What do you think?
Rate this book
The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: The Untold Story of Peckinpah's Last Western Film
Long before Sam Peckinpah finished shooting his 1973 Western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, there was open warfare between him and the studio. In this scrupulously researched new book Paul Seydor reconstructs the riveting history of a brilliant director fighting to preserve an artistic vision while wrestling with his own self‑destructive demons. Meticulously comparing the film five extant versions, Seydor documents why none is definitive, including the 2005 Special Edition, for which he served as consultant. Viewing Peckinpah’s last Western from a variety of fresh perspectives, Seydor establishes a nearly direct line from the book Garrett wrote after he killed Billy the Kid to Peckinpah’s film ninety-one years later and shows how, even with directors as singular as this one, filmmaking is a collaborative medium. Art, business, history, genius, and ego all collide in this story of a great director navigating the treacherous waters of collaboration, compromise, and commerce to create a flawed but enduringly powerful masterpiece.
- GenresFilm
408 pages, Paperback
First published February 15, 2015
5 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Paul Seydor
3 books1 followerDr. Paul Seydor (1947–) is a film editor and producer, and a historian of American Civilization. His work focuses on American Literature, American Intellectual History, and Film. He has taught at both the University of Southern California and the University of Iowa.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 21, 2019
As a writer, I found the detailed history and dissection of the movie's screenplay to be fascinating in the way it displayed Peckinpah's priorities and emphases. But the last third of the book grows tedious, and seems to be mainly a sorry-not-sorry apologia for Seydor's role in editing the DVD special edition. This isn't a traditional "making-of" book by any means; the actual shooting of the film is mentioned only in passing references. Still, if the movie speaks to you, this is a rich source of material on its inspirations and aspirations.
August 9, 2020
It is rare to find a book as exhaustively researched and compellingly written as Paul Seydor's "The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: Th Untold Story of Peckinpah's Last Western Film." It is one of the foundation myths of the American West, told and retold in numerous accounts both in print and on film. By returning to the sources of Peckinpah's remarkable film, Seydor reveals how truth and legend become braided into art. The definitive examination of the subject.
March 14, 2017
I stumbled across Paul Seydor’s book, The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (2015), while passing time between BFI screenings. Since it was 35 quid, I bided my time and purchased it from the morally reprehensible tax-avoiding online behemoth Amazon, which was selling it for just £16. The blurb promised an examination of Peckinpah’s final Western that would trace a line from verifiable fact through a deluge of fiction (beginning with Pat Garrett’s own ghostwritten book, published five years after he killed Billy the Kid) to the legendary, technically unfinished 1973 film.
It does that in a different way to how I expected – after a chapter on near-contemporary retellings, there’s little on treatments of the story besides the three which directly shaped Peckinpah’s movie – but Seydor methodically and often thrillingly examines the way that the project developed. Along the way, he sheds light on how metamorphosing Billys and Garretts play into different interpretations of philosophy, mythology and American history, offers a rare insight into the collaborative process that is moviemaking (through interviews and his own insights as a respected Hollywood film editor), and delivers a respectful but frank and unsentimental portrait of a master director who was also a tragic, tragically self-destructive alcoholic.
I embarked upon the book expecting a chronicle of how Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett have been portrayed in literature and cinema, culminating with a recreation of life on the set of the 1973 movie. Instead, I got a lesson in Peckinpah, movie editing and the endless evolution of a film that has never seemed greater – nor more flawed – than it does in Seydor’s telling. It’s more academicised than most of the film books I read, but it’s never pretentious, and if his chronicling of script revisions is only for diehard Sam fans and film nerds, those fans should find it invaluable, because of the way Seydor demonstrates that even small changes can disrupt a film’s balance or enrich its dualities. Regular readers may know that I was bored out of my wits by Todd McCarthy’s Howard Hawks biography, which managed to turn one of the most fascinating Hollywood careers into a dispassionate, insight-free collection of names and dates. Seydor’s prose style can get a trifle wearying (he loves a list of job titles), but at others it’s scintillating, and there’s no questioning his passion, intelligence and insight. The sections in which he responds to criticism on the internet are also delightful – he deals with criticism about as calmly and rationally as me (please don't get me, Paul, I liked your book).
I wrote a blog about 10 things I learned here: http://advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.c...
It does that in a different way to how I expected – after a chapter on near-contemporary retellings, there’s little on treatments of the story besides the three which directly shaped Peckinpah’s movie – but Seydor methodically and often thrillingly examines the way that the project developed. Along the way, he sheds light on how metamorphosing Billys and Garretts play into different interpretations of philosophy, mythology and American history, offers a rare insight into the collaborative process that is moviemaking (through interviews and his own insights as a respected Hollywood film editor), and delivers a respectful but frank and unsentimental portrait of a master director who was also a tragic, tragically self-destructive alcoholic.
I embarked upon the book expecting a chronicle of how Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett have been portrayed in literature and cinema, culminating with a recreation of life on the set of the 1973 movie. Instead, I got a lesson in Peckinpah, movie editing and the endless evolution of a film that has never seemed greater – nor more flawed – than it does in Seydor’s telling. It’s more academicised than most of the film books I read, but it’s never pretentious, and if his chronicling of script revisions is only for diehard Sam fans and film nerds, those fans should find it invaluable, because of the way Seydor demonstrates that even small changes can disrupt a film’s balance or enrich its dualities. Regular readers may know that I was bored out of my wits by Todd McCarthy’s Howard Hawks biography, which managed to turn one of the most fascinating Hollywood careers into a dispassionate, insight-free collection of names and dates. Seydor’s prose style can get a trifle wearying (he loves a list of job titles), but at others it’s scintillating, and there’s no questioning his passion, intelligence and insight. The sections in which he responds to criticism on the internet are also delightful – he deals with criticism about as calmly and rationally as me (please don't get me, Paul, I liked your book).
I wrote a blog about 10 things I learned here: http://advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.c...
April 29, 2020
The beginning chapters of this book are great - a look at the real story of Billy the Kid, the growth of the myth/legend, and two early versions in print (The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones) and in film (One-Eyed Jacks). But when he gets to the Peckinpah Western, Seydor's immense knowledge and research becomes overwhelming and I, who love Pechinpah films and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid especially, became lost and uninterested in the many minute changes he details. I was looking more for a how the film was made book rather than a detailed look at the script and its evolution. But even, so, it's a detailed and fascinating story.
December 27, 2021
Seydor's in-depth study of the origins of both the protagonists and the film makes for an extremely long, pedantic - and often very boring read. Very little space is given to the actual shooting and there is no sense of perspective or an overview of how it was ultimately received. Seydor is obsessed with his research and does neither himself nor the reader any favours by not providing even a modicum of engagement - or entertainment - in his dense - and often pointless anecdotally ortiented narrative. In spite of all that, few mentions of Dylan's soundtrack recording - what studio? what musos? I found it overall a waste of time and eyesight.
June 4, 2015
Paul Seydor's new book on Sam Peckinpah's last western is the answer to the prayers of so many of us devotees who have for decades analyzed, bickered about and praised as an existential masterpiece the film, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," while becoming aware of various cuts, none of them authoritarian. In fact to many of us the working out of a satisfactory completed version has been a long-term, unwavering cause célèbre, as we felt the film to be not only one of the most unusual and haunting westerns ever made, but a profoundly poignant work of dark cinematic poetry that, even in its different forms, stands as one of the great masterworks in the history of the art form.
We expected a lot of Paul Seydor when finally giving birth to this book after his laboring for so many long years in intensive research, while, at various stages of his pilgrimage, embattling a variety of pseudo-intellectual eggheads and foaming ignoramuses who pugnaciously spewed out misinformation and distortions, more than one with a vitriol rarely seen outside of an insane asylum. Much of this had been fostered by Peckinpah himself, but who knew during all those 'dark ages' what really happened on the shooting sets, the editing rooms, and, most significantly, behind MGM's corporate board rooms -- at least from the points of view of us students, educators and writers of the film who had to rely solely on rumors and canards for so long? I myself, a stickler for accuracy and honesty, led two seminars on this film during the nineties that inadvertently perpetrated myths over facts, but who could blame me? We had no way to separate the flummeries from the verities.
Until now. With the publication of this book, Paul Seydor has soared past all expectations and produced one of the finest studies of any film ever written, and one surprisingly indispensable to more than the aficionados of Peckinpah or this particular film, but to anyone interested in film as an art form. No, even more: Seydor, finding his quest over this particular grail leading him further into the mines of history, has given us what may be the most thorough and significant crystallized study of the real-life William Bonney, Pat Garrett, John Chisum, Bob Ollinger and all the other peripheral folks involved in the actual events, as well as a cohesive study of these very significant if savage times in American history. Some readers might shy away from the idea of reading 75 pages before getting into the adaptation and writing of the film itself (and nearly double that before getting into Peckinpah's direct involvement), but don't. Every page is bejeweled with stunning interest, not only as foreplay leading into the making of the film, but exciting in itself as deep background into what layers lie underneath the film itself.
When the author finally gets to the middle and late chapters, he manages to amazingly clarify the film's events, scouring out all the muddle that has become encrusted in our brains the last few decades, and enumerate for us, as much as possible, what actually happened during the making of the film -- and what didn't happen that could have (e.g., Peckinpah's walking away from a chance to 'finalize' his own film). Many parts of this confused story show how Peckinpah sadly let his own film down, and there is much here that could have been misused by lesser writers more interested in sensationalizing these events for lurid book sales, but Seydor stays focused and keeps his hands clean. What makes everything work so well is that every page, even each that details the dismal sides of this volatile director, is obviously motivated by Seydor's own love for both the film and the filmmaker. But before you level a charge that the author's love blinds his eye, think again: Goethe said, "A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it," and Seydor, like a true patriot over a false one, never allows his heart to hinder his incorruptible exploration into every detail of the film. Seydor knows that the only vindication of the filmmaker and the film would be found as a result of shining an unobstructed light on all the events that went into this beautiful work of cinematic art.
To top it off, Seydor gives us the gift of beautiful writing, a style of prose that reaches high literary quality -- something that is often undervalued in non-fiction books. Though seldom acknowledged, it is a fact that good writing is not just beautiful in itself but functional; it organizes material and helps clarify for a heightened comprehension. Seydor shows himself to be a true 'man of letters', and his writing makes all the various incidents clear and the people involved human and understandable. And in the book's third part ("Ten Ways of Looking at an Unfinished Masterpiece and Its Director"), he excels himself in wonderfully encapsulating this film, and its final ten or twelve pages reaches the level of genuine eloquence.
This is the culmination of a brilliant and insightful film writer and scholar that will likely never be surpassed as the definitive record of this remarkable film. Paul Seydor has finally nailed his life's project. And we are all much the richer for it.
We expected a lot of Paul Seydor when finally giving birth to this book after his laboring for so many long years in intensive research, while, at various stages of his pilgrimage, embattling a variety of pseudo-intellectual eggheads and foaming ignoramuses who pugnaciously spewed out misinformation and distortions, more than one with a vitriol rarely seen outside of an insane asylum. Much of this had been fostered by Peckinpah himself, but who knew during all those 'dark ages' what really happened on the shooting sets, the editing rooms, and, most significantly, behind MGM's corporate board rooms -- at least from the points of view of us students, educators and writers of the film who had to rely solely on rumors and canards for so long? I myself, a stickler for accuracy and honesty, led two seminars on this film during the nineties that inadvertently perpetrated myths over facts, but who could blame me? We had no way to separate the flummeries from the verities.
Until now. With the publication of this book, Paul Seydor has soared past all expectations and produced one of the finest studies of any film ever written, and one surprisingly indispensable to more than the aficionados of Peckinpah or this particular film, but to anyone interested in film as an art form. No, even more: Seydor, finding his quest over this particular grail leading him further into the mines of history, has given us what may be the most thorough and significant crystallized study of the real-life William Bonney, Pat Garrett, John Chisum, Bob Ollinger and all the other peripheral folks involved in the actual events, as well as a cohesive study of these very significant if savage times in American history. Some readers might shy away from the idea of reading 75 pages before getting into the adaptation and writing of the film itself (and nearly double that before getting into Peckinpah's direct involvement), but don't. Every page is bejeweled with stunning interest, not only as foreplay leading into the making of the film, but exciting in itself as deep background into what layers lie underneath the film itself.
When the author finally gets to the middle and late chapters, he manages to amazingly clarify the film's events, scouring out all the muddle that has become encrusted in our brains the last few decades, and enumerate for us, as much as possible, what actually happened during the making of the film -- and what didn't happen that could have (e.g., Peckinpah's walking away from a chance to 'finalize' his own film). Many parts of this confused story show how Peckinpah sadly let his own film down, and there is much here that could have been misused by lesser writers more interested in sensationalizing these events for lurid book sales, but Seydor stays focused and keeps his hands clean. What makes everything work so well is that every page, even each that details the dismal sides of this volatile director, is obviously motivated by Seydor's own love for both the film and the filmmaker. But before you level a charge that the author's love blinds his eye, think again: Goethe said, "A man doesn't learn to understand anything unless he loves it," and Seydor, like a true patriot over a false one, never allows his heart to hinder his incorruptible exploration into every detail of the film. Seydor knows that the only vindication of the filmmaker and the film would be found as a result of shining an unobstructed light on all the events that went into this beautiful work of cinematic art.
To top it off, Seydor gives us the gift of beautiful writing, a style of prose that reaches high literary quality -- something that is often undervalued in non-fiction books. Though seldom acknowledged, it is a fact that good writing is not just beautiful in itself but functional; it organizes material and helps clarify for a heightened comprehension. Seydor shows himself to be a true 'man of letters', and his writing makes all the various incidents clear and the people involved human and understandable. And in the book's third part ("Ten Ways of Looking at an Unfinished Masterpiece and Its Director"), he excels himself in wonderfully encapsulating this film, and its final ten or twelve pages reaches the level of genuine eloquence.
This is the culmination of a brilliant and insightful film writer and scholar that will likely never be surpassed as the definitive record of this remarkable film. Paul Seydor has finally nailed his life's project. And we are all much the richer for it.
May 31, 2024
A terrific book if you're interested in film in general, and Peckinpah in particular. There's also quite a bit of history about Billy and Pat. Be sure you've seen the film before you read the book.
April 14, 2015
I've seen two versions of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" over the years. It is not my favorite Sam Peckinpah film, but I remembered liking Seydor's earlier book on Peckinpah's Westerns, so I tried this one.
It is a very good, very passionate book that explores Peckinpah's long relationship with the Billy the Kid story, from the late Fifties, when he wrote the first version of the movie that became Marlon Brando's "One Eyed Jacks," to the filming of "PG & BK" to the 2005 DVD release of the movie.
The book not only tells you about movie-making but storytelling, how artists relate to their work and the era in which they work, and how others make sense of an artist's work. Seydor writes with great knowledge of and enthusiasm for Peckinpah's films, but he isn't blind to Peckinpah's shortcomings, and he makes it clear that Peckinpah is responsible for the flaws in this movie.
Parts of the book drag a bit, and I would give it four-and-a-half stars instead of the full five if that were possible, but this is a fine book about moviemaking and directors.
It is a very good, very passionate book that explores Peckinpah's long relationship with the Billy the Kid story, from the late Fifties, when he wrote the first version of the movie that became Marlon Brando's "One Eyed Jacks," to the filming of "PG & BK" to the 2005 DVD release of the movie.
The book not only tells you about movie-making but storytelling, how artists relate to their work and the era in which they work, and how others make sense of an artist's work. Seydor writes with great knowledge of and enthusiasm for Peckinpah's films, but he isn't blind to Peckinpah's shortcomings, and he makes it clear that Peckinpah is responsible for the flaws in this movie.
Parts of the book drag a bit, and I would give it four-and-a-half stars instead of the full five if that were possible, but this is a fine book about moviemaking and directors.
May 23, 2015
The fascinating story of the development, making, and subsequent critical reaction to, one of the greatest western films of all time. How can a film be considered a masterpiece when it doesn't even exist in a definitive finished form? Well it's a long complicated story and Paul Seydor does a great job of telling it. A must for Peckinpah fans and anyone who enjoys good critical writing.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews