Director Watch Podcast Ep 3: ‘I’m Not There’ (Haynes, 2007)

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 3 of the Director Watch Podcast, they are joined by AwardsWatch contributor Sophia Ciminello to discuss the latest film in their Todd Haynes series, I’m Not There (2007).

Following up his most successful film to date, Todd Haynes pivoted from the Douglas Sirk inspired world of Far From Heaven to tackle a music biopic about one of the greatest American figures in music history, Bob Dylan. Unlike Velvet Goldmine, where he wasn’t granted access to use the songs of the iconic singer David Bowie, Dylan gave his blessing to Haynes for this project, which explore the multiple personas of the legendary singer songwriter performed by six different actors of various age, gender and race. With this, Haynes made a film that is now celebrated amongst the other outstanding films of the vastly rich year that was 2007. On this episode, Ryan, Jay and Sophia breakdown if Haynes was able to stick this landing for this ambitious film, if it does right by Dylan’s legacy, why more modern biopics aren’t made this way, they aren’t looking forward to the new Bob Dylan biopic from director James Mangold, and which other music genius could get a similar I’m Not There style of film made about their life and career.

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This podcast runs 1h37m. The guys will be back next week to continue their Todd Haynes series with a look at Carol. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).