Six different ‘aspects’ of Bob are embodied by seven different actors, from the young Marcus Carl Franklin (black and 11-years-old) as a Woody Guthrie-obsessed youngster, to the inspired Cate Blanchett as the folk-to-electric wired Dylan, to Richard Gere as a surreal Billy the Kid incarnation.

Intertwined with these are Christian Bale, twice, first in the early '60s as an emerging protest singer and later as a gospel artist in the late '70s; Heath Ledger appears as an actor who once played Dylan and Ben Whishaw as a '60s era Dylan apparently being interrogated by authorities. Yet, none of them is truly playing a character named Bob Dylan. It's almost a faux biography.

It's the bushy-haired androgynous Blanchett that gives a mind-blowing, Oscar-worthy performance as a defiant, wired-on-amphetamines Dylan, called Quinn, who riffs and fidgets through interviews, hell-bent on shedding his old identity.