I'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. At the start of the film, a caption reads: "Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan". Besides song credits, this is the only time Dylan's name appears in the film.
The film tells its story using non-traditional narrative techniques, intercutting the storylines of the six different Dylan-inspired characters. The title of the film is taken from the 1967 Dylan Basement Tape recording, "I'm Not There", a song that had not been officially released until it appeared on the film's soundtrack album. The film received a generally favorable response, and appeared on several top ten film lists for 2007, topping the lists for The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Salon and The Boston Globe. Particular praise went to Cate Blanchett for her performance, culminating in a Volpi Cup from the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, along with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
I Am may refer to:
Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 – 22 January 2008) was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger left his homeland for the United States in 1998 to develop his film career. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and The Dark Knight (2008). In addition to acting, he produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger won the 2005 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and the 2006 "Best Actor" award from the Australian Film Institute and was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor as well as the 2006 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Posthumously he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I'm Not There, which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan's life and persona. Ledger received numerous accolades for his critically acclaimed portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards, for which he became the first actor to win an award posthumously, the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.
Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.
Todd Haynes (born January 2, 1961) is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.
The All Movie Guide writes that "Haynes is known for making provocative films that subvert narrative structure and resound with transgressive, complex eroticism…. Although he doesn't characterize himself as a gay filmmaker who makes gay films… Haynes' name has become synonymous with the New Queer Cinema movement and its work to both explore and redefine the contours of queer culture in America and beyond."
Haynes’ work is preoccupied with postmodernist ideas of identity and sexuality as socially constructed concepts, and personal identity as a fluid and changeable state. His protagonists are invariably social outsiders whose "subversive" identity and sexuality pits them at odds with the received norms of their society. In the Haynes universe, sexuality (especially “deviant” or unconventional sexuality) is a subversive and dangerous force that disrupts social norms and is often repressed brutally by dominant power structures. Haynes presents artists as the ultimate subversive force, since they must necessarily stand outside of societal norms, with an artist's creative output representing the greatest opportunity for personal and social freedom. Unsurprisingly, many of his films are unconventional portraits of pop artists and musicians (Karen Carpenter in Superstar, David Bowie in Velvet Goldmine and Bob Dylan in I’m Not There).
Ev'ry thing's all right
And then she's all the time in my neighborhood
She cries both day and night
I know because it was there
It's a milestone but she's down on her luck
And the day makes her lonely
And it's so hard to buck, I was there
I believe that she'd stop him if she would start to care
I believe that she'd look upon this side
And t' care and I'd go by the something
When she's on my way, but I don't belong there
No I don't belong to her
I don't belong to anybody
She's my prize forsaken angel
But she don't care she cries
She's a lone-hearted mystic and she can carry on
When I'm there, she's all right
But she's not when I'm gone
Heaven knows that the answer she's don't call in no one
She's a wave, a thing, beautiful she's mine for the one
And I'm also hesitating by temptation lest it runs
Which it don't follow me
But I'm not there, I'm gone
Now I'll cry tonight, like I cried the night before
And I'll feast on her eyes
But I'll dream about the door
So long, Jesus, savior, blind faith worth to tell
It don't have consolation she's my
I was born to love her
But she knows that the kingdom waits so high above her
And I run but I race
But it's not too fast a pace
Of cource I'll not deceive her
I'm not there, I'm gone
Maybe it's only - cuz I'm so poor
That you don't count me - anymore
Maybe I'm tryin' to compare
Take my picture - don't you dare
Maybe it's only - cuz I fall
I'm so much closer - but yer so tall
But I'm no baby - I ain't no child
I'll get to bed soon - in awhile
Hear me crawlin' down your stairs
Count your children - don't be scared
My wooden floor is awful bare
But you can't take me - I'm not there
Cuz I'm screamin' - cuz I'm tired
I'm a little bit lonesome, I'm not so dire
But I'm no baby - I'm no child
I'll get in bed now - just for awhile
Hear me callin' down your stairs
Count your babies - one's not there