Newport 's connection to Bob Dylan's Electric Moment takes Center Stage in new Biopic

NEWPORT, R.I. (WPRI) — A pivotal moment in music history — now a major motion picture — has closer connections to Rhode Island than you might think.Bob Dylan: Whether or not you’ve heard his music, you almost certainly know his name.Now, the artist’s story has moved from the speakers to the screen, with A-list actor Timothée Chalamet starring in “A Complete Unknown,” a Searchlight Pictures film.

The movie, released on Christmas Day in 2024, chronicles the early days of Dylan’s career, including one of rock music’s most defining moments: when he famously “went electric” in Newport. Due to overwhelming demand, the Jane Pickens Theater (JPT) and Event Center in Newport has extended the film’s run through Jan. 23.

In fact, “A Complete Unknown” had the largest two-week opening in the theater’s history, according to JPT General Manager Alexander Whitney. “A good portion of the movie takes place in Newport, and that makes [Jane Pickens Theater] a pretty unique place to see it,” he told 12 News. \

The theater, one of the oldest cinemas in the country, has shown thousands of films in its century-old church-turned-cinema space. “This is a great music venue as well as being a cinema because it was built as a church,” Whitney explained. “It has amazing acoustics.” He added that moviegoers often feel like they’re attending a concert, with some returning for their second or third viewing of the film.

Local folk musician Avi Jacob will perform an acoustic Bob Dylan set before JPT’s Jan. 16 screening of “A Complete Unknown,” offering an additional live connection to the story. “Newport has a really special connection with Bob Dylan,” Whitney said. “Folk has a special relationship with Newport.”

Newport ’65: Dylan goes electric Every year, the Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams State Park garners thousands of attendees. The annual festival, which was founded in 1959, quickly became a cultural hub for social justice advocacy and an evolving counterculture. Then came July 25, 1965, when Bob Dylan walked on stage with an electric guitar and a full band. Little did he know, that moment would forever alter the trajectory of folk music.Some say the crowd booed Dylan, shouting profanities and tossing items onstage, accusing him of turning his back on folk.

“I think for those of us who weren’t around back then, it can be a little hard to see what the big deal is,” said author Ray Padgett, who wrote the book “Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members.” “Like, ‘One day he plays an acoustic guitar, the next day he plays an electric guitar. Who cares?'” “But from the people I’ve talked to who were there, who are part of the scene, it’s less about the actual music and more about the symbolism,” Padgett said.He explained that Dylan was seen as a champion of folk music, a genre focused on delivering stripped-down, message-driven music. Rock and roll, in contrast, was viewed as commercial and aimed only at scoring radio hits. “When their guy, the most successful artist to come out of that political folk scene they’d ever had, suddenly seems like he’s becoming the enemy, the rock and roll guy…plenty of people were on board,” Padgett said. “But the ones who were outraged were very outraged. And that all started at Newport ’65.”

But Terri Thal, a good friend of Dylan’s who managed several folk singers in the 1960s, says she remembers the times had certainly been a-changin’ when it came to the young artist’s sound by 1965.

“He was writing his own stuff. He was doing something else. And he had changed. And the music he was doing was changing,” recalled Thal, the author of “My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me.” Nevertheless, she said, the public saw Newport 1965 as a “bitter betrayal” that would turn the world’s attention away from folk music. She said another part of the upset was due to technical issues with how the music sounded.

“The sound was dreadful,” Thal told 12 News. “It was not set up for electric instruments.

Whether people liked it or not, that day was a turning point for Dylan, shaping the musical path he would follow for decades.

“I bet 90% of the people on stage now have drums and bass and electric guitars. The idea that this is just for strumming your acoustic guitar and singing political music, [that’s gone],” Padgett said. “I think Newport Folk Festival these days is the way Dylan envisioned it in 1965.”

“In large part, I think Newport sort of sets the template, sets the stage for everything that Bob Dylan’s going to go on to do for the rest of his life,” Ian Grant, co-host of the Jokermen Podcast, said.

Grant and Evan Laffer launched the Jokermen Podcast in 2020 as an exploration of Bob Dylan’s complete Columbia Records discography. Today, the show has expanded to include deep dives into the careers of The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys.

“Listening to Bob Dylan and diving as deep as we possibly can into the man’s output, career, and existence has been one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever done throughout my entire life,” Grant said.

Laffer described Dylan as an artist whose music feels like an entry point to countless others.

“He literally lifts things, adapts them and furthers them, and changes them. But he’ll never say that he invented any of that stuff. He’s coming from a place of reverence for everything that’s come before,” Laffer explained. “It’s very exciting that young people might get into him and through him, get into so much of the history of American music and beyond.”