A Complete Unknown

Today on Art of the Cut we speak with Scott Morris and Oscar-winning editor Andrew Buckland, ACE about editing James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown.

Andrew’s been on Art of the Cut before for his work on The Girl on the Train, and for Ford v Ferrari for which he won an Oscar and a BAFTA and was nominated for an ACE Eddie. He also edited Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Scott Morris has been on Art of the Cut previously to discuss The Creator and Ad Astra. In various capacities he was also worked on several other movies covered by Art of the Cut including Oppenheimer, Don’t Look Up, and The Lost City of Z.

Scott and Andrew, welcome to Art of the Cut. Thank you so much for being here. This is from director James Mangold. I think the last time we talked - Andrew - was for Ford v Ferrari, which was another of his films. How many films have you done with him? 

BUCKLAND: I’ve done six film. For the first few I was an assistant editor. I started way back in 2001 on Kate and Leopold. That’s when I met him. Luckily I’ve just stayed in the loop.

Talk to me a little bit about how the two of you, work as coeditors. 

MORRIS: Jim always works with more than one editor. Dailies would come in, Drew would be working on a sequence, so whatever the next piece of material came in, I’d work on that. We tried our best to stay within sequences, knowing eventually it would be in reels, and it would be convenient to be in the same area. Obviously, they shoot out of order. 

Something that was unique for me on this film  - though not unique for Andrew - Jim likes to work during dailies. He likes to do a director’s pass on a scene, so he would shoot all day and after his long shoot day, he would work with us virtually.

They were shooting in Jersey. We were editing in Los Angeles. He’d hop on EverCast with us, and we would do sessions refining scenes. When he did get back to Los Angeles to start working with us, we could watch the film right away.

I think we had four days and we’re watching the first cut of the film, but it’s more than an assembly because we’ve had a chance to do a pass on most of the scenes - not all the scenes. There were large chunks he hadn’t seen yet, but for the most part, we’d done a pass on the scenes with him, so there weren’t too many surprises. It was very well put together by the time we watched it. 

Jim has cultivated this amazing team over the years. He’s got supervising music editor Ted Caplan and supervising sound editor Donald Sylvester in the cutting room with us. They’re working with us while we’re cutting dailies.

They’re helping us design sound and build up the sound of it. Andrew and I are doing the music, editing on the fly, but Ted Caplan’s able to refine it, make it musically tight and perfect after we’ve kind of done a quick pass on it. So you got those luxuries at those early stages.

This is based on a book. Did you either read the book or watch any Dylan documentaries? 

BUCKLAND: I did not read the book. I was familiar with a few of the documentaries. I knew going into this project that this would be a unique sort of take on Bob and Jim’s specific take on how he wanted to portray Bob, so I knew it was going to be sort of a singular thing.

I wasn’t really aware or meant to be aware of past portrayals of Bob. I really wanted to focus on Jim’s take on telling the story. 

MORRIS: I did a quick brush up on some of the Dylan documentaries and really diving into the music. I’m a fan of Bob Dylan. I was more familiar with some of his later stuff in the 70s, so it was nice to dive into all these early tracks in the beginning of his career.

The thing that came in most handy was studying up on the history at the time. Jim is so well studied at this time period, and did so much research. A lot of the archival footage ends up in the film. On top of being a great Bob Dylan film, is also a it’s a great early 60s film as far as being steeped in that time period.

Editors Scott Morris and Andrew Buckland, ACE

You mentioned the archival. Talk to me about what archival you had, what was brought into the system to edit with and, and how that was incorporated into the stuff that Jim shot. 

MORRIS: Some of the big archival clips were scripted. There are a couple Cronkite clips and JFK’s speech about the Cuban Missile crisis. Our archivist, Deborah Ricketts, pulled in a lot of archival sound and picture from that time period, mostly around the Cuban Missile Crisis section.

A lot of that ended up making it into the final film, via audio. All the major clips were were scripted, I believe. It helps fill in the time period so much. A little goes a long way as far as the realism and the urgency of the crisis.

Andrew, I got a tremendous sense that each scene started kind of as late as possible and left as soon as possible. It’s obviously a, you know, a script writer trope, but it’s appropriate to editing. Can you talk about that? 

BUCKLAND: We were really conscious about that specifically because Jim really wanted to create a narrative propulsion through the story, and we were all very conscious about not wanting to have a beginning, middle, and end of each scene.

We wanted each scene to sort of fall into the next scene, so we really tried to focus on understanding the pith of the scene, and once we got the emotional impact of the scene, we wanted to move on. We wanted to move on to the next moment and not linger - not deflate that whole moment by staying in the scene too long.

The music also helped us do that as well. For example, the scene when Pete and Bob play at the cocktail party. Pete joins Bob on the banjo and they have this moment together. Once they started playing, we got the impact of that scene. We then were able to move on to Bob leaving the party and the aftermath as everyone’s calling after him.

Musically, we were able to transition that live performance into a score moment. So suddenly the live performance became the score that took us out of the scene. 
Those things aren’t scripted. You discover those things in the editing process and you’re able to utilize these elements by discovering, a live performance that could become a score element. It was really effective to carry us into the next moment.

Was that song shot all the way through the end of the performance? 

BUCKLAND: It was. Yes. 

MORRIS: Most of the scenes were. That was one of the reasons why our assembly was so long. Most of the songs were performed - if not to completion, then three-quarters of the way through.  That was great because we had the ability then to use the footage, however we needed it to use it. 

BUCKLAND: Scott brings up a really good point because a lot of the songs were shot at full length. We knew that wasn’t going to be the final presentation, but we also we didn’t want you to feel like you’ve been shortchanged.

We wanted the audience to feel like they experienced the song psychologically… emotionally. Even though we maybe only gave them a verse and a chorus, you felt like you experience it as the full song. We were super- conscious of that - trying to convey that and construct that.

That’s a little bit of a tightrope walk in deciding how long is long enough?

BUCKLAND: It is. And I think what really helped us is that Jim is really focused on character. He actually said this in the cutting room, he doesn’t want us to just experience the movie as a chunk of dramatic scenes followed by the musical scenes, then cutting to the dramatic scenes again.

He wanted everything to be folded into each other. So within the music you’re having a dramatic moment. So you’re experiencing the music through the character as the character’s playing. Understanding that there are other emotional things happening.

I think,  in that sense, there is a sense that you’ve experienced the song because you see how the song has affected the character. So once you’ve understood that, then it’s a satisfying experience because you feel how that moment affected the character.

So in that sense, I think psychologically it gives you a sense that you’ve experienced the entire song.

MORRIS: Like a magic trick, cinema puts you in a trance, and you get so focused on the characters that you feel like you’ve experienced the entire song.

Were there times when there were discussions about, “I think we need another verse,” or “I think we have one verse too many” or something? 

BUCKLAND: Sometimes. 

MORRIS: Usually too many.

BUCKLAND: Usually too many, yeah.

Editor Andrew Buckland, ACE, director James Mangold, and editor Scott Morris

MORRIS: MORRIS: Some of them you just have to live in it. “The Times They are a changing” is played almost to completion That’s one of the few songs that is. It was so dynamic and there’s so many plates spinning.

We joke about the line that Sylvie mentions at the end of the film about The Ed Sullivan Show guy spinning the plates. That’s a metaphor that we used in the cutting room quite a bit about Bob, and his life, and all the characters.

Scott, you mentioned how long the first cut was. How long was the editor’s cut?

MORRIS: 3:27?

BUCKLAND: 3:30 

Cut down to what? 

BUCKLAND: 2:13 without the end crawl.

Post Team at Premiere

I love that you mentioned that the important thing with the pieces of music was the emotion that you were getting from it. One of those places that I was thinking of was that I love the choices of the reaction shots when Bob first sings to Woody in the hospital. Talk about when you stay with Bob singing and when you cut to Woody and Pete listening. 

BUCKLAND: This is the first time that the audience gets to hear Bob sing. That was actually the first musical scene that came in. Not only that, but it’s Bob before he becomes Bob Dylan as we all know him.

Because this is Timmy’s first performance - and he sang it live and he played the guitar live - it was really a magical moment for not only his character, but he’s playing for his idol. I was really conscious about allowing him to play and not over-cutting this moment to try to really feel the music.

If I’m really feeling the music, then I really want to see someone affected by it. I really want to see: how is this impacting his idol? For me, it was an emotional experience cutting it because I really wanted the feel of the music land.

You want to stay with that moment of Woody hearing the words that he’s saying and how it’s affecting him, and you really want to stay with that and not leave that too early. You want to really see how that lands.

MORRIS: I remember Drew bringing me into his office the first time he cut that scene and when we get to that shot where you hold on Scoot McNairy reacting, I start to choke up. It just hit me so hard.

Then Timmy has this amazing moment where he holds this note for a very long time and it’s mesmerizing and it’s strange but it’s so moving the way he plays for his idol. It struck me to the ground.

I also love that it sets up the final scene with Woody - that they mean something to each other - building that emotional connection early on. 

BUCKLAND: They have the emotional connection. It’s not in words, it’s in sort of emotion. T hey don’t speak to each other. It’s like this emotional, wordless connection, and you really want to try to make that land in the beginning, so at the end really resonates and emotionally makes sense. 

After Bob goes on his first date with Sylvie there’s a little montage before he goes back to the hospital before “Blowing in the Wind.” Can you talk about that montage? The purpose of it. Were those full scenes that got cut to a montage? 

MORRIS: The date plays as this long sequence - a lot of dialog and it’s just kind of very in the moment. Then after the date he goes to record store and his record’s not selling very well, but Joan Baez’s records are selling well, and he’s a little jealous.

“Silver Dagger” - the Joan Baez track that Monica performs - is playing in the record store. We use that to propel us into this montage where his relationship with Sylvie is developing.

Jim had this great idea to have Monica’s voice there, so now you have the three of them in the scene together - even though Monica is just audio - and the song “Silver Dagger” is perfect because the lyrics are talking about a relationship with men not going well. There’s so much complexity.

That’s what I love about that scene. Bob’s being brought into the world of the civil rights movement and the political activism that’s Sylvie’s world. So we’re learning about Sylvie’s character and her influence on him and their budding relationship while Joan’s singing is in the background. 

That sequence wasn’t designed as a montage. They were scripted as separate scenes. We wanted to have the feeling for the payoff with Sylvie’s character when they break up at the end of the film.

In a movie with all these spinning plates - all these characters - we don’t have a lot of screen time with everyone. We have this chunk of time where we’re developing the relationship, but we wanted the audience to feel - by the time you get to the end of the film - that they had had a long romance and relationship.

They moved in together and time had passed and that they had developed something quite real. It was a foundational relationship for them. With Sylvie at this stage of their lives it’s kind of a stable relationship in these early days at least, so we wanted to establish the feeling of that. It’s not like they went on a date and they moved in together the next day.

What’s great about montage is that you can have that feeling of how she’s bringing him into civil rights and politics, and that’s directly influencing his work as he’s writing “Blowing in the Wind.” Some of that wasn’t scripted. There were separate scenes that we ended up putting together.

So some of that montage was originally scenes that were full length scenes that you trimmed?

MORRIS: It wasn’t that they were so much longer, it’s just that they weren’t designed as a montage sequence. They were kind of standalone scenes in the script and even in the initial edit, then we found that the magic was bringing in this Joan Baez track kind of glued it all together for us.

Once you create in your mind the idea of a montage, you’re able to do different editorial things as far as transitions and the sound mix. James Mangold is always thinking about the layers of sound mix and how many elements we can get in there, so we have the civil rights speech that comes in and out and we have dialogue that comes in and out, but we have the through line of the music as well. It was a fascinating scene to mix with our sound mixers. 

One of the things that I did not realize was that the performance with Pete at the cocktail party transitions into a score element. How did you deal with that transition from live performance to score? 

BUCKLAND:That idea was executed in the edit room. We were the music editors initially because the unique aspect of this film is there’s a lot of live performances, which adds a challenge when you cut because each take is unique in terms of tempo and phrasing, and when you start cutting together, you have to be conscious of not only your picture edit, but also the music.

Plus, where it becomes really challenging is when they shoot multiple cameras of these performances. You’re unable to do these massive groupings that you would normally do with pre-recorded music. It’s time-consuming and it takes a minute to figure out how to smoothly edit these elements.

With that particular moment - where they’re playing together in the cocktail party - the solo part of the banjo becomes the score out of the scene, then Ted was able to smooth that out and fine tune it. But initially - to present the idea - I had to edit it and present it to Jim, then we were able to have a real conversation about it and say, “That’s a great idea. That will work.”

So the transition to score was more the fact that you were using the live music as score than that you were actually going to something that you found, like temp music?

BUCKLAND: That’s correct. The score is just the instrumental part of the music.

I don’t know why I had not thought of this - because I’m a musician myself and played folk music - It’s such a loose art form. The way that you play a song one time and the way you play it the next time might be very different. You’re not really concerned with exact tempos or phrasing or any of that stuff. It’s very different than a pre-recorded cut from a rock band with a click track. Folk music is very different. 

BUCKLAND:Yeah, that was the challenge of this. Absolutely. 

MORRIS: We talked about folk music being like cutting dialogue scenes almost, except you have the music that you have to be tethered to and be thinking about. Every take is so different with the timing. The tempos are different and where reactions land - because you’re cutting picture for story - you have to be aware of all those things while you’re cutting.

It’s like cutting a dialog scene, then you have the puzzle of, “Okay, I want to have this reaction shot.” Like with the “Masters of War” sequence. Joan walks into the bar and watches Bob perform. They have moments of eye contact - creating intimacy - as he performs.

Then, he finishes and they get together and kiss at the end. But musically, he’s performing that scene live and he’s very emotional. They have these looks. On her side the lyrics don’t have to sync, but his side there are.

So he may be performing a look that is the exact look that you want to use - it’s a really powerful emotional look - but the lyric is not at the exact point, so you need to open up some guitar strumming or reduce some, so it gets very mathematical.

Then you’ve probably got the same issues when you’re cutting songs down. Talk to me about the sound design. There’s some great sound design after the 1965 title card. 

MORRIS: That’s when he bursts out of the Kettle of Fish. He’s walking down MacDougal and he’s passing all the different musicians - the jazz that’s coming out of the street. Then there’s the Gaslight Puff the Magic Dragon and the opera singer. Jim wanted to really create the cacophony of the new era that Bob is bursting into. Not just the influence on him, but what he is about to influence, as well. 

BUCKLAND: He finds his whistle!

MORRIS: That’s right! He finds his whistle at the end. Sonically, it’s like a mirror - the flip side of the mirror was the first time he enters MacDougal Street in 1961. That scene was also an incredibly complex sound design. He walks across the street and he goes to the storefront window and sees Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger photos in the window.

That sequence - it’s very sonically different - but also lush, and set  in 1961. Then you get to 1965 and the world has changed. Now you’ve got rock n roll and it’s a whole new era. Historically, what’s going on in 65 - the death of JFK - and you feel it so much through the sound design there.

Talk to me about the intercutting of Dylan’s electric sessions with the discussion with the Newport board about allowing Dylan to use electric. Was that written as intercut? Talk to me about choosing when to cut between those two things.

MORRIS: That was one of the areas where we did do some slight re-tweaking of the structure. That was reel five I think. He just got punched in the face and visited Sylvie in her apartment and he’s dealing with being Bob Dylan. He’s struggling to connect and kind of be himself with his fame. 

There’s a short montage where he goes into his musical interior. It’s very private. He’s at home and he’s blowing the whistle and typing on his typewriter and he starts playing an early version of “Like a Rolling Stone.”

He really retreats inwards into the music to kind of redefine himself, to survive because of the fame and kind of what’s happened in his life and how it’s affecting him. This moment is when he’s developing his sound and realizing he needs a band or he wants a band. He’s talked about this idea that he always wanted a rock band. He doesn’t want to be alone on stage.

We set up earlier - when he’s watching Johnny Cash perform with his band - the idea of the lonely man - Bob Dylan with a guitar - and this desire to have fun. So this entire area of the film became about Bob’s search for his new sound and how that’s stemming from a place of survival and coping and keeping to his authenticity of who he is, because at the time people are looking at him as this folk icon and savior of the folk movement - which he was - but he wants to be himself.

He’s being influenced by the world that’s changing around him and the influence of the Beatles and all these things. He’s able to go into the studio and have fun with his band. That was very important to us in the way that it was cut that we’re using the takes where he was having the most fun. When they perform Highway 61 it’s amazing. 

Jim and cinematographer had this idea to swivel the camera back and forth, so we were able to hold on that shot. Most of that scene is one shot and it’s very natural. They’re just laughing and he’s blowing the whistle and everyone’s having a good time.

The restructure there was the intercutting. So we were able to go from the joy and the playfulness and Bob is in his element then we’re intercutting - we go to the archive, the folk archives, and we have the folk community that are chastising him.

They’re very concerned about how their icon - who’s bringing in all these eyeballs and ears to their movement - because it’s it’s a musical movement as much as a political movement at the time - as well as the folk movement was steeped in these progressive politics. So they were very concerned. They’re debating and they’re fiery. 

Pete Seeger - who’s very close with Bob and loves him - is conflicted because he’s the most dogmatic in a way, about what the movement represents both musically and politically. So he’s conflicted because he has his good friend who he loves, who he wants to support musically, but Pete Seeger’s folk music movement is also very important to him.

So it’s a very conflicted scene for that character. And Lomax, who becomes kind of a foil for our hero, has very interesting points and he’s very passionate about music and about the movement. We realized on a sheer editorial level these scenes didn’t play out like this.

When we structure them - I call it the rock and roll sandwich - with Bob in the studio having fun with the rock band, developing his sound, then we go into the archives and they’re fighting.

Even on a sonic level, it’s just voices and battling and at the end of that scene we push in on Pete Seeger where he’s literally shaking like he’s about to explode, and we have the the drumming over it.

It’s one of those perfect moments that was a great transition to find where the sound and picture come together to emotionally tell you what’s happening. You could almost watch the scenes and not even understand the dialogue, and you could understand emotionally what’s going on. 

Was it just a simple sandwich? I thought it was going back and forth a little more than that. 

MORRIS: First it comes off that montage where he’s at home in his apartment and he’s got the whistle, and he’s kind of intimately developing a sound and gets on the phone and he says, “Get me a band.”

Then we go to the band, then we go to the archives, and then we go back to Highway 61 with the band. After Highway 61 is possibly the best transitional edit in the movie, which is the smash cut to Pete Seeger with his banjo playing on television.

It’s hilarious. It’s another juxtaposition that’s perfect sonically. The power of a full band cranking and the kind of the energy and rawness of that, cutting to a guy with his banjo plunking away. It immediately tells you what’s at stake and these different philosophies that are battling with each other.

Pete is so sweet and tender and he’s so good in that scene in the TV studio. It’s such an incredible sequence that Andrew should talk about, because it was a lot of work to put together, and it’s definitely one of the most fun scenes in the whole film.

BUCKLAND: It was a great moment for Timothy performance-wise. It comes pretty much in the middle of the film. The film - just for a moment - pauses and allows Bob, Seeger and Jesse just to have a real jam session without any other sort of agenda.

I remember when it came in, it was 19 hours of footage, five camera set ups. I remember saying, “Oh my God, it’s 19 hours! I’m going to be buried in this!” They shot it over two and a half days. Thank God Scott was there because he would continue with the dailies they would still be shooting, while I was saying, “I gotta get my head around the scene!”

But it was a lot of fun to put together because it really felt like a real, authentic, joyful moment. It was a lot of fun in the end. Because it’s a TV show there’s TV coverage in black and white and I had to figure out how to incorporate that, too.

Finding the right moment to pop in and go to that footage which lets you understand that this was actually recorded live. This is actually a real TV show. 

MORRIS: There are two great cuts to the TV that are perfectly for comedic effect, where you’re watching the first time on air the joke that Jesse gives. Then the other one, is when when Bob comes in and he’s kind of mumbling off camera while they’re on live TV. And Pete’s saying, “Bob’s here.”

Andrew, you said that the scene is really just a jam session, but I really loved the dramatic element that has been set up that Bob’s abandoning the movement, but then he shows up in the studio and it could be disaster, but Bob engages and it becomes not only a fantastic scene in the movie, but a fantastic TV episode. 

BUCKLAND: Yeah, it also shows his connection with Pete. He shows up for Pete. That’s sort of the context of that.

MORRIS: I think that scene does such a great job setting up that drama with Pete, because the great tragedy is that they love each other. They’re so respectful as friends. At the end of the film, it’s the tragedy of how the music and the movement and how that is intertwined with their personal relationship

BUCKLAND: And you can see them actually playing together in a real, authentic way in this scene where they’re not worried about any political movement or ideology or ego. They’re just jamming together. It’s just pure.

They don’t even seem to care that they’re on TV. 

BUCKLAND: Yeah, exactly.

With Dylan’s music, I really didn’t notice the score so much.

BUCKLAND: There was no real intention to have score in the movie, the original idea was to utilize Bob’s music as score, which we did in a few moments, but there were some emotional beats that we felt like we needed to support with score.

Those were created by Ted Caplan. He developed this sort of tonal pad - these emotional pads - that comes in organically, almost like you don’t even notice it, but it’s a feeling thing to emphasize the emotional impact in certain moments.

The only other real score moment is when he goes to Newport 65 and he gets out of the Cadillac and he’s walking up to the stage - that’s an actual score piece. But it’s very sparing, and that was intentional. 

MORRIS: It’s almost like sound design. We didn’t plan for it. Ted did it for one scene, for one particular moment, and it drew us into Bob in a moment where we needed to get into his head.

It may have been during the earlier version of the cocktail party, I can’t remember, but we would drown out kind of the background and bring in this kind of tone that is a little bit almost like guitar feedback, and then that became kind of a motif that we would use to get inside Bob’s head, because Bob Dylan is tough to read.

It’s very difficult sometimes to get into his head or know what’s going on. A lot of times we would talk about understanding Bob through other characters and how he relates to them and how they’re reacting to him. We call the drone sound “Ted Tone” as a joke.

We would have this score that we’d use and it helped us get inside Bob’s head - give us access to a man who’s very mysterious, inscrutable.

Timothy’s performance is so good that if you go back to that song with Woody in the hospital in the opening, you get to see the evolution of this character who’s hard to access.

You go from that scene to the end scene and obviously we have things like his clothing, his fashion, his hair, things like that, that help, but his character performance is the change that he goes from a boy to this punk man,  rock star. It’s unbelievable the nuance of how he changes.

And of course, the movie is shot out of order. I remember getting dailies and I’m getting old Bob young Bob and he’s doing that in one day. This young guy figuring out who he is. He always was Bob Dylan, but he was not fully developed - the confidence and the bravado and the rock star.

Editors Andrew Buckland, ACE and Scott Morris

We definitely have to get to the last scene or the last reel at least and the complexities of editing that and making it all feel like you’ve delivered on the promise of the movie. 

MORRIS: Newport 65!

BUCKLAND: Newport 65. That scene took the longest to cut because there were so many elements in that scene and the complexity of the scene musically. They shot Timmy playing three electric songs in a row. They shot that continuously.

So Timmy plays the first one, stops, interacts with a character, jumps into the next one, then the next one. So you have these 20 minute takes shot with multiple cameras. The challenge was to break it down and find the narrative beats and the emotional beats.

One of the biggest challenges was to convey how the audience is reacting to Bob’s music starting with shock, then disapproval, but also people who approve. Then at the end, it’s just complete chaos. The challenge was really to define how that progresses throughout that final concert.

That took a while to really tease that out. It’s very difficult because they’re crowds. So visually, how do you convey that?

I had to really comb through the footage and find the the right reactions in the right moments where people would gesticulate or shout with approval to really understand what he’s doing to the audience.

At the same time, there are dramatic moments happening off stage. Finding the right moment that transitions us to Lomax getting pissed and saying, “Turn it down!” and he storms off stage and goes for the sound board. Then Pete does the same.

He goes for the sound board. So the challenge during all that was to keep Bob involved. I didn’t want to lose Bob in these moments with Pete and Lomax, his presence is still there. I’d go back to him as he reacts like he’s seen something off-stage, because he’s the guy spinning the plates. He’s the one creating this drama in a way. Everyone’s reacting to what he’s doing.

He just wants to play his music and all this chaos is happening around him. That took the most time in putting that together because of all the different elements. It wasn’t apparent in the footage where these beats would go. That took time to find the right moments within his performance to go to them.

​​Andrew Buckland, ACE

I can imagine that it was hard to even script that kind of chaos. How much did it alter from the script itself? 

BUCKLAND: The script in that moment was pretty broad and once we got the footage it became its own thing. So the script was less relevant at that point because this is what they shot. They shot a ton of footage.

Being able to go through the footage and finding a moment where Joan is very concerned and finding a moment where Al Kooper is reacting to a bottle being thrown on stage, and Johnny Cash and Grossman having a moment… Keeping them all involved in that scene because all of our characters are there!

A Complete Unknown Crew

And you’re trying to wrap up all of their threads too.

BUCKLAND: Exactly. Either to wrap them up or have a moment of realization of how Bob has come into his own and having them realize that. It was a challenge. I’m happy with the result, that’s for sure. 

MORRIS: What’s amazing historically is that those were the songs he played. Johnny Cash did give him his guitar. That’s all real. That was an incredible sequence to put together and the work that you did to craft that… I was blown away by it. 

Was there any thought to use archival in that?

Scott’s cutting room for A Complete Unknown

BUCKLAND: No. 

It’s all about the film that Jim is making and our characters. It was never about recreating what had happened. It was always about Timothy’s performance driving it.

He’s doing something that’s very singular, and our movie was kind of built on that and the idea that it’s not about replicating the past, it’s about telling our story. This whole sequence is building towards Like a Rolling Stone.

Then having Baby Blue, which is it’s so emotional when when he goes back out with that acoustic and kind of says goodbye. It’s a real farewell to the folk movement and his involvement and to these relationships.

The Baby Blue sequences cuts to shots of Pete and John. Very few cuts to the crowd. I think the only time we see the crowd in that sequence is an extreme wide, because it’s not about that. It’s about Bob saying goodbye to his relationships.

Which leads us into this final few minutes of the film, which is so emotional - this kind of bittersweet goodbye - basically from Baby Blue to the end of the film. 

He goes to the afterparty and Pete tries to or wants to have some sort of moment with him. He says goodbye to Joan and then goes to Pete and has kind of the mirror scene where he wants to have some sort of closure with Pete, but they can’t find the words.

What’s beautiful about it is that they both have the desire to make amends. We, as an audience, get to see these private moments where they both have the desire to make amends. So we know that they love each other and they have that desire, but they’re unable to do it on screen.

At the end of the film there’s the title card that said they did perform together at Woody Guthrie’s service, after his death. So it’s very moving that they both have that desire. It’s very intimate, private, and that’s Jim Mangold - it’s all about character. Then in that final scene, which is very profound, with Woody Guthrie at the end.

BUCKLAND: I think it worked at the hospital because you really understand their connection.

I think the footage transcends what was in the script. It becomes this real emotional moment. It’s a wordless moment they have between them.

Scott Morris in his cutting room

MORRIS: What’s so powerful about the Woody relationship is that there’s nothing transactional about it. Woody just believes in Bob and loves him and supports him and understands him, and Bob the same way. Woody Guthrie was such a rebel in his time, so there’s so much respect.

It’s so beautiful that relationship. They have something so pure and something so defined by love and respect.

Amen. That’s a great place to end this interview with love and respect. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. A great, great movie. You should be very proud. 

BUCKLAND: Thank you so much. It’s great to be with you. 

MORRIS: Appreciate it.