What we know about A Complete Unknown - and why it's so hard to get Bob Dylan right
What we know about A Complete Unknown - and why it's so hard to get Bob Dylan right Getty Images The film will be set in the early 1960s – the moment in time when Bob Dylan went from 'complete unknown' to rock star. Sean Latham, founding director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and the editor of The World Of Bob Dylan biography, tells BBC Culture that 1960s New York was "a magnet for creative, even revolutionary artists around the country and around the world", making it a perfect period for the film to be set in. Getty Images Bob Dylan arrived in New York in 1961 to meet a dying Woody Guthrie Suddenly, folk music was no longer for tweedy purists – while rock music found its social conscience. Latham says highlighting that part of Dylan's evolution on film makes sense: "When Dylan picked up an electric guitar, he was initially met by a cascade of boos, whistles and catcalls," he explains.
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