Midway through 1965, Bob Dylan changed the world of music by bringing his compositions from the era of acoustic guitar to one of electronic. The creation of “Like A Rolling Stone,” a piece hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as number one among its top songs ever, is now depicted in the movie “A Complete Unknown.”

This superb cinematic effort, headed by Dylan-portrayer Timothée Chalamet, illustrates the brilliance of an artist who follows his heart and writes and performs with a passion for his craft. He is unswayed by forces around him, and follows a path that is of his own choosing.

As the movie depicts, Dylan was booed as he performed at the Newport Folk Festival during that year. He had the audacity to deviate from the acoustic tenor of the annual event. Still, “Like A Rolling Stone” was given life and the world of music was reborn.

The composition told the story of a woman who had fallen from her lofty station in life and was about to learn the realities of an average person’s existence.

“Once upon a time you dressed so fine

Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?”

“How does it feel to be on your own

Like a rolling stone?”

As with many geniuses over the years, Dylan has been an enigma. He is a performer who has kept his off-stage life very private. As part of his mystique, in 1966 The Macmillan Company was set to publish his first book. While galleys were passed out to a select few sets of eyes, Dylan had a motorcycle mishap. As he slipped from his Triumph, so too did his manuscript fall from production.

He wouldn’t get around to allowing it to be published until 1971, after excerpts had leaked out onto newspaper print in the preceding years. In that year, “Tarantula” was released. In that same year, Dylan became part of the first-ever fund-raising show, The Concert for Bangla Desh.

This-then young devotee drove from Philadelphia to New York to see him perform at Madison Square Garden, in an event dedicated to raising funds for starving masses in that far-east region. Also on the bill was concert organizer George Harrison, along with Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Leon Russell. The normally cynical and aloof Dylan had given his time for that worthy cause.

The spacious arena was packed and his performance was powerful. The diminutive troubadour was standing tall in a moment of impact.

As nineteenth century philosopher William James said: “…possibilities may be in excess of actualities.  He stated “indetermininsm thus denies the world to be one unbending unit of fact.”

As “A Complete Unknown” points out, an individual has the right to stay on his course. The use of electronic instruments at a folk festival was clearly inappropriate. But there are times when adherence to the norm betrays ones’ mission. That is the mark of a trend setter, and the ultimate stamp of a leader.

Jeff Hurvitz (jrhurvitz@aol.com) is a freelance writer and native Philadelphian whose first published article was on The Concert for Bangla Desh, appearing in the old Philadelphia weekly, The Drummer, in 1971. The concert prompted him to write the piece on spec.