ISTANBUL, Turkey – While stars Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning have been wowing crowds on the red carpet at premiers of the Golden Globe nominated biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’, the man behind the shades himself has maintained his usual level of mysterious reclusiveness. Other than a single tweet in early December praising Chalamet—”Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”—Bob Dylan has had almost nothing to say about the film, despite multiple sources confirming an active participation in the story development process.
That all changed this Saturday, when Mr Dylan attended a screening of the feature film in Istanbul. While hardly drawing the A-List crowds of the New York and Los Angeles premiers—in fact, hardly drawing a crowd at all—Saturday night in Istanbul allowed Dylan to spend some time with one very special VIP: fourth-century bishop Saint Nicholas of Myra.
“I’m glad to see you’re still alive”
Saint Nicholas lived and practiced his faith in Anatolia—now modern-day Turkey. There are many stories of miracles he worked over his life, leading to his eventual sainthood. One of his greatest hits was the resurrection of three murdered children who had been pickled in a barrel to be sold as pork by a butcher thinking outside of the box.
Saint Nick spoiled that butcher’s Christmas, but his love of leaving gifts for worthy or needy people added to his legend. Saint Nicholas is thought to be the inspiration for the Dutch Sinterklaas, and of course, Santa Claus.
On Saturday, Saint Nicholas was wearing a red robe with gold lapels by Yohji Yamamoto. His hat and slippers were by Gammerelli.
“There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice”
Mr Dylan was especially honored to walk the red carpet with Saint Nicholas. “It’s a special thing to be a saint. Yves Saint Laurent had it in his name. Gus Van Sant almost did. You had the All Saints in England, and the Spice Girls after them. Spices travel with the saints, frankincense and myrrh. “When The Saints Go Marching In”—that’s a song every little girl and boy learns, every man and woman, too.
“When those girls and boys wake up on Christmas morning, they don’t think about saints. They think about that midnight rider, dressed in his duds, life and liberty and In God We Trust. The twinkling of bells, the sound of the steel. Maybe they think about the people we lost—we’ll miss you, Greg Giraldo, you always made us laugh. Maybe they’ll just think about the clean slate. The New Year. Maybe they’ll think about licorice. I know I will.”
And away they all drove as fast as a missile.
But I heard him exclaim, which is unusual for Bob–
“These aren’t easy songs to play, but this band does a superb job!”
Mr Dylan could not be reached for comment after the film. He and his bass player Tony Garnier somehow disappeared to their tour bus before anyone else had left the theater. Saint Nicholas stayed for press, but said he didn’t really understand the film and gave it two out of three stars. “I liked the sexy scenes,” he said with a wink of his eye and a twitch of his nose.
Ronald Sampson
