The world needs a new Bob Dylan for an age that has become too “cynical”, actor Timothee Chalamet said on Thursday while presenting the new biographical film on the US folk troubadour.
Asked ahead of the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump if he had embraced 1960s nostalgia in starring as the singer in “A Complete Unknown”, the French-American superstar noted the divergence with his own generation.
“I think there is a nostalgia, because in the 1960s, this type of music and artists, like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez or James Baldwin — there was no precedent,” Chalamet said in French ahead of the France premiere of the film on January 29.
Such artists thought “that things could change and that art could change political aspects or the cultural attitude”, he said.
“Today, the cynicism is stronger,” he said. “For the young American, French and global generation, the obstacles are probably even bigger than in the 1960s: the environmental and political obstacles.”
“It would be good if someone like Dylan emerged but, there again, there’s this cynicism… If someone makes an ethical, optimistic song, you’d think it had some ‘corporate’ element, that it was done in their own interests.”
The Dylan biopic will be competing at Britain’s BAFTA awards next month as the race for Oscars glory gathers pace, as will “Dune: Part Two”, the science fiction extravaganza in which Chalamet also stars.
