The occasions they’re a-changin’ — and so has the neighborhood.
For the brand new Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, manufacturing designer François Audouy was tasked with meticulously recreating the rock legend’s Greenwich Village haunts from greater than 60 years in the past.
However he confronted a problem. Despite the fact that a few of these spots are nonetheless alive and kicking, downtown Manhattan appears nothing prefer it did again then.
“It’s missing the patina of New York in the 1960s,” Audouy advised The Submit. “But the other thing, though, is that it’s almost impossible to shoot a movie like this on a street where every business is going to ask for $1 million or $100,000 or more to allow the level of control that we need.”
So, director James Mangold shot most of “A Complete Unknown” — in theaters Dec. 25 — on-location in Jersey Metropolis and Hoboken, NJ, the place he and Audouy might change no matter they happy. Actual buildings with character, even throughout the Hudson, had been preferable to a synthetic studio in LA, the designer stated.
“When you’re in a business like a cafe or a restaurant and you’re looking out the windows, you’re not looking into a green screen. You’re looking at pedestrians walking by and cars going by,” he added. “That’s the movie that we were trying to make — something that was real and as grounded as possible.”
Right here’s how “A Complete Unknown” nailed Bob Dylan’s New York Metropolis.
Dylan’s First Condo
Whereas artistic liberties had been taken with some units, Dylan’s first NYC condominium on 161 West 4th Road, the place he lived with girlfriend Suze Rotolo, was probably the most element obsessed challenge. Sadly, though nonetheless standing, the real article was unusable.
“The interior has been unfortunately completely gutted,” Audouy stated.
So, learning images by Don Hunstein and never-before-seen negatives of Ted Russell, the crew turned an condominium in Hoboken that was bodily “very close” to the unique into Dylan’s well-known abode.
“We filled it with all of these details from the photographs, like his exact chair, the same handmade furniture, the same record player, the same typewriter,” the designer stated. “We rebuilt his desks and his and all that.”
Additionally they erected a completely useful kitchen. “The stove worked, you could make a coffee, you could wash the dishes, you could open the fridge, you could go to the bathroom, we could pour a bath,” he stated.
The house was so sensible, in actual fact, that Chalamet typically lounged round when not capturing to higher remodel into Dylan.
“Timmy would spend hours on the set just becoming familiar with the space,” Audouy stated. “He basically had a time machine at his disposal to do whatever he wanted. He could go back to the 1960s and go to his apartment and hang out.”
Cafe Wha?
A 19-year-old Dylan first carried out at Cafe Wha? at 115 MacDougal Road in 1961 quickly after he arrived from Minnesota and he was nonetheless a no one. Guitar in hand, he sang some Woody Guthrie songs to a rapturous response.
The music membership has been chugging alongside because it was based in 1959. Nonetheless, a lot of its West Village space is visibly completely different — for example, Kettle of Fish bar has since moved to Christopher Road — that Audouy’s crew was compelled to rebuild the enduring facade on Jersey Ave. in Jersey Metropolis.
“The Jersey Hub,” Audouy referred to as it.
“That corner was all based on research,” the designer stated. “We built Cafe Bazaar across the street from it, which no longer exists… We had Cafe Figaro, which was an interior-exterior build, and Kettle of Fish.”
Gaslight
You may nonetheless go to the subterranean coffeehouse and folks music membership the place Dylan recorded “Live at the Gaslight 1962.” Kind of. The place closed its doorways in 1971. Now, the institution at 116 MacDougal is a cocktail bar referred to as The Up & Up. Above it sits a tattoo parlor. So, Audouy needed to construct the biz.
He was extra involved with capturing a vibe, nevertheless, than delivering a picture-perfect reproduction.
“We wanted to have a Gaslight that felt like the Gaslight,” he stated. “But then we had other sets that we actually decided to make as close as possible to the real thing, like Columbia Records and Bob’s apartment.”
To realize the important below-ground environment, he discovered a legit basement in a single metropolis and customary an entrance in one other one.
“We were shooting in an old Elks lodge on Washington in Hoboken that had great old bones and hadn’t been updated in… ever,” he stated. “And in the basement, there was a really great bar that we turned into the Gaslight as closely as possible.”
The entrance, then, was arrange on the Jersey Hub. The viewers watches as Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) descends the Gaslight steps to seek out Chalamet’s Dylan enjoying onstage.
“You’re seeing the sign and you’re getting a feeling for it,” Audouy stated of the peerlessly easy transition from out of doors to indoor. “It’s not like we’re making a ‘Seinfeld’ episode.”
