With more albums than most of us can count, Bob Dylan is probably the real king of great music. From folk to rock and everything in between, Dylan’s music has defined (and redefined) several generations. But his origins as a breakout star in 1961 are the focus of much of what happens in the new Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, the movie has received (mostly) great reviews, including a nod from Dylan himself, who wrote on X that “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”
Now that A Complete Unknown is out in theaters, there’s a good chance plenty of people will have some questions about just how much this movie legitimately represents the real history, or if it’s a dreamy “other” version of Bob Dylan. Some longtime fans noticed that a major character in the film, Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), had her name change from the real person in Dylan's life. Bob Dylan was not in love with someone named Sylvie Russo in the early 1960s. He was in love with a woman named Suze Rotolo.
Famously, Suze Rotolo is the woman walking arm-and-arm with Bob Dylan on the cover of the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan; an album that contains the famous tracks “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall,” and “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.” She was one of Bob Dylan’s early muses and wrote about her experiences with Dylan and that era of the 1960s in her 2008 memoir A Freewheelin' Time.
Because she passed away in 2011, Bob Dylan himself requested that her name be changed for the new film. As director James Mangold explained to USA Today: "He just asked me if it could be changed…He still has [a] fondness for her. She’s passed on, but was an early love in his life before he was Bob Dylan.”
Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo isn’t exactly Suze Rotolo, but not different enough to change history. Meaning, not everything in A Complete Unknown is 100 percent accurate. But, like the legend of Dylan, that’s part of the freewheelin’ magic.
