorological rise , culminating in a innovative and controversial performance that reverberates worldwide . Timothée Chalamet stars and sings as Bob Dylan in James Mangold ’s A COMPLETE terra incognita , the electrical straight taradiddle behind the rise of one of the most iconic Isaac M. Singer - songwriters in history .
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A Complete Unknowncomes to theater on December 25 .
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A Complete Unknown is a biographical flick that abide by a untested Bob Dylan as he integrates with New York and catches the eye of the folk Isaac Bashevis Singer in the field , finally propelling him into stardom .
