i'm not there and the sole drawback of being cate blanchett

The best movies are the ones that leave you filled with power. The ones you walk out of with a swagger, feeling like gods have been walking around you, or like you've been injected with a secret message and it's running in your veins. Everyone's list varies, and different power-films manifest in different ways. Years ago, when I emerged into the daylight after seeing Naked Lunch at the Varsity, I felt like I was on acid. Walking down a side-street there was a sudden and profuse scent of flowers, heavy and ubiquitous, but when I went to find the source it was all the way up the street, a typical flowering shrub, nothing fancy. My senses had been honed by the acid-trip movie I'd seen. On the other hand, I carry a short-list of movies (the first Star Wars, the first Matrix, and, believe it or not, the first Pirates of the Caribbean) that inspire serious spiritual experiences--consistently, too, with every viewing, but only in the theatre; the magic doesn't work on DVD. I'm guessing the secret catalyst is a specific balance of stimulating visual effects and archetypal themes, but that the most crucial element is aural, in the sound mixing, and that's why the sorcery gets left behind with the THX sound-system.

In any case, most power-experiences culled from film you wouldn't call numinous, necessarily. More often you walk out feeling like somebody else for a little while, which is a potent gift, not to be dismissed. If one of the paths to happiness is wearing your own ego a little more loosely, then power-films are not to be disregarded lightly. Usually when I get a powerstorm from a film it manifests in a long walk, a talk with the moon, and intense dreams when I sleep that night.

This all came up because I saw I'm Not There tonight, an odd and intrepid ode to Dylan by Todd Haynes. I can't imagine what it would be like to watch it if you knew nothing about Dylan, or if you'd never felt strongly about him. For those of us who can trace and organize whole periods of our lives by recalling whether INFIDELS or SLOW TRAIN COMING was playing when a particular event occurred, I'm Not There is an extraordinary experience. First off, despite his absolutely valid demurrals, there's something about the man himself which acts as an impetus, lends the sense that something bigger is happening than would seem to an objective observer. How else to explain the violent reactions to his hairpin-turns from folkie to electric or from hipster to Christian? I once had a life-changing satori at a Dylan concert in Sacramento, of all places, and the one time I mentioned it to someone they laughed and said, "How cliche," and I've kept it to myself since then. The satori wasn't especially connected to him or his songs or the way he performed; in fact, he was fairly lackluster by that time in his live shows; it was the late eighties and I suspect he was looking for a new direction. If anything, it was simply an energy about him, about Dylan The Charismatic, the way he approaches his life-work, the archetypes he manifests; he's a walking, breathing stimulant.

All those caveats and addenda about my long and winding Dylan-history taken into consideration, it's not much of a surprise that I left the theatre carrying a power-surge. Cate Blanchett's performance alone is enough to galvanize; she even got that skinny, peglegged spiderwalk down right. If I wasn't morally opposed to Oscar going home with every third actor who plays a musician, I'd say Cate should've seduced the little gold man away from Tilda last month. (That, by the way, is the solitary downside to being the luminous and unmatchable Cate Blanchett, as far as I can tell at a distance: you're so head-and-shoulders better than everyone else that Oscar gets coy, plays hard-to-get, doesn't want to look like he's playing favorites. But when you're busy being the luminous and unmatchable Cate Blanchett, who really gives a crap about Oscar?)

The other actors playing Dylan have been, critically speaking, resting invisibly in the shadow of Cate, but they all do creditable work (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere). In all fairness, the era of Blanchett's Dylan was the best documented, and you can watch the honest-to-God Dylan speaking half her lines by watching Don't Look Back and No Direction Home. That doesn't strip the delight from her performance, but it's Christian Bale who pulls off a real coup in the comparatively thankless task of embodying the transition from early folkie to the glamorless, stern-faced and vaguely clownish Dylan of the Gospel years.

If nothing else, it'll remind you how lovely and varied Dylan's music has been across these decades, sometimes startlingly so, and how quietly innovative Todd Haynes is as a film-maker. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to retire to the CD player and listen to a little background music from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.