Double Threats: Dylan in the Movies

re: Double Threats: Dylan in the Movies

Hayden Childs — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:19:07 GMT

Hi, Mike! I'd put Ride The High Country up there just a shade after the Wild Bunch, myself. Then Pat Garrett in the next tier - along with Straw Dogs, Alfredo Garcia, and Junior Bonner - not too far down from top. I like Cross of Iron, but all that aimless running around at the end (when Peckinpah ran out of money and script) starts to lose me.

And Phil, I sure didn't mean to suggest that I have anything but the highest respect for Fielding, who scored many of my all-time favorite movies. I've always heard that he hated rock music and resented Dylan, and I'm pretty sure that story was in David Weddle's book (which I've read, but don't own a copy of it). Wikipedia has it, too, for whatever that's worth.

re: Double Threats: Dylan in the Movies

Phil Nugent — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:02:19 GMT

I think you're being a little unfair to Jerry Fielding here, Hayden. He may not have had a lot of use for Dylan--he was much more associated with the jazz scene than with rock or folk--but far from being a hack or a fogey, Fielding was a gifted experimentalist in his field who wrote exceptional scores for half a dozen other Peckinpah projects, including "The Wild Bunch", "Straw Dogs", and "Junior Bonner." He was a little annoyed that, on "Pat Garrett", the studio preferred that a big star with no experience at soundtrack work be given the job that Fielding thought, given his track record with Peckinpah, was going to be his for the asking. But his big complaint with Dylan's approach in general and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in particular, was that he thought it would be offensively on the nose to have Dylan singing a song about death during a scene where somebody was dying. Peckinpah, or somebody, must have agreed with him; the mangled studio cut of "Pat Garrett" that was released in 1973 uses the song in full during Slim Pickens's death scene, but the posthumously assembled "director's cut" released in 1989 uses the music track and some harmonies but removes the lyrics.

re: Double Threats: Dylan in the Movies

Mike De Luca — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:16:31 GMT

The tone poem to "Wild Bunch"'s kick-in-the-face. "Pat Garett and Billy The Kid" is, in my opinion alongside "Cross of Iron") Peckinpah's masterpiece, and Dylan's score is nothing short of iconic. "Billy, they don't want you to be so free..."