Mocht iemand nog twijfelen aan de vocale capaciteiten van Bob Dylan, dan kan Timothée Chalamet die wegnemen: de acteur die in de huid van Dylan huid kroop voor diens biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ en voor die rol leerde gitaar spelen en zingen, vindt Hem een fantastische zanger.
Dat zegt hij in een niet gepubliceerd gedeelte van een interview dat Brain Hiatt van Rolling Stone met hem had.
‘Blind Willie McTell’ en ‘Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind’ zijn daarvoor duidelijke bewijzen voor Chalamet, al relativeert hij zijn stelligheid ook: ‘Music is subjective and art is subjective. To me, he’s got one of the most beautiful voices of all time.’
Zijn vermogen om te klinken als Dylan heeft Chalamet te danken aan stemcoach Eric Vetro, zo schrijft Hiatt.
Vetro werkte ook met hem voor zijn rol in ‘Wonka’, hij trainde Austin Butler voor ‘Elvis’ en Renée Zellweger voor ‘Judy’, maar liet ook Jeremy Allen White klinken als Bruce Springsteen in de verfilming van ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’, een film die nu in productie is. Verder begeleidde hij Monica Barbaro, die de rol van Joan Baez speelt in ‘A Complete Unknown’.
Vetro zegt er niet naar te streven een imitatie van de artiest, maar de essentie te vangen.
Hij noemt Dylan’s stem terecht ‘uniek’, maar niet ‘op de klassieke manier mooi’. Dylan klinkt volgens Vetro tegelijkertijd jong en oud: toen hij jong was, klonk hij als een oude ziel.
Hij vertelt hoe Chalamet zich steeds verder inleefde in Dylan en hem ook steeds meer werd:
‘I have an assistant/handyman, Josh. One day Timmy was early, and he was waiting outside. Josh went over and said, What are you working on?” And Timmy told him he was working on the Bob Dylan movie, and he asked him his favorite Bob Dylan song. And Timmy just started singing and playing it, standing on the driveway. When Josh told me that story, at first I was so touched that Timmy was so kind and generous and that he would be so friendly. But I also was like, “There you go. He’s really becoming Bob Dylan,” because you could see where Bob Dylan would do the same thing. I thought, “This movie is going to be fucking awesome because he really does his homework and he knows what he’s doing.” ‘
Natuurlijk bestudeerde Vetro Dylan’s manier van praten en zingen. Over hem zegt hij: ‘I feel like there was a yearning to express what he was thinking or felt and that’s where I think his magic came from. He wasn’t doing it out of ego. He was doing it out of this real, genuine compulsion to express certain thoughts and ideas. His intensity drew you in. You felt that sincerity.
I think Timmy captures that, because Timmy is that type of person, too. There were so many times when I got chills, because I would think to myself, “Wow, I’m really getting the essence of Bob Dylan” — not a caricature of him, not an impersonation, but I’m really feeling like I’m in the presence of Bob. When [Timmy] would sing the songs, somehow I went, “Oh, I understand them better.’
Vectro is er dan ook van overtuigd dat ‘A Complete Unknown’ ervoor zal zorgen dat veel jongeren in Dylan geïnteresseerd zullen raken: ‘I think it’s going to work, because I had to override my quest to make people sound better all the time. That’s my entire life, making someone sound like they have a better voice, a beautiful voice. But this experience working with Timmy overrode that. So if it won me over, I think it’s going to win over a lot of people who are now going to want to listen to Bob Dylan.’
Ook over Baez’ manier van zingen zegt hij veel interessants: ‘It was, because Joan Baez not only has a very distinctive voice, but it’s not easy to sing like that. She has that high soprano and also a very distinctive vibrato. That can be difficult for someone to get in general, especially for someone who’s never sung before.
We would listen together, and pick out, where is the vibrato stronger or heavier? Where is it a little bit less? Where is her voice a little stronger? Joan Baez does have a pretty strong and aggressive attack on the music. It’s not a soft or demure delivery.’
Ook vergelijkt hij op verzoek van Rolling Stone’s Brian Hiatt de manier van zingen van Dylan met die van Baez: ‘Bob’s came across as more natural, more like speaking, more like talking, more like telling a story than Joan’s. Especially in today’s world, when you listen to them — at that time, I don’t think people thought of it quite as different as they would listening today. Because Joan’s voice is so different in today’s world. How many pop singers do you know who sound like that? Joan has a little bit of that operatic quality, not just the tone or vibrato but also the delivery, the strength of the delivery, the breath support. Whereas with Bob, he didn’t take big, huge breaths. It wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to hit the back row with my voice’. ’
Eerdere berichten over ‘A Complete Unknown’ en over Bob Dylan vind je in de categorie nieuws.