SBIFF: Timothée Chalamet to Recieve SBIFF Arlington Artist of the Year Award
EVOKING A PORTRAIT OF ONE OF MODERN MUSIC’S MOST ENIGMATIC SUPERSTARS, Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet demonstrates the depths he can plumb in pursuit of a role. The 40th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival has taken note, and will honor Chalamet with the Arlington Artist of the Year Award on Tuesday, February 11th at 8pm at the Arlington. The recognition is well deserved, as Chalamet has had a watershed year, and the night will offer an in-person tribute and career retrospective.
“I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan, and I was blown away by Chalamet’s transformation in A Complete Unknown,” said SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. “His performance is galvanizing and electrifying, especially coming on the heels of the major box office triumph earlier this year with Dune: Part Two. Truly, this is the age of Chalamet.”
When it comes to portraying somebody as iconic as Bob Dylan, the herald of the 60’s counterculture movement, mimicry isn’t enough. Chalamet frames Dylan’s slouch and sly watchfulness, and nails Dylan’s voice in almost every sonic detail. He performed all of the songs live, while filming, but it’s the other moments—Dylan in relationships, in interviews, in rebuking the pressure to remain just a folk musician—that Chalamet gives the audience the Bob Dylan who fans came to love: fearless, undaunted, cocksure, a risk taker at constant work on his craft.
As much as he embodies Bob Dylan, Chalamet is cognizant of the dangers of immersing oneself in a character. “I try to be super careful. The danger is you can end up focusing more on what’s going on off-camera than on-camera,” he told R&B artist Frank Ocean, in a conversation for VMAN Magazine. “You don’t want to be entertaining for the sake of being entertaining. The work should be the work. If it resonates, it’s going to resonate, and then people are naturally curious about how you got to that destination.”
Ever since his breakout role in Call Me By Your Name (for which Chalamet received a “Best Actor” nomination from the Oscars), he has been a performer to watch. While many actors might be comfortable “phoning it in” on SNL, he has stretched his wings. Consider his white rapper $mokeCheddaThaAssGetta, then consider him in A Complete Unknown, and a full picture of Chalamet’s abilities is on display, and that he’s game for almost anything.
