NCS
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If vogue is a language, Arianne Phillips, costume designer on James Mangold’s newest movie “A Complete Unknown,” is a polyglot.
In 2005, she mastered the visible lexicon of Johnny Cash’s type for Mangold’s “Walk the Line,” dressing the Rockabilly legend in Western work shirts and all-black stagewear. For 2019’s “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood,” Phillips perused Sharon Tate’s actual wardrobe to outfit Margot Robbie in the identical snakeskin trench coat and yellow sizzling pants that the actor and mannequin wore earlier than her harrowing demise in 1969. But for the final 5 years, Phillips has been finding out Bob Dylan — changing into “fluent” in each his worldview and his wardrobe.
Releasing on Christmas Day within the US, “A Complete Unknown” stars Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, charting the musician’s meteoric rise from his arrival in New York at age 19 to changing into a bonafide star at 24.
“We were recreating known events that are widely documented,” Phillips advised NCS in a video interview. “That was the beginning point for me, just in terms of the research. Excavating and forensically breaking the script down to known events.”
The movie spans the years 1961 to 1965 and covers seminal moments within the folk-rock star’s early profession, together with, the now-iconic 1963 photoshoot of his “Freewheelin’” album cowl, his tumultuous 1964 yr tour with Joan Baez and his divisive efficiency on the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Costumes tied to those events have been less complicated to execute as a result of Phillips faithfully recreated them. Take the leather-based jacket and crimson button-down Dylan wore acting at Newport, throughout which he was booed relentlessly by the group for enjoying an electrical guitar, or his inexperienced and white polka-dot shirt from the identical weekend. But Chalamet has greater than 65 costume modifications, within the movie’s depiction of behind-the-scenes moments, Phillips explains, when Dylan was both not but well-known, or off-duty at dwelling.
“You know (his) stage persona, you know the news reels,” Phillips mentioned. “But what we don’t see are many photos of him in his private time, when he’s not on stage or promoting something.”
In order to fill within the gaps, she needed to embody Dylan, picturing which pair of denims he would choose to stroll round Manhattan, the shirt he’d put on to go to the studio, or which jacket he’d seize for a drive on his Triumph Tiger 100 bike.
“We didn’t have access to personal photographs. So my way in is really becoming fluent in Bob, in the research… understanding his aesthetic, how he dressed himself and also learning through the people that knew him,” she defined.
According to Phillips, Dylan gave Mangold notes on the movie’s script, however that was the complete extent of the rock star’s involvement. No entry was granted to his private wardrobe, both, so Phillips relied on varied biographies and books about his life.
The 2008 memoir “A Freewheelin’ Time,” written by Dylan’s former girlfriend Suze Rotolo, was additionally notably useful in capturing the essence of these early years.
“I learned a lot from her,” Phillips mentioned of Rotolo, who died in 2011, and is performed by Elle Fanning within the movie because the character Sylvie Russo. “How Bob dressed himself and (how he) wanted to present to the world — his persona. I think that it’s a story of a young person finding their way in the world, (figuring out) how they want people to perceive them, (experiencing) freedom and moving away from home. I think we can all relate to that, when we’re 19 or 20, finding our own personal style.”
After receiving the decision to affix the movie in 2019, Phillips spent years studying round her new topic and constructing a sturdy visible archive of pictures. Slowly, a Bob Dylan vogue method emerged.
“My throughline was really the denim he wore,” she mentioned. Phillips partnered up with Paul O’Neill, head of classic collections on the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco, to trace down and confirm Dylan’s most well-liked pair of denims. Early within the decade, it’s the basic 501s.
“You can see him wearing the 1963 version of 501s on the cover of “Freewheelin’,” she mentioned. “They were able to help me source a lot of vintage Levi’s for the movie.”
But it wasn’t lengthy earlier than his sartorial tastes switched. In 1965, after spending a while with the Beatles within the UK, Dylan was influenced by the slick mod look usually discovered on London’s Carnaby Street. He switched up his looser match denim for one thing skinnier.
“They were called Super Slims and they’re collectible and super hard to find,” Phillips mentioned of the type of denims. “So lucky for us, (Levi’s) recreated them and made them bespoke for us, which was thrilling.” Earlier this month, Levi’s announced they have been reissuing Dylan’s favourite 1955 501 jean, in addition to his basic suede Trucker jacket, for a restricted time.
Dylan’s experimental type and playful strategy to garments meant numerous costume modifications for Chalamet. “We had a very ambitious shooting schedule,” Phillips mentioned. “Certain days we were doing ‘61 and ‘62 looks, to the ‘65 looks and back to ‘63. It was mad. Really really busy. So being able to be the support for the actors in terms of helping them align where we were in time when shooting these scenes is a part of my job that I love… Costumes really serve a tactile experience for an actor and help them access that character.”
Chalamet has tackled historic dramas and memoir diversifications earlier than, however “A Complete Unknown” marks the actor’s first foray into movie star biopic territory. Although he was stretched tight between music rehearsals, vocal teaching and pre-recording performances, Phillips nods to Chalamet’s endurance with their many fittings.
“It’s a very intimate job, costume design,” she mentioned. “We’re the only department on the (set) that’s like, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. Take your clothes off.’ There’s a lot of trust involved.”
Since the press tour started, the forged and crew of “A Complete Unknown” have been blessed with an acknowledgement from Dylan himself. “There’s a movie about me opening soon,” 83-year-old Dylan tweeted, including that Chalamet was starring as him (which the actor promptly shared to his personal 19.3 million Instagram followers). “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”
“It’s a different experience to work on a film about a living person,” Phillips mentioned. “I hope that he (Dylan) sees the film and I hope he enjoys it.”
Yet she doesn’t lament the truth that her staff didn’t have entry to the star’s wardrobe; as she famous: “We’re not making a documentary.”
“And filming is quite hardcore,” Phillips added. “I wouldn’t expect Bob Dylan to have any (clothing) that lasted 60 years, and if he did that should be in a museum, not in a movie.”