James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” is about all the variables that shape and distort creativity. Eschewing the often superficial approach of the cradle-to-grave biopic to tell a formative chapter in music and world history, Mangold’s film fluidly captures the intersection between art and fame with solid performances, understated direction, and organic editing. As someone who generally detests the “greatest hits” stories of films about famous people and the way they often rely on the printed legend rather than doing anything, and as someone who likes the music of the deliberately enigmatic If I love Bob Dylan very much, I have to admit that you expected “A Complete Unknown” to be predictably out of tune. As its subject has done so often in his six-decade career, this one exceeds expectations.

“A Complete Unknown” opens with a recording of Woody Guthrie, one of the young Bob Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) key influences, whom we meet on his way to introduce himself to the man whose work “knocked him down.” Guthrie, played by Scoot McNairy, is in a hospital in Jersey and happens to be visited by the legendary Pete Seeger (a wonderfully understated Edward Norton) when a 20-year-old Dylan drops by in 1961. Seeger convinces Dylan to sing for his hero, and the moment is full of creativity. It’s one of several scenes in “A Complete Unknown” in which Mangold captures Dylan’s non-stop ingenuity and songwriting brilliance. One of the film’s greatest strengths is how much it relies on actual performances to tell its story – it has more full songs than many Hollywood musicals and, thankfully, doesn’t go the medley route of uninterrupted snippets, choosing instead often music speaks for allowing this.

Dylan’s music had a lot to say in the early ’60s. Several scenes subtly place Dylan’s art within a larger context to capture his meaning. In one, Dylan plays “Masters of War” in a club while news clips about the Cuban Missile Crisis echo. Imagine hearing the uncompromising lyrics of this song as potential Armageddon has virtually cleared New York City of people looking for a place that might be safer than Manhattan. It’s indicative of why Mangold’s film works overall – his effort to incorporate Dylan’s music into the structure of the narrative rather than just using it as a soundtrack. The use of news clips to mark the passage of time is undeniably exaggerated, but it plays on the theme that even an uncompromising artist like Dylan was a byproduct of the world around him, on both a macro and micro level.

As for the latter, the Dylan who would become so popular as to be almost a teen idol in the chapter of his career captured in this film was influenced by more than just Guthrie. Seeger, who eventually takes Dylan home after this chance encounter, is introduced in a courtroom defending his freedom of expression and is intriguingly caught between the traditions of folk music and the rebel who may lead them into an uncertain future. Dylan also meets two women who would shape his early career. Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) is a variation of Suze Rotolo, the woman on the cover of Dylan’s Bob Dylan on the looseportrayed here as a partner who realizes that she knows almost nothing about her lover, even though he becomes one of the most famous people in the world. Equally annoyed and enthralled by Dylan is Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), who becomes a superstar behind a “prettier” breed of people than Dylan wants to play.

Mangold and Jay Cocks’ excellent script never overstates what it says about how Dylan became a poet of his generation, trusting that the audience will understand the connections for themselves. Was Dylan’s raw poetry a reaction to Baez’s flowery fame? Was his image as the “Man in Black” influenced by his adoration and friendship with Johnny Cash? Why did he buck his own fans and refuse to play some of his biggest hits on a tour with Baez? Why did he insist on playing electric at Newport in 1965, one of the most famous events in the history of folk music, and where did this chapter of Dylan’s life culminate? Just because they told him not to?

Mangold’s approach demands a lot from Mr. Chalamet, and he gets to the point. Not only does he sound like Dylan when he sings, he somehow captures the newness of those moments. When he plays “The Times They Are A-Changin'” for the first time in a great scene, it’s a song that many people in the film audience know by heart. Yet Chalamet and the production somehow convey the immediacy of that moment in Newport when these people hear a masterpiece for the first time. It gives the film a tension that biographies almost always lack, and it feels immersive and not just like a jukebox that has been played a hundred times.

Chalamet is supported by a great ensemble. Norton and Fanning grabbed attention early on – both have already won critics’ awards – but for me the standouts are the captivating Monica Barbaro as Baez and a playful turn from Boyd Holbrook as Cash. Barbaro subtly expresses how equally angry and delighted people can be with Dylan, while Holbrook plays Cash as someone who recognized the raw genius in Dylan despite all the things that fame and expectations brought around him. They are the angel and the devil on Bob’s shoulders.

“A Complete Unknown” begins and ends not with Dylan, but with Guthrie, a recording of his classic “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh.” Not only does it connect Dylan with a folk music tradition that he would forever reshape, but it also features the same dark sense of humor and relevance that often characterizes his music. “We talked about the end of the world, and then we sang a song, and then sang it again.” It’s a line that echoes protest music like “Masters of War,” which Dylan sings against the backdrop of the end of the world. And the last line expresses Dylan’s freewheeling spirit and the easy charm of the film about him: “This dusty old dust comes into my home, and I have to let myself drift.” Dylan moved to New York in 1961 and changed music forever . And we’re still going along with him.

Opens on Christmas Day.