If one is to go by the version of events presented in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, the character of Sylvie Russo, designed to double for Suze Rotolo, is rightfully suspicious/jealous of Bob Dylan’s relationship with Joan Baez. One that starts to overpower all others as Dylan falls head(/heart)first into “the scene.” That is, the folk music scene of Greenwich Village that orbited around The Gaslight Café (recently reintroduced into pop culture by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). While no one can know “for sure” if Rotolo was as jealous as Elle Fanning makes her out to be in the role of “Russo,” it’s highly likely that, “free love” mantras of the 1960s or not, there was bound to be a bit of hurt about the whole “Joan thing.”
Portrayed by Monica Barbaro (who, along with her Bob Dylan-playing co-star, Timothée Chalamet, received an Oscar nomination for her acting in the film), Baez comes along just when Dylan needs her. And yes, there can be no denying that “JB” was instrumental (no pun intended) to bolstering Dylan’s status in the folk music community. This was, lest anyone forget, the woman who made the cover of Time magazine in 1962, when she was just twenty-one years old. Roughly five months older than Dylan (born January 9th, 1941 to Dylan’s May 24th), it would have been impossible for him—even for as perpetually aloof as he was—not to be impressed with/glamored by Baez and the impact she had made already on folk music. In fact, at the time, she was credited as being the artist to sell the most folk records. Of course, Dylan was about to eclipse her in more ways than one.
Though perhaps she already knew that was going to happen upon first encountering him at Gerdes Folk City (where Rotolo, too, would also catch her first glimpse of Dylan before officially meeting him at Riverside Church). Even if A Complete Unknown depicts that their initial acquaintance was a matter of “chance” that night, the truth was that Baez arrived there with the very deliberate purpose of “appraising” him. Per Baez’s account to Rolling Stone, “Somebody said, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta come down and hear this guy, he’s terrific.’ And so I went down with my very, very jealous boyfriend, and we saw this scruffy little pale-faced dirty human being get up in front of the crowd and start singing his ‘Song to Woody.’ I, of course, internally went completely to shreds, ‘cause it was so beautiful. But I couldn’t say anything, ‘cause I was next to my very, very jealous boyfriend, who was watching me out of the corner of his eye and trying to mentally slaughter Dylan, I think. And then Bob came over and said, ‘Uhhh, hi’—one of those eloquent greetings—and I just thought he was brilliant and superb and so on.”
That would have been 1961. And, back to that subject, jealousy, it was soon after that Dylan was “canoodling” with Rotolo, who he “dated” (an odd word choice for what they had) from ‘61 to ‘64. Some very clear overlap time for his “tryst” with Baez. One that Rotolo further helped secure by leaving to study abroad at the University of Perugia for six months (in A Complete Unknown, those details are changed to studying for twelve weeks in Rome). For what twenty-ish man in New York City circa the 1960s could have possibly be expected to “stay true”? One need only ask Don Draper that question to know the answer.
Those familiar with the tale of Bob and Suze—and then just Suze herself—aren’t too keen about co-writers Mangold and Jay Cocks making her come across, ultimately, as some pathetic hanger-on who’s too slow to get the message that Bob is a philanderer. Not just with Joan, but with the audience. Suffering from what can best be described as Cynthia Powell a.k.a. Cynthia Lennon syndrome, Rotolo had the misfortune of falling in love with Dylan before the fame hit, and not realizing how much that component of his life would overshadow everything else and change their dynamic entirely. Like John Lennon’s first wife, who knew him from his school days in Liverpool, Rotolo as Russo in A Complete Unknown is faced with a slow, but very rude awakening to the idea that Bob will never truly be “hers.” He already belongs to so many others by this point, Joan included (on a side note, Joan and John did almost have their own little fling).
For, even if their relationship ended by 1965, history would forever bind these two “protest” personalities of the decade together. A phenomenon that Baez herself couldn’t deny, clearly haunted by it many years later, on what would become one of her most signature songs: 1975’s “Diamonds and Rust.” It seemed Rotolo was condemned to her own, perhaps more hellish haunting as well. Because at least Baez was an icon in her own right. Something that Dylan could never take away from her. In contrast, Rotolo, as a mere “civilian,” appeared doomed to be forever recognized as “that girl on Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album.” That is, if she chose to “capitalize” on this period of time in her life. To “be public” about it.
Instead, Rotolo retreated into a new life of her own. One in which she chose not speak of Dylan to the media until four decades after the height of “Dylan fever” (not quite as intense as Beatlemania). Dylan, conversely, paraded his “Petty Betty” nature right from the outset of their permanent rupture, choosing to write and release “Ballad in Plain D” with the wound still fresh. Thus, unveiling gorily personal details in verses such as, “And so it did happen like it could have been foreseen/The timeless explosion of fantasy’s dream/At the peak of the night, the king and the queen/Tumbled all down into pieces/‘The tragic figure’ her sister did shout/‘Leave her alone, goddamn you, get out’/And I, in my armor, turning about/And nailing her in the ruins of her pettiness.” Though, as mentioned, thanks in part to this song, Dylan is the only one who reads as petty in this matter.
When Rotolo finally did release that inevitable memoir she had in her, she went full-bore, titling it A Freewhelin’ Time and chose the album cover image in question as her book cover. Funnily enough, this book was released three years after Cynthia Lennon decided to release her own memoir (in 2005), called, aptly, John: A Biography. In the dedication, Cynthia wrote, “For my son, Julian, and for John’s sisters, Julia and Jacqui, all three of whom have had to cope with the pain of being part of the Lennon legend imposed.” In a similar tone, Rotolo remarked at the beginning of her memoir, “It is an odd sensation to see myself on the screen, under glass and written about in books, forever enshrined and entombed alongside the Legend of Dylan.”
And now, even more so with her latest onscreen rendering by Elle Fanning, who, for the majority of the film, appears to be either teary-eyed or on the verge of tears while watching Dylan from afar, usually singing with Baez. A woman who, despite being “less important” to him than he was to her (indeed, it feels fairly obvious that Rotolo was the great love of his life and Baez more of an “experiment”), still manages to obscuring all the other relationships he’s ever had in his lifetime. If that’s not an indication of Baez’s power/indelible place in Dylan’s career, then look only to the metaphor of Monica Barbaro being nominated for an Academy Award over Elle Fanning (who, to be fair, wasn’t given much range to work with apart from “look sad and wounded”). Who probably could have secured a nomination if Mangold and Cocks had included the detail about how the real Suze ended up needing to get an illegal abortion thanks to Dylan’s “rough and rowdy ways.”
So yes, the real Suze was right to call him a “black hole.” A man who probably didn’t deserve hers, let alone Baez’s. And on that playing field, the two women will always be equal.
