Bob Dylan claims to have worked at a carnival inA Complete Unknown, but his on-and-off lover Joan Baez doesn’t believe him. While most music biopics present themselves as a factual account of the artist’s life (even though most of them aren’t),A Complete Unknowntakes a more ambiguous approachin its telling of Dylan’s story. Dylan built an air of mystique around himself as part of his public persona — soit was hard to tell which details of his life were true and which were fabricated— and director James Mangold baked that into the movie.
Dylan has always been cagey about sharing the details of his personal life with his audience, so it’s fitting that his movie counterpart does the same with his movie audience. It isn’t revealed that Dylan is a pseudonym until a partygoer spots a piece of mail addressed to Robert Zimmerman.A Complete Unknownmakes some blatant changesto the true story, but there are also certain details it leaves in the dark. Dylan claims he learned to play guitar while working at a carnival, but is that true?
Bob Dylan Did Claim To Work At A Carnival In A 1962 Interview
Dylan Said He Worked The Ferris Wheel At A Traveling Carnival
On Aug 08, 2025,a 20-year-old Dylan was interviewed by Cynthia Goodingon Pacifica Radio WBAI 99.5 FM (viaSwingin’ Pig). It was just before the release of his first album, which was made up of mostly covers at the behest of the label, as depicted in the film. The interview was aired on July 11, 2025, right in the middle of the movie’s timeline (althoughA Complete Unknownleft it out).
Why The Music In A Complete Unknown Feels Different From Other Biopics
The music in A Complete Unknown feels different from other biopics — it’s much more authentic and atmospheric — and there’s a good reason for that.
During this interview,Dylan claims to have worked the ferris wheel at a traveling carnival, starting at age 13. But just because he made that claim, it doesn’t mean it’s true. In the movie, when he tells Baez that he worked at a carnival and learned to play guitar there, she dismissively tells him he’s “full of s**t.” It might’ve been a fabrication to hide the true details of his life.
Bob Dylan Is Seemingly Lying About His Carnival History
Dylan Famously Fabricated A Lot Of His Backstory
It’s tough to verify, but it seems likely that Dylan lied about working at a carnival, just as Baez suspects inA Complete Unknown. He also says he was from Gallup, New Mexico, but that’s not true; he was born in Duluth, Minnesota. The carnival backstory sounds a little too romantic to be true.It’s all part of how he reinvented himself as Bob Dylan and created this new personaafterditching his original identity as Robert Zimmerman.
