Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s real-life relationship was short-lived and tumultuous — but inspired some of their best music

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during a civil rights rally on August 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C.

James Mangold’s new biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” opens with 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City, essentially homeless yet armed with his guitar.

It’s not long before viewers are introduced to 20-year-old Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), an already-established performer in the Greenwich Village folk scene. In her first scene, Baez takes the stage at Gerde’s Folk City and sings “House of the Rising Sun,” the fourth track on her self-titled debut album, released in 1960.

“Joanie was at the forefront of a new dynamic in American music,” Dylan recalled in the 2009 documentary “Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound.”

“She had a record out, circulating among the folk circles,” he continued, “and everybody was listening to it, me included. I listened to it a lot.”

In “A Complete Unknown,” Baez’s performance at Gerde’s is followed by Dylan’s. He sings “I Was Young When I Left Home,” leaving the movie version of Baez awestruck.

The star-crossed encounter kicks off a fruitful collaboration and passionate romance, despite Dylan’s existing relationship with Sylvia Russo (Elle Fanning).

Monica Barbaro and Timothée Chalamet as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.”

In real life, however, Baez had gone to Gerde’s specifically to see Dylan.

“Somebody said, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta come down and hear this guy, he’s terrific,'” Baez told Rolling Stone in 1983. “And so I went down with my very, very jealous boyfriend, and we saw this scruffy little pale-faced dirty human being get up in front of the crowd and start singing his ‘Song to Woody.'”

“I, of course, internally went completely to shreds, ’cause it was so beautiful,” she continued. “But I couldn’t say anything, ’cause I was next to my very, very jealous boyfriend, who was watching me out of the corner of his eye and trying to mentally slaughter Dylan, I think. And then Bob came over and said, ‘Uhhh, hi’ — one of those eloquent greetings — and I just thought he was brilliant and superb and so on.”

The movie depicts Dylan and Baez starting a sexual relationship after another chance encounter, when Baez stumbles upon Dylan performing “Masters of War” in a coffee shop. Notably, this takes place in the throes of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when the world seemed on the brink of nuclear armageddon. After kissing at the coffee shop, the pair return to Dylan’s apartment.

Again, this doesn’t seem to be quite accurate. Dylan and Baez did meet again, but it would’ve been years before they began their ill-fated fling.

In real life, Baez was instrumental in introducing Dylan to a larger crowd

Dylan and Baez became an unofficial musical duo in the early ’60s, encouraging each other to refine their songcraft (she as a singer, he as a writer) and regularly performing duets at Baez’s concerts.

In the 2009 Baez doc, one friend described the pair as “quite a force at that time,” adding, “I think she had a crush on him. I know he had a crush on her.”

The details of Dylan’s life can be difficult for historians to confirm, given his penchant for myth-making and obfuscation. (He even asked Mangold to include an inaccurate scene in “A Complete Unknown,” according to actor Edward Norton, apparently just for kicks.) So, it’s unclear exactly when Dylan and Baez’s relationship became romantic.

When Rolling Stone asked Baez how long they’d been involved, she replied, “You mean what period of three months was it? Um, Bob and I spent some time together. I honestly don’t know what the year was.”