Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan, shooting I’m Not There.

This has been all over the interblogs already, but maybe it’s been a lovely summer weekend where you were, as it was where I was, and you were ignoring the interblogs completely. In which case, you will want to see this leaked clip from the upcoming I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’s movie about - or around and about - Bob Dylan, which is being released in September. For some context to the clip, which is mostly being shat upon by the self-styled know-it-alls of interbloggery (by which I mean not S’gum itself but S’gum’s commentators), it’s helpful to remember that the film is an episodic series of vignettes, featuring six different actors playing Dylan in different phases of his life, including, “Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin) - an 11-year-old black boy, always on the run; Robbie - a womanising performer, always on the road; Jude (Cate Blanchett) - the young androgynous rock star; John/Jack (Christian Bale) - a folk idol who reinvents himself as an evangelist; Billy (Richard Gere) - the famous outlaw, miraculously alive but growing old.” (I wonder if they originally tried to get John Travolta for the Gere role, as the Times insinuated yesterday is standard practice?)

The device is a somewhat obvious one given Dylan’s famously mercurial and elusive persona, but it’s still ballsy to do it. I’ve never revisited Haynes’ glam-rock period pic Velvet Goldmine but I felt at the time that it failed because it got overly absorbed with some fairly obvious sexuality issues around the Iggy Pop/David Bowie/Lou Reed figures; but that aside, Haynes is the person who made Safe (one of the best American movies of the ’90s) and Far From Heaven and Poison and Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, and in the battle of the Todds and their multiple-actors-play-one-character movies - and I actually did like Palindromes at least somewhat - I know where I side. (I have a much trickier time in the battle of the Andersons: Wes or P.T.?)

I’m pleased for instance by these comments from Blanchett about the film: “Even though the film’s aim is not to be a biopic, people automatically will want to receive it like that. Even though I had no interest in imitating Dylan, Todd was really specific that I wore the exact suit that he wore in Manchester in 1965, and the hair. He wants those iconic references, but he doesn’t want an imitation, so it was a really difficult tightrope to walk. Which I hope I walked without falling off too often.”

Also note that the film is titled after the Basement Tapes-era I’m Not There (1956), which is one of Dylan’s best terrible songs, poker-faced yet compelling music with nearly gibberish lyrics, eg, “Well it’s all about diffusion that I cry for her veil/ I don’t need anybody now beside me to tell/ And it’s all affirmation I receive, but it’s not/ She’s a lone-hearted beauty, but she’s gone like the spot”: Lyrics with a really absent centre, a collapsible subject, but a charismatic melody - which suggests how I imagine Haynes wants the film to be. And that seems like a good antidote to the almost-too-available-Bob of the past couple of years, the cooperative Dylan of the Scorsese documentary, the author of the memoirs, the far-less-prickly interview subject, even the radio-show host.

On the other hand, I suspect that it’s somewhat impossible to make a wholly satisfying movie about Bob Dylan (just as it’s always impossible to be wholly satisfied by Bob Dylan and his music, which is how he manages to keep you craving it [little-known fact: the Stones' Satisfaction was actually about Dylan] [alright, no, it wasn't]), but I have a fair amount of faith that we will be arousingly, absorbingly, worthily dissatisfied by this one. And on a third hand, David Cross as Allen Ginsberg is the best idea anybody’s had for what to do with David Cross. (Even better than this idea.) His usual barely repressed smirk of delight at how clever he is suddenly transforms into Ginsberg’s uneasy barely repressed smirk of delight at how closely he’s communing with William Blake’s angels and their little bareassed nirvana. He really has the affect. I love how in this scene Dylan is running his customary con games and then gets so easily conned himself. Aside from that the scene seems slight, but hell, it’s just a scene.

Must-read music reporting, one of the few in that category recently: Vanity Fair gets a sitdown with Sly Stone 2007. It’s not the coup that it makes itself out to be, quite, as Sly has been playing occasional gigs lately (and according to the piece, has a “library” of new songs he wants to record), and there’s been a slew of reissues, so the interview is obviously part of a publicity plan, but for now it is a rare fish, and pretty well-landed.

This morning came the announcement of the shortlist for this year’s Polaris Prize, as voted by 170 music writers, broadcasters and bloggers across the Grated White Nerf, including your humble proprieter. The winner of the $20,000 award for the best Canadian album of the year will be selected at the gala on Sept. 24. (Last year’s winner, of course, was Final Fantasy’s He Poos Clouds). This year’s list is far shorter on diversity and surprise than last year’s, which included two hip-hop albums and one in French, but it’s a decent batch - nice to see Miracle Fortress sneak its way on - though for me, in this selection, the standout is glaringly clear. (Go ahead, guess.)

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Que.)
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Que.)
The Dears - Gang of Losers (Que.)
Julie Doiron - Woke Myself Up (N.B.)
Feist - The Reminder (Ont. [expat])
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (Ont.)
Miracle Fortress - Five Roses (Que.)
Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock (N.S.)
Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection (Alta.)
Patrick Watson - Close To Paradise (Que.)

Of the non-nominees, I’m particularly sad Frog Eyes didn’t make the cut, but half the jurists have probably never even seen that record, as it’s not distributed by as large an organization as all of these are. Which goes double for the Feuermusik disc, which some of us delusionally hoped might make a last-minute charge up the left flank to get into the endzone. Nevertheless, congratulations to all the worthy nominees. And I won’t even whine about the Toronto shutout (not counting non-resident Feist) - 2006 wasn’t an especially blazing year for local releases, and B.C. fared even worse.

Saw the ever-delightful Khaela Maricich aka Portland “band” (bandonym *) The Blow (aka “Toronto’s wife” after she “married” Toronto in a performance a few years back) last night at the Horseshoe, with Republic of Safety opening. Not as high-concept a narrative to the performance as other times, but a nice taxonomization of the varieties of the love song (from the “I keep moving towards you and you keep moving away” song to the love-achieved song - which Maricich basically maintained goes “la la la la la,” no further words - to of course the lost love song or the “I’m so over you” - except you’re not because you’re still singing about it - song, and so forth), and the question of whether the songwriter pursues bad relationships in order to have something to write songs about, or vice versa… with the dances and the demonstrations, the anecdotes and the emotions. I especially like it when Khaela’s goofy-wonder-and-sauciness songs, with their sixties pop melody lines, get combined with actually funky, Beyoncesque R&B beats. Doesn’t happen quite enough. Lots else happens though. There’s a nice, like-eavesdropping chat between Khaela and her friend, the filmmaker/performer/writer Miranda July, in the latest issue of The Believer. For those puzzled by the line about the “deli aisle” in Parentheses, all is explained.

Among other things that happened this weekend, the odd pair-up of Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz with Madonna at Live Earth should not go unmentioned. It seems that he and the band are appearing in Madge’s first project as a movie director. I’m trying to keep a completely open mind about this but Madonna + movies does not always go so well, so blocking the route to my open mind you might discover some wincing eyes.

Meanwhile in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, Yamataka Eye of the Boredoms did something typically bravura and beautiful - a snaking 77-drummer “boa” for 7/7/07. (The drummers including Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt and Kid Millions from Oneida.) As Kelefa Sanneh notes in that NYT story, Eye has managed here to do the apparently impossible - to redeem the drum circle. Sneaky.

* PS: I just did a quick search and discovered that you can now find a dozen or so hits on Google of people using the term “bandonym” who are not me, as if it were a word. I can’t help but be very tickled by that.