My wife and I and a dear friend saw “A Complete Unknown” last evening and we were blown away by Timothée Chalamet’s portrayal of Bob Dylan, Monica Barbaro’s portrayal of Joan Baez, Edward Norton’s portrayal of Pete Seeger, Scoot McNairy’s portrayal of a very ill Woody Guthrie at the end of his life, and by the director James Mangold’s exceptional accomplishment as a film-maker. The film was a tour de force in acting, music, editing, directing, and evocation of an era in which we grew up and were so deeply affected.

I’ve loved Dylan’s music since 1964 when I began listening to him and plugging into the so-called “cultural revolution” in America that Dylan helped to define through his poetry and music. I listened every year as his new albums were issued, and I watched him change and evolve as the uniquely talented artist that he was, from the original folk singer with guitar and harmonica to a rock star and ultimately into an artist no one then or now can define or pigeon-hole. He was and is sui generis.

Yes, he seemed to treat many of the people around him badly, or as Joan Baez’s character asserted angrily in the film, “You are an a_ _hole.” We don’t know if he ever had that conversation with her, but he presented himself that way to the public, dismissive of the importance of the fame he attained and the millions of fans he attracted so early in his life yet wanting all of it as well. He was at once direct and original with his music but remarkably unrevealing of the actual details of his personal life and past, his family and Jewish roots.

I saw Dylan perform once in Madison Square Garden in New York in 1978. The venue was packed to the rafters with adoring fans, and the blasting sound from at least a dozen high-voltage speakers was deafening. Dylan often turned this back to the audience and did not once speak to us, but his music was extraordinary.

Timothée Chalamet superbly channeled Dylan, his voice, musicality, musicianship, affect and attitude. It took Chalamet five years to learn to play, sing, and become Dylan – and what a performance he made. He should get the Best Actor honors at the Academy Awards, in my view. I hope he does not only because he did such a superior acting job, but more young people who “knew not Dylan” will go see the movie and come to appreciate not only Chalamet but more importantly Dylan in his early years. I would hope that there will be a sequel to show Dylan as he ages, but that likely will depend upon how well this film does at the box office and whether the director James Mangold and Timothée Chalamet want to do another film.

I’ve seen many of the documentaries made of Dylan (there are a lot of them) including the 2004 60-Minutes interview with Ed Bradley when Dylan couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer direct questions that have been on the mind of the public since the poet-songwriter was young. Dylan created an impenetrable mystique around himself at once trying “to catch a spark” (as suggested in the film) from Woody Guthrie who in the 1930s hopped onto trains, road with “hobos” and sang across the country such classics as “This Land is Your Land.” Dylan refused to be like anyone else when his audience wanted to hear the old favorites because he was constantly changing, writing new songs, and that’s what he wanted to sing. When Ed Bradley asked him where the songs came from, Dylan couldn’t answer. He said he didn’t know. He was remarkably prolific, writing all the time, and remembering the lyrics and music that matched together so well as if the songs came from somewhere else fully formed, like Mozart who it was said of him channeled the gods with his music.

Though we know much more about Dylan’s personal life today than ever before because he has written so many songs over the course of his 83 years of life, he seems as elusive as ever. I read somewhere that he approved the script for the film “A Complete Unknown.” That’s nice to know because everything I know about Dylan seems consistent with Chalamet’s portrayal of him in the film and with Dylan himself.

I know that boomers likely will see the film because the sounds and lyrics he created helped define our youthful years, but I hope my millennial kids are going to want to see it too along with Gen Z and younger. Dylan is that important an artist and icon of a generation.

If you have not yet seen the film on the big screen, treat yourself before it goes to streaming. If you weren’t planning on seeing it, give yourself a gift by watching Chalamet channel this greatest of artists.