'A Complete Unknown': The Ballad of TOSHI

NOW with FOUR (4) UPDATES (one from the author of the book.)

Happy Holidays .

If you have ever read anything written by me before, you may have guessed that I am not a religious person. So my annual celebration of this most sacred bunch of winter holidays is mostly, for me, about my fondness for an assortment of seasonally related things like colored lights (I much prefer them to all white though most of all, I love the orange and purple ones from Halloween.) But my favorite annual tradition is the chance to watch most of the movies from the previous year that are under the impression they should be nominated for awards. Because I am a member of two big entertainment-related unions (The Writers Guild and Sag/Aftra) every year I receive copies of most these films, sent out by the studios that made them to everyone who might potentially cast a vote in their favor. In previous years, I used to get enormous piles of DVDs, each emblazoned with a festive FBI warning threatening dire punishments to anyone who dared share these films with others. But this year, the films are being made available almost 100% via digital links.

Of this year’s offerings, the film I was most excited to watch right away was the brand new Bob Dylan bio-pic “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN’. As you may also know, I have a long and checkered history with Mr. Dylan. It started when I hitchhiked to The Berkeley Community Theater in 1964 and for some reason was seated in a row of folding chairs, right on the lip of the stage, about 6 feet from the performers. I was 15.

It probably looked something like this.

As some of you may also know, because Mr.Dylan owns a house in my neighborhood, between the years of 2009 and 2019 I relentlessly pursued an annual ‘scholarly research project’ involving an analysis of Mr. Dylan’s Christmas lights. I decided to stop because even though I am certainly willing to keep on hammering away at a joke long after it is absolutely threadbare, even I have my limits. (Kind of.) Anyway, for a thorough explanation of why and how this all came to occur, you may read a summary of my amazing research work right here on this very substack page, published exactly a year ago.

But back to “A Complete Unknown”. I enjoyed the film. Mostly because the seemingly ubiquitous Timothee Chalamet gives a truly amazing performance as a twenty-something Bob Dylan that is full of carefully observed, nuanced details of Dylan’s personality and manner. Plus his guitar playing and singing are surprisingly good. Ditto Monica Barbaro, who really nails everything about Joan Baez. Between them, they lift the movie to near greatness.

Now, let’s discuss the directing and the script.

The third lead in the movie is Edward Norton, doing a very good job as Pete Seeger. According to this film, Pete and Bob meet when both were visiting the dying Woody Guthrie in his hospital room, eventually leading Pete to invite newcomer-to-New York Bob, to spend the night at the Seeger house upstate. After a lengthy drive, the car pulls into a snowy driveway and they are greeted by Pete’s wife Toshi. She smiles and seems agreeable to the idea of having Bob as an overnight guest.

As she makes up a bed for Bob on the sofa, Pete tells Bob that he knows he will be comfortable here because he, Pete, has spent many a long nite on this sofa after the wife has kicked him out of bed because of his snoring.

These scenes are the only place in the film where we get to know a little bit about Pete’s wife, the almost entirely silent Toshi, who immediately asks Bob to please not smoke in the house.

From the information we have gathered so far, Toshi appears to be kind of a disagreeable sort,.maybe even a bit of a scold. We learn that she regularly throws Pete out of bed for snoring. And then she asks Bob to step outside into the cold winter night after he lights up a cigarette. .

She even appears to have concerns that Bob isn’t going to sleep at the same time that she is.

Though she does seem to have the uncanny ability to be able to knit while lying on her back with her head on Pete’s shoulder. That is definitely kind of impressive.

Then the following morning she ,of course, gets up, cooks everyone breakfast and still has enough energy leftover to stare admiringly at Bob while he strums his guitar and appears to be creating yet another one of his genius songs.

Meanwhile, as the film progresses, Bob begins to perform at clubs in Greenwich Village. He meets Albert Grossman, who becomes his manager. He connects up with various women, including the formidable Joan Baez.

But we are not done with Toshi. The next time we see her, she is at the small television studio where Pete Seeger’s PBS television show, “Rainbow Quest.”is about to begin taping an episode. In this scene, we see Pete interviewing a guest he apparently had to book at the last minute after Bob cancelled unexpectedly.

As Pete gamely proceeds to host his show with his substitute guest, we see many, MANY shots of Toshi back stage. She seems to be everywhere, sitting or standing, looking either worried or pleased. She wears a variety concerned expressions and she stares intently… but she never speaks a single word

Here are just a few of the MANY camera angles showing Toshi at the television studio while Pete is recording his show.

By now, if you are me, you have begun to ask the question “Why are we seeing so much of a character who never speaks a word? If she is not important enough to have any lines, why is she also so omni-present in the movie? Is she meant to seem like kind of a Yoko Ono presence… attached at the hip to a great man? Why is she in EVERY important scene in this damn movie, but never given ANYTHING to say? “

As I continued to watch the film, I grew increasingly obsessed with these questions. So afterward, I decided to see if I could learn more about Toshi via Google. And what do you know! I learned a little something about the content of these scenes that the director and his two co- writers didn’t think was important enough to ever reference in their script. And it was THIS:

TOSHI WAS THE DAMN PRODUCER AND THE DIRECTOR OF PETE’S SHOW! Here is how Wikipedia explains the context of the above moments. “When Pete Seeger's ban from television appearances for his political views was lifted in 1965, Toshi produced and directed a public television series called Rainbow Quest that was hosted by her husband until 1966”.

In other words: James Mangold, the director and Jay Cocks and Elijah Wald, (see UPDATE) his co- writer decided to show Toshi back stage at Rainbow Quest EIGHT different times because she was the producer and the director of the show. Yet, not only did they never mention that this was the case, they couldn’t think of a single line to give her to speak. For example, since she was the director, she could have said to a camera man,”Let’s get a close up of this.” And since she was also the producer, she almost definitely would have been wearing a head set or at minimum, carrying a clip board. Most likely she would have said something to Bob when he showed up late and unexpectedly, back stage. She might have said “Well, look who showed up after all!” or gone on camera and whispered “Pete! Guess who just walked in?! Bobby is here!” But no. The three two man creative team behind ‘A COMPLETE UNKNOWN’ could think of absolutely no reason for the producer/director of the show to utter so much as a single word.

Now we move ahead in the story to the NEXT time we see Toshi: at a record industry gathering where she accompanies her husband, Pete. This time the actress Eriko Hatsune, who mostly mimes Toshi, is given this challenging scene to play.

Which brings us to Bekka, another mysterious almost entirely blank woman in the film. Bekka gets a similar but shorter version of the Toshi treatment. She too has almost no lines and absolutely no back story except for a rather dramatic moment, after she and Bob leave the above party, when for some reason, she blurts out to Bob that she loves him. And for some reason, this seems to rub Bob the wrong way. So he walks off, alone, unresponsive, brooding.

If Toshi were not so OMNI-PRESENT in this movie, I might have written this piece about Bekka.

But Toshi. shows up EVERYWHERE.

“That Toshi!” this scene seems to say, “Will you look at how much she enjoys her music!”

Which brings us to The Newport Folk Festival, a big pivotal event in Bob’s early career to which the entire movie has been building since the beginning. This was the moment at which the young Bob turned the folk music scene upside down by daring to include electric guitars in the same songs everyone was used to seeing him perform acoustically. Because Bob had the audacity to not be giving the crowd exactly what they expected, they all begin to BOO! As Pete, who is also on the board of directors of the festival, watches from back stage, he feels he must take some action. Of course, there is Toshi, right beside him, every step of the way. We see her next to him, on the front lines, as Pete tries to talk Bob into giving the audience what they want. And then there she is again, featured in every damn camera shot of Pete, listening but never saying a thing.

During this rather lengthy sequence, someone who is identified in the credits only as “Man#2” is given a line to speak. “NO!” he shouts, “This is all wrong!’ Yet Toshi, like all good children of the 20th century, continues to be seen but not heard.

After the audience begins their BOOING, Pete considers taking matters into his own hands. He is looking at some axes, props from another act, until Toshi asserts herself as an influence against it. This is kind of a big scene for Toshi so of course they had to give her a line to speak (even if this never happened in real life.) So they thought and thought about what she would say. And the line they came up with to give her is……. “Pete.” Next thing you know, Bob takes off his guitar and leaves the stage mid set. Naturally Toshi again steps in to shoot off her big mouth. And what is she given to say? It is “BOB!”, which she calls out to him, as he leaves the stage, And then,

OOPS. Almost forgot this big Toshi moment.

“Bob” she calls out a second time. To Bob. And I can’t blame anyone here because she did it so well that other time, it’s almost a reprise. If there is one thing we definitely have learned about Toshi in this movie, it is that she definitely knows Bob’s name.

And now that I have carefully guided you through the large amount of screen time we are given in which to appreciate the actress Eriko Hatsune and her talent for wordless facial emoting, let’s take a look at the rest of the actual Toshi’s real-life bio, according to Wikipedia:

A life long artist and music activist (who even graduated from The High School of Music & Art in 1940), Toshi “WENT ON TO HELP SET UP THE ORIGINAL NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL IN THE 1960’S.”

Oh.

So Toshi is one of the CREATORS of The Newport Folk Festival? Really? The always silent Toshi? A real-life Newport Folk Festival power broker?

“Credited with helping to discover Mississippi John Hurt, she developed a career as a filmmaker and producer, often focusing on folk music and musicians. Many of her films are preserved at the Library of Congress. In 1966, she released Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison, which focused on the traditional songs sung by Texas prison inmates as they chopped down trees. Toshi and Pete Seeger co-founded The Great Hudson River Revival, also known as the "Clearwater Festival and Toshi Seeger executive produced the 2007 PBS documentary, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, which won an Emmy Award. She also served on numerous civic, environmental and artistic organizations, including the New York State Council on the Arts.^”

Proof she talked.

In summary, the three two man creative team of James Mangold and Jay Cocks, and Elijah Wald, (see UPDATE) who directed and wrote the script of ‘A Complete Unknown’ respectively, managed to reduce the Emmy award winning producer, director, political activist, documentarian and musicologist, Toshi Seeger, to what I suspect may have been some kind of DEI set decorating. We get to know her as someone who really doesn’t need to resort to speaking words.It’s more than enough for her to show concern and patience as she smiles supportively.

I guess, from their perspective, these choices make a certain amount of sense since everyone knows that behind every great man, there is a non-verbal woman who only breaks her silence to say “Hi Bob”, "Hi Pete” and “Please don’t smoke in here.”

Which brings me to my big announcement. Inspired by this film, I am starting The Toshi Awards, which I will give to deserving women cast members of movies who are put there as set decoration. I will honor these hard-working women of Sag/Aftra who, nonetheless, had to get up at 5AM, spend time in the hair and makeup trailer, go to wardrobe fittings and then wait around in their trailer until they are called to appear on screen, not saying a damn thing to anyone, ever.

Eriko Hatsune, the actress who mimes Toshi, (and gets eighth billing in the credits that run in the beginning) naturally receives the first TOSHI award.

And now I will close this diatribe by sharing with you my special dream: that one day, in the not too distant future, there will be midnight showings of ‘A Complete Unknown’ in which audience members of every gender will attend, dressed up as Toshi. And as the movie plays, they will all get up out of their seats and mime along with her many silent facial expressions. Everyone will especially look forward to participating in those moments when they will all call out, together, in unison,“Bob!” “Hi Bob” “Pete!” and “Bobby, can you go outside to smoke?”

If tomorrow weren’t Christmas eve, I would now dissect the way the film also totally mangles the life of the much more interesting and edgier girlfriend Suze Rotolo. But first, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to see if I can find any info on Bekka.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

UPDATE #1: From ELIJAH WALD, author of the book on which the movie was based. Mr. Wald left this comment: “Good,important piece—but I had nothing to do with writing the film.”

And based on my own personal experiences with film script writing, it is easy for me to visualize how this happened. It’s not uncommon that after spending years writing and researching a book full of careful details you then have no choice but to say goodbye to everything except your name on something you don’t recognize! Wheee! Come on in! It’s all part of the FUN! On the bright side, usually, but not always, you get a nice sized paycheck. A friend of mine refers to this tradeoff as “golden handcuffs.”

UPDATE #2: A great portrait of Toshi from her friend.

Edward Renehan, who I do not know personally, left a comment on this page that I wanted to share because it is such an interesting portrait of the actual Toshi. How much more engaging would every one of those scenes have been if Toshi had been written like this? Answer: SO much more compelling in every way. Also funnier!

“Toshi was nothing like depicted in the film. I knew Pete and Toshi very well for more than 40 years - from when I was really still a kid. Toshi was a force of nature. She was not an adoring Stepford wife. She was, in fact, Pete's highly influential and very active co-manager along with Harold Leventhal. She was brilliant, and she took no prisoners. She called a spade a spade. And she was the consummate organizer. By that I am not referring to closets. Pete would have an idealistic dream, like building a Sloop and making it a flagship of the environmental movement. Then Toshi would leverage his celebrity and her management expertise and strategic vision to make it happen. Personally, I considered her a second mother. The last time I saw her to speak to her, when I was in my fifties, I must have been going through some sort of midlife crisis because I'd let my hair grow long. I was up at their house with my son Bill and Bill's college roommate helping Toshi and Pete and their daughter Tinya - still a good friend of mine - boil down maple sugar. We spent the day. At the very end, as we were about to leave, Toshi and I gave each other a hug during which she whispered in my ear: "Cut your hair. You're not 13 anymore." That was Toshi.”

UPDATE #3.

and also this comment from Alex Rivera, who I also do not know personally. But seriously: how much better would this version of Toshi had made all those scenes that the imaginary silent Toshi occupied?

I also knew Pete and Toshi and their extended family in Beacon. I concur with all of this - Toshi was Pete’s grounding connection to reality. She was caustic and funny and extremely practical. Pete was dreamy and tender and had a wild, constantly wandering imagination. I often had the sense that Pete would have lived a life of ideas and songs but gotten nothing large-scale built without Toshi. She would shoot down his ideas (which came to him fast and furious) much more often than support them. No support from Toshi equaled no-go. Pete and her had a fascinating dynamic of dreaming and doing together. It was a tender interplay. She was the family editor and producer. It's impossible to separate their impact on the world.

UPDATE #4: TOSHI IN THE NEWSPAPER (in late 60’s?)

Thank you to someone calling themselves FLUXT.bsky.social who found this and posted in on my Bluesky page. In it, you can hear how outspoken she was. As in VERY.

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