Timothée Chalamet breathes new life into the Bob Dylan saga in 'A Complete Unknown', a worthy addition.

The eyes have it.

Timothée Chalamet’s bravura performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown is remarkable for the way in which he takes on Dylan’s persona – hunched shoulders, loping walk and a vocal performance that respects his model without descending into karaoke. But it’s how he engages (or chooses not to) with the world that provides an authenticity we may not have seen since early James Dean.

Early in the tale, when Bobby goes to meet his hero, a badly diminished Woody Guthrie, at a New Jersey hospital, Pete Seeger, played by a pitch-perfect Edward Norton, encourages the young hopeful to play a tune. Dylan gains confidence as he plays “Song to Woody,” and the two lock eyes with an unstated understanding that this sound is coming from someone who is not just a potential apprentice but an artist, however raw, bound for glory. Guthrie, played by Scoot McNair with wordless, gripping authenticity, pounds his dresser in approval. A star is being born.

Fast forward to Bob hitting the streets at Folk City and the Gaslight in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, meticulously recaptured under James Mangold’s direction. You see Dylan take the measure of the crowd even as he proves his worth.

Dylan co-produced the movie, which is partially based on Elijah Wald’s book, Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties, with considerable liberties but dramatic success. Monica Barbaro is an excellent Joan Baez, portrayed with a spikier edge than the folk Madonna of legend. When Chalamet’s Dylan makes fun of her admittedly overwrought lyrics, she responds in kind: “You can be a real asshole, Bob.”

Elle Fanning does her best with the underwritten role of Sylvie Russo, based on Dylan’s real-life girlfriend, Suze Rotolo – the names were changed to protect the memory of this very private person, who educated him on everything from civil rights to Bertolt Brecht. It paints her more as a victim rather than the forceful woman who wrote, in her own memoir, that she “didn’t want to be just this string on his guitar – just this chick.”

Watching Chalamet and Barbaro duet on “It Ain’t Me, Babe” as she shoots daggers at him – and overpowering purists as he rocks out to the (stereotypically depicted) Newport crowd – reminds us why this enigmatic artist fascinates. He’s always looking over yonder, just over the horizon.

Dylan has toyed with the silver screen before. “Reynaldo and Clara,” a self-directed four-hour effort on the Rolling Thunder Revue, had good performances but risible pretensions. “Masked and Anonymous,” about an out-of-luck singer making a comeback: same deal. The best Dylan film to date remains D.A. Pennebacker’s cinema vérité documentary, Don’t Look Back, depicting his mid-’60s British tour.

The Dylan of A Complete Unknown is not the snarling, vituperative put-on artist of that era, although his tiffs with Baez come close.

Neither hagiography nor hatchet job, Mangold puts a frame on this cool cat in a film that creates art of its own, unforgettably.

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN • Directed by James Mangold • Starring Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Edward Norton • Rated R • 2 hours 21 minutes • At Cinemark Century Monterey 13, 1700 Del Monte Center, Monterey, 373-8051, cinemark.com; Cinemark Century Northridge Mall 14, 350 Northridge Shopping Center, Salinas, 449-4168, cinemark.com; Maya Cinemas Salinas, 153 Main St., Salinas, 757-6292, mayacinemas.com. Premiere Cinemas, 499 Nestles Road, Soledad, 263-5206, premierecinemas.net.