By Bob Polunsky
Movie Critic

"I'm Not There" has more glitz than substance. It's a film biography of Bob Dylan, the singer who used his talent to motivate people's actions and reactions to various causes.

The film uses gimmicks to excuse Dylan’s notoriety rather than to explain it. His movies ("Don't Look Back," "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," "Renaldo and Clara," "Hearts of Fire") were supposed to capitalize on his talent and personality but all of them flopped.

Director Todd Haynes uses six different performers to show Dylan at different times in his life and at different stages of his career. It's clever but confusing, as it looks like six different movies. The characters have different names but all of them represent Dylan at various times in his life. They also represent people that influenced his thinking and attitude.

Performer Woody Guthrie is depicted as an 11-year-old black boy (Marcus Carl Franklin) idolizing Bob Dylan, thereby challenging the audience's imagination and the movie's credibility. It grabs our attention and stimulates our curiosity, but doesn't satisfy it. At the same time, a little old lady provides the scene with a good punch line when she tells Guthrie to "live in your own time."

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett gets our attention when she portrays Dylan in the New England Jazz and Folk Music segment. She also makes a more credible Bob Dylan than some of the male stars.

Christian Bale appears as the Dylan character during his folk idol era, featuring the song, "The Times They Are A-Changing." Heath Ledger plays him as a womanizer in a sequence that deals with John F. Kennedy and Dylan's attitude after JFK's assassination. Richard Gere portrays him as an aging outlaw in a sequence that parodies Dylan's movie about Billy the Kid in which he played a supporting role and Kris Kristofferson played Billy.

Allen Ginsburg and the Beatles are in it to relate Dylan to the changing music styles of his time. Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and Charlotte Gainsbourg appear as the most significant women in his life, adding glamour, vitality and sex appeal even though their scenes are brief. Their performances are showy, but fragmentary.

It's interesting to see the people in Dylan's life, but it isn't as informative as a complete biography would have been.

The only significant thing to remember is its title. "I'm Not There" says it all.

Studio rating: R

Bob says: "A curiosity piece" ** 1/2