I'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. At the start of the film, a caption reads: "Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan". Besides song credits, this is the only time Dylan's name appears in the film.
The film tells its story using non-traditional narrative techniques, intercutting the storylines of the six different Dylan-inspired characters. The title of the film is taken from the 1967 Dylan Basement Tape recording, "I'm Not There", a song that had not been officially released until it appeared on the film's soundtrack album. The film received a generally favorable response, and appeared on several top ten film lists for 2007, topping the lists for The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Salon and The Boston Globe. Particular praise went to Cate Blanchett for her performance, culminating in a Volpi Cup from the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, along with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
The film was released two months prior to the death of the actor Heath Ledger, and was one of his last films.
Famous quotes containing the words not and/or there:
“You don’t hit a child when you want him to stop hitting. You don’t yell at a children to get them to stop yelling. Or spit at a child to indicate that he should not spit. Of course, you want children to know how to sympathize with others and to “know how it feels,” but you ... have to show them how to act—not how not to act.”
—Jeannette W. Galambos (20th century)
“There is no there there.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)