I just saw this film again, and watched the 88 version this time. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is a brave film. It is a western about people who don't want to fight! Pat tries for the longest time to not face Billy, hoping that he runs away to Mexico. This means that there is really not much of an action, except in the beginning and the end. So, how does one fill up the middle part? Sam does it by making a film, not so much about Pat and Billy but more about the dying wild west (a theme you will find in almost all of his films). There is a melancholy which runs through the whole film. Like we are at a funeral of an era and no one really knows what's coming. The mood reminds me of Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick). This is an Autumn film, a twilight film, an evening film or what ever you would want to call it. A film about knowing that the end is drawing near and not wanting to face it.
I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan but I don't think he was good in this film and I really don't see why he had to be in it. His character makes little sense. The music is good, though I wish the 88 version had the lyrics to Knockin on Heaven's Door.
The trouble with the film is the editing. What Sam was trying here is so delicate, so fragile that it has to be perfectly edited to really fly. Just think Mirror by Tarkovsky. There is really no other way to edit that film. Tarkovsky tried 30 ways (if I remember correctly) before he discovered the right one. He later said that the film would have been a disaster with out that cut. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid has the same poetic heart and it needs the same poetic touch to really make it work. I wish Terrence Malick was hired to cut the film anew. I can't think of a better person to find the film Sam wanted to make.
SPOILERS (I guess). I like that Sam does not make too much out of the killing of either Pat or Billy. The film is not really about that, it is about a long funeral that precedes it.
I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan but I don't think he was good in this film and I really don't see why he had to be in it. His character makes little sense. The music is good, though I wish the 88 version had the lyrics to Knockin on Heaven's Door.
The trouble with the film is the editing. What Sam was trying here is so delicate, so fragile that it has to be perfectly edited to really fly. Just think Mirror by Tarkovsky. There is really no other way to edit that film. Tarkovsky tried 30 ways (if I remember correctly) before he discovered the right one. He later said that the film would have been a disaster with out that cut. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid has the same poetic heart and it needs the same poetic touch to really make it work. I wish Terrence Malick was hired to cut the film anew. I can't think of a better person to find the film Sam wanted to make.
SPOILERS (I guess). I like that Sam does not make too much out of the killing of either Pat or Billy. The film is not really about that, it is about a long funeral that precedes it.