The two fiction films with Bob Dylan as their hero are respectively I'm Not There (by Todd Haynes, released in 2007) and A Complete Unknown (recently released by James Mangold). We might add that, on the rare occasions when Dylan has acted, his characters were called Alias, in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (by Sam Peckinpah, 1973), and Jack Fate, in the appropriately titled Masked and Anonymous (by Larry Charles, 2003). Alongside his professions as poet, composer and guitarist, Dylan has always been a king of escapism, evading expectations and leaving only fleeting glimpses of himself on the screen, even though he has made his entire sound output public for decades.

One of the merits of A Complete Unknown is that it acknowledges the impossibility of forming a coherent image of Dylan, even though the period chronicled in Mangold's film is the best-known, best-documented of the endless tour that is the vagabond Nobel Prize winner's existence. The film takes its place in an infinite number of representations, some grudgingly conceded by the model, most carefully crafted by Dylan himself.

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