A Complete Unknown is in cinemas now, but what really happened between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez? Read on for the real-life version of their relationship.
The two folk icons are portrayed by Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in the film, which finally hit UK cinemas on Friday (January 17). It tells the story of Dylan’s rise as a breakout star of Greenwich Village’s folk scene in the early 1960s to his controversial performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where he performed live with electric instruments for the first time.
NME has launched a special print edition magazine celebrating the film and the legacy of Dylan. The 26-page one-shot is available now – find out where to get it here.
NME awarded A Complete Unknown four stars, writing: “The most important (and often trickiest) job of any music movie is to get the music right. And this nails that. If you’re a Bob newbie, you’ll leave the cinema ready to dive into his back catalogue. If you’re already a fan, the next few weeks will be spent making playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading the lore around a scene you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why it was a good idea to make this film – a mad idea, but a good one.”
Dylan himself had some impact on the film’s script, as revealed by producer Peter Jaysen. “He met with [director] Jim Mangold multiple times,” he said.
“At one point they sat there and they read the entire script out loud, with Jim Mangold reading every part and stage direction, and Bob Dylan only reading lines of dialogue for himself. Through that process, [Dylan] sat there writing notes on the script. At the end of the last session with Jim Mangold, he signed the script and said, ‘Go with God.’”
Did Bob Dylan and Joan Baez end up together? A Complete Unknown romance explained
Much of the film focuses on the budding romantic relationship between Dylan and Baez, which did begin shortly after the former’s arrival in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1961.
They first met at Gerde’s Folk City in April that year, by which point Baez was already established as the ‘Queen of Folk’ after the release of her self-titled debut album the previous year. She was reportedly unimpressed with Dylan on first impressions, but she appreciated the track ‘Song To Woody’ – one of only two original compositions that would appear on his own self-titled debut in 1962.
Their relationship lasted intermittently for the next three years, with Baez inviting Dylan to play with her at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. That would mark the first of a string of high-profile duets between the two during that period.
By the time of Dylan’s UK tour in 1965, the relationship was starting to break down, as captured by D.A. Pennebaker’s acclaimed documentary film Don’t Look Back. Baez later described the abrupt end of the romance as “heartbreaking”.
Despite the end of their relationship, the two continued to collaborate, including during Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975-76, an excerpt of which was captured on video and later included on Martin Scorsese‘s 2019 pseudo-documentary. See the clip above.
In a 2023 documentary, Baez referred to her romance with Dylan as “totally demoralising”, noting that although she had forgiven them, they were no longer in contact.