Directed by Paul Mazursky and written by Mazursky & Josh Greenfeld. Art Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Harry.
This painting by Bob Dylan is titled ‘Torn Curtain’ —
Acrylic on canvas. 91 x 122 cm.
I was directed towards this film with the suggestion that this painting is of a scene from within it. I did not see this scene whilst watching the film, but I did notice a couple of other Bob Dylan connections, which I found interesting. Thank you to the person who mentioned this film though!.. I am glad that I watched it. I really enjoyed it. I also really like this painting — The light through the window, the shadows and light across the bedside table and bed. I notice the bare feet of the character in the scene here — I haven’t noticed too many paintings by Bob Dylan of bare feet. I was looking out for bare feet within the film .. I notice that Bob Dylan often paints paintings within paintings. I find thise one interesting.
Either way… The first Bob Dylan connection (that initially noticed). This happens about 35 minutes into the film. (Maybe watch the film first if you haven’t already and want to watch it..!)
As Harry Coombes enters the room to ask about identifying his friend …
— This is a 40 minute trip for me.
— Look, there is no Reynolds.
— Found in a bathtub in Jackson Heights. I want an autopsy today, and I want an autopsy by noon.
— Now look, there is a Renaldo, Rivera..
— That's it. That's it, Renaldo. It's Reynolds. Reynolds! Christ Almighty.
.. And then in the background as Harry is speaking
— Hey you had Renaldo, all day long, Reynolds.. they got Renaldo… That’s why we couldn’t find him. They got him now…
This is of course the most I have ever heard the word ‘Renaldo’ said in a film other than in Bob Dylan’s film Renaldo and Clara. Released in 1977 (Footage from 1975).
With my attention drawn to this — listening again .. of course the name mentioned just after Renaldo is.. Rivera .. Alphabetically this makes sense, but on another level —
Bob Dylan and Scarlet Rivera. 1975. Rolling Thunder Revue.
I decided to check the exact date of release of Harry and Tonto — 12th August, 1974. This was the August between the July when Bob Dylan apparently wrote most of the songs for the album Blood on the Tracks, and the first recording session for that album — 16th September, 1974.
I like the film Renaldo and Clara. I have watched many times over the last decade two. I somehow hadn’t considered all the dates though — how the writing of the album Desire is connected to the film — how long before the Rolling Thunder Revue tour was the making of the film envisioned?
Bob Dylan first visited Hurricane Carter in mid June, 1975. I also recall hearing that he first saw Scarlet Rivera walking down the street in New York City in the same month — June, 1975. She tells the story here.. How she was walking towards a rehearsal session with a different band when Bob pulled over in a car (I read in another interview it was an old looking green car… not a fancy car).
Also in June 1975 — Bob Dylan attends a concert with Patti Smith at The Other End in New York City, New York and turns up backstage after the show.
14th July, 1975 — The first Desire recording session.
28th July, 1975 — The second Desire recording session. The first recording of the song Hurricane.
25th October, 1975 — The sixth Desire recording session in New York City is spent re-recording Hurricane with slightly changed but accurate lyrics. The first recorded versions had mistakenly placed Arthur Dexter Bradley in the bar.
30th October, 1974. Plymouth, MA. — The first Rolling Thunder Revue show.
I notice half way through the film Renaldo and Clara there is the footage of Bob going into Columbia Records, New York City. I am guessing this was filmed after 25th October and before they left for the first Rolling Thunder Revue show.
All the references to the release date of the single version of Hurricane say ‘November 1975’ .. Maybe that is linked to how quick they got it out — there wasn’t a set date — just how quickly it got to the radio stations?.. Referred to at the end of this clip:
I got to considering when this footage was recording whilst I was wondering about when the idea for a film titled Renaldo and Clara came about — before the recording of the album Desire? I suppose that makes sense (but somehow I hadn’t really considered that previously, or at least not for a while). At some point in I think June / July it seems Bob met Jacques Levy and co-wrote songs for Desire — Jacques Levy a songwriter and theatre director. I am typing this out here just to follow this trail here from the Renaldo — Rivera mention in the background of the Henry and Tonto mortuary scene — and wondering about that Bob Dylan meeting with Scarlet Rivera — I have only ever heard her story about that, I haven’t heard anyone ask Bob about it. Had she already began using the name Scarlet Rivera at that point? Her first released about was in 1977. I can’t seem to find any reference to if she had used that name before she met Bob.
Bringing this back to the film Henry and Tonto ..
After wondering about these dates, about this film .. The title.. Reference to ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto’ —
“Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto
They are ridin’ down the line
Fixin’ ev’rybody’s troubles
Ev’rybody’s ’cept mine
Somebody musta tol’ ’em
That I was doin’ fine”
From Bob Dylan’s Blues — The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
“The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture”
“Tonto is a fictional character; he is the Native American (either Tonto Apache, Comanche, or Potawatomi) companion of the Lone Ranger, a popular American Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Tonto has appeared in radio and television series and other presentations of the characters' adventures righting wrongs in 19th-century western United States.
The mask .. (I think there is a scene in Renaldo and Clara when someone is wearing a mask similar to this) .. The name of the tour ‘Rolling Thunder’ .. connections to Native Americans.
After noting this I decided to watch the film Harry and Tonto again .. and found another connection to Renaldo and Clara (via a 1977 interview with Bob Dylan) —
Here is the scene when Harry is removed from his home. His apartment block is about to be ‘torn down’ .. that was the only other reference I could connect to the painting which was titled ‘Torn Curtain’ .. (The curtain in the painting seems to be a kind of scarlet colour).
Harry Coombes quotes Shakespeare’s King Lear:
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanes
Spout till you have... drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! Drown the cocks, baby
— Pop, I want you to act your age.
I am. You sulphurous, thought-executing fires... vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts. Singe my white head!
— Pop, I want you yo come home with me.
This is my home.
— Pop, you've exhausted all your legal means.
Not my moral means. Not…
The mugger.
The mugger.
That boy mugged me!
That's the boy that mugged me.!
..
I've been thinking about Lear these past few weeks. I'm talkin' to you, Burt.
— I'm listening, Pop.
What'd I say?
— You said you were thinking about Lear.
Lear who?
— I don't know, Pop.
King Lear. He gave up his real estate too. You know what happened to him... what they did to him? They foreclosed. That's life. An old man loses his home... he's just a wanderer.
—
Shakespeare on Screen — King Lear
“Summary
Harry and Tonto (dir. Paul Mazursky, 1974) uses the American road movie, a signature genre of late 1960s and early 1970s film, to address the experience of an older man who, exiled from his home, travels through America, coming in contact with the nation’s counterculture and working-class culture, in the process reassessing himself and his place in American society. Though the film was critically lauded in its day, few Shakespeare film scholars afterwards have explored its many parallels with King Lear, even though passages from the play are explicit points of reference in multiple scenes and there are myriad echoes of Lear in characterization and narrative. This chapter examines how and why writer-director Paul Mazursky brought Shakespeare’s King Lear and the American road movie of the early 1970s into productive dialogue with one another. Lear provides a means for broadening the range of the road movie beyond youth culture, allowing for re-examination of relations between generations and suggesting the congruence between Lear’s ‘unaccommodated man’ and those outside the American cultural mainstream. At the same time, the road movie provides King Lear a means to be accommodated to a specifically American sensibility.”
—
Watching this scene again reminded me of this interview. 1977. Jonathan Cott talking to Bob Dylan about the film Renaldo and Clara. They have just watched the film (I think a first screening). Jonathan Cott compares a scene from the film to a scene from King Lear.
“Renaldo sees himself as King Lear” — Bob Dylan.
JC: Your movie is like King Lear a little bit, isn’t it?
BD: Yes it is.
—
Here is the scene that they were talking about:
—
I was just looking up what other films Art Carney (what a name!) was in .. and noticed that he was a regular guest on the The Dinah Shore Chevy Show — An American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to May 1963. This caught my attention as I noticed a few days ago Bob mention ‘Dinah Shore’ in passing on the Theme Time Radio Hour — Cars episode (he misheard a lyric about Cadillac going down the road like a dinosaur..)
I noticed that the music for this show was by The Harry Zimmerman Orchestra (1957–1961, 1962–1963) — Which I found interesting.
Either way, Harry and Tonto. 1974. A good film. I watched the film to see if I could see a scene from a Bob Dylan painting within it, and this is what I found.
—
Considering the words of Shakespeare — this reminded me of some of the lines of Bob Dylan’s audio post last night on Instagram.
‘The Last Testament of Frank James’
“My father left us for California in the gold rush and never returned. In his place, he left behind something that shaped me more than gold ever could—his books. Among them were the words of Shakespeare, and I read them like a starving man at a feast. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth—their words burned into my mind. And even when I rode in the saddle as a bushwhacker, even when I stood in a courtroom decades later, I could still hear them echoing. But all the poetry in the world could not stop the storm of war.”
After searching here and there for quite a while yesterday, it seems to me that this could have been written Bob Dylan. This passage from Bob Dylan’s Philosophy of Modern Song came to me —
“Not a bit of difference between that occasion and this one—six of one, half a dozen of the other. A dead ringer for the actual thing, unchanged and consistent from year One. Right from when the first curtain rose, the same regalia, same mustachio, toupee, same phenomenal world appearing and reappearing, telling and retelling. Same old song, same old tune, same riddles—fighting the same old battle all in the same breath, and you can be absolutely sure that it happened before and it will happen again—it's inevitable.”
Either way, here is my reading of ‘Last Testament of Frank James’ (Transcript below).
Transcript (via Substack automatic transcript— with additional editing/layout changes by me)
Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight not as an outlaw, not as a soldier, but as a man who has outlived his time. I have ridden across the battlefields of the Civil War, the lawless plains of the frontier, and the dusty roads of the outlaw trail. And now, in my old age, I have watched the world change around me, until the life I once knew is no more than a tale told in dimly lit parlours.
I was born in 1843 in Clay County, Missouri, on a quiet farm where my father—a Baptist preacher, read scripture by candlelight, and my mother, Zerelda, ruled the house with a will of iron. Before I could even walk, I was thrown onto a horse's back, and by the time I was old enough to speak, I could ride bareback as fast as the wind through the Missouri hills. Those were the days of boyhood adventures.
My brother Jesse was four years younger—perhaps you've heard of him. We spent our summers swimming in the cool, clear waters of the creek near our home—diving from rocks, chasing minnows, and laughing like we had all the time in the world. But time does not wait, and the world does not care for the dreams of boys.
My father left us for California in the gold rush and never returned. In his place, he left behind something that shaped me more than gold ever could—his books. Among them were the words of Shakespeare, and I read them like a starving man at a feast. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth—their words burned into my mind. And even when I rode in the saddle as a bushwhacker, even when I stood in a courtroom decades later, I could still hear them echoing. But all the poetry in the world could not stop the storm of war. You want to hear about the war, about Quantrill, “Bloody Bill” Anderson, and the days when we rode with hell on our heels? You ask me that? I reckon you better understand. War ain't like the stories—It ain't clean, it ain't gallant, and it sure as hell ain't fair.
I was just a boy of eighteen when the war came to Missouri, but Missouri had already been a battlefield for years. Jayhawkers, Union militia, bushwhackers. We fought neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother. It was a war with no front lines, no rules, and no mercy. So I joined Quantrill's raiders. Not because I had a choice, but because the war gave me none. We were ghosts on horseback, striking from the shadows, riding hard, vanishing into the hills before the smoke cleared. We weren't an army. We were a vengeance driven whirlwind, taking back what the Union troops had stolen, giving them the same hell they gave us.
Lawrence, Kansas, 1863. That's the one folks talk about the most. We rode in before dawn, 400 men strong, led by Quantrill himself. The town was full of unionists, abolitionists, men who had sent their own raiders into Missouri to burn homes and kill our kin. We hit them like a storm. Gunfire in the streets, torches lighting up the sky, men falling before they could even grab their weapons. One hundred and fifty men and boys lay dead before we rode out. Some called it a massacre. We called it war.
And then there was Centralia, 1864. That wasn't Quantrill's raid, that was “Bloody Bill” Anderson's. But I was there. A train came through, full of Union soldiers on furlough. We stopped it, dragged them off one by one, and lined them up. They thought they'd be prisoners. Instead, they were executed—every last one of them. Some of the boys even scalped the dead, a message to the Union that Missouri was not theirs. You might think that was savage, but let me tell you, we were not the only ones who fought that way. The Union forces killed every gorilla they caught. No trials, no mercy. If you wore the grey, or even if you were just suspected of helping men like us, your house burned, your family suffered, and you were left hanging from a tree.
We didn't fight for generals or battlefields. We fought for revenge. We hit Union supply lines, burned down posts, ambushed soldiers in the night. We were hunted like animals, but the ones hunting us? They feared us more than they feared death itself. I rode with Quantrill, with “Bloody Bill” Anderson, with men who didn't expect to live to see the next winter. Jesse was younger, still green when he joined, but the war hardened him quick. He learned how to kill, how to strike first, how to never hesitate. But by 1865, the war was lost. The South fell, Quantrill was dead, and Missouri? Missouri was never the same. We didn't lay down our arms because we suddenly found peace. We stopped because there was nothing left to fight for.
So you ask me about my exploits? There were plenty. Some I'll speak of, some I won't. War made men out of boys, monsters out of men. And when it was over, well—some of us never stopped riding. And when the war was done, Jesse and I—we fought on. For 15 years, Jesse and I, along with Cole Younger and our gang, robbed banks, trains, stagecoaches, and lived by the gun. We rode the best horses money could buy, stole them when we had to, and could outrun any lawman who dared chase us. We slept under the stars, in barns, in the homes of men and women who still saw us as Confederate heroes. And that brings me to something folks often ask me. Did I survive so long because I was such a good rider? You ask why I was such a fine rider. Because I had to be.
I didn't learn to ride in a school or in a cavalry camp. I learned bareback before I could walk, riding through the hills of Missouri with nothing but my balance and the grip of my knees. Some folks treat a horse like a tool. I treated mine like a partner. I knew how far I could push him, how to move with him, how to trust his instincts as much as my own. Now, as for Jesse, he was fast. He was fearless. But he rode like he lived, reckless, daring, sometimes without a second thought for the consequences. He could outrun most men, but he didn't read a horse the way I did—he wanted speed, I wanted control. He was good, no doubt about it. But was he as good as me? I don't reckon he'd argue it if he were here. And do I think I survived because of it? Absolutely. There were times the only thing between me and a bullet was the speed of my horse. I could ride hard when I needed to, but more importantly, I could ride smart. A good rider doesn't just know how to gallop. He knows when to slow down, when to weave, when to disappear into the brush and let the posse chase shadows. I survived because I didn't panic, didn't waste my horse and didn't let adrenaline do my thinking for me.
Many a man got himself shot because he thought a fast horse would save him. But a smart horseman? He knows that the best escape isn't always straight ahead. It's in the places the law don't think to look. And that's why I'm here, still breathing, long after most of my kind are buried beneath the dust.
But time, you see, has no allegiance to men like us. The frontier was closing. The railroads, which we had once raided so easily, stretched further and further west. The telegraph sent news faster than any horse could ride. Lawmen were better organized, better armed, and less afraid.
Then came Northfield, Minnesota, 1876. We rode in thinking we were unstoppable. But those townsfolk, they weren't afraid. They fought back. Cole Younger and his brothers were shot to pieces and captured, and Jesse and I... We ran for our lives, covering nearly 500 miles on foot and horseback before we made it home.
What went wrong at Northfield? Hell, what didn't?
We had pulled off plenty of jobs before. Banks, trains, stagecoaches. Always outsmarting the law. Always staying one step ahead. But Northfield? That was different. That was the one that broke us. First off, we were too far from home. We weren't in Missouri or Kentucky, where folks might look the other way or even tip their hats to us. We were in Minnesota, Union Country, and we underestimated those people. See, we thought it'd be like any other town, where fear and speed would win the day. We thought we could ride in, pistols drawn, and be out before anyone knew what hit ‘em. But those folks? They didn't scare easy. We split into groups, some of us inside, some outside. The plan was simple. Get in, force the banker to open the safe and get out. But from the start, things went bad.
The banker, Joseph Lee Haywood, refused to open the vault. He stood there and told us it was on a time lock. Wouldn't budge, no matter what we did. Maybe he was lying, maybe not. But we threatened him, pistol whipped him, even cut him with a knife. And still, that man stood his ground. Meanwhile, out in the street, the whole town figured out what was happening. Instead of running, they armed themselves. Storekeepers, blacksmiths, farmers, men who should have had no business standing up to us, grabbed their rifles, climbed onto rooftops and started shooting.
We weren't prepared for a damn war in the middle of the street. Bullets were flying from every direction, and we couldn't tell where they were coming from. The boys outside were pinned down, and inside we had nothing but an empty vault and a dead banker—that's when we knew we had to get out, fast. We barely made it to our horses, but even then it wasn't over. The town didn't just let us ride away. They chased us for days. Posses, bounty hunters, men on horseback hunting us through the woods and prairies. We lost our way, ran low on food, and before it was all over, the Youngers were shot to pieces and captured. It was the worst damn disaster we ever had. So what went wrong? We underestimated those people.
We went in thinking it'd be another easy job, but they fought back and they fought back hard. We were used to fear working in our favour, but Northfield didn't fear us. And because of that, the James Younger gang died in Minnesota. Only Jesse and I made it out, but we never rode with a gang like that again. After Northfield, the golden days were done. That was the beginning of the end.
Jesse wanted to keep going, keep fighting, but I saw the writing on the wall. The world was moving on without us. It was during these years that I found something Jesse never had—peace. I met a woman named Annie Rolston, the daughter of a wealthy businessman from Independence, Missouri. She was educated, refined, and strong—a woman who saw more in me than an outlaw. We married in 1874, and for the first time in my life, I dreamed of something more than running. Love? A man like me doesn't get to carry much of that in his saddlebags, not when he spent his life riding from one war to the next. But yes, there was love. I loved the land I was born on, the rolling hills of Missouri, the creek where Jesse and I swam as boys, the feel of a horse beneath me and the wide open sky above. I loved my family, my mother Zerelda, as tough as they come, who held that house together through war, loss—and the Pinkertons who tried to burn it down. And Jesse, my brother, who was too wild for the world he lived in, but who I never stopped watching over, even when he wouldn't listen.
And then there was Annie, my wife—the woman who saw something in me beyond the outlaw, beyond the gun. She came from a different world, educated, refined, everything I wasn't. But she chose me anyway. She gave me a home when I was ready to stop running, and a son, Robert Franklin James, who I lived long enough to see grow into a man. Yes, there was love, but love and an outlaw's life, they don't fit in the same saddle. I had to put down my guns before I could hold on to the things that mattered, and by the time I did, most of what I had loved was already gone. So yes, son, there was love, but it was a hard thing to hold on to when you're always looking over your shoulder."
Honour. Now there's a word that's been stretched and bent so many ways. I sometimes wonder if anyone truly knows what it means. Did I live an honourable life? Depends on who you ask. To the Pinkertons, the lawmen, the bankers—I was a thief, a rebel, a scourge that needed to be stamped out. To the folks who lost money when Jesse and I rode through town, I reckon they'd say I was nothing more than a common criminal. But honour? Honour ain't about what the law says. It's about how a man carries himself, how he treats the ones who ride beside him, and whether he can look in the mirror without flinching. I never killed a man who didn't put himself in the fight first. I never shot a man in the back. I never turned on my own. I kept my word when I gave it, and when I saw the world changing, when I knew the outlaw days were done, I didn't lie to myself. I stepped away. I surrendered with my head held high.
Sincere? I was always sincere. Whether I was riding with Quantrill, holding up a train, or sitting in a courtroom facing a judge, I never pretended to be something I wasn't. I didn't try to charm the law into letting me go. I didn't sell out my brother or my friends to save my own hide. I didn't hide behind excuses. So, was I honourable? I wasn't good in the way folks like to write about in books, but I was true to the life I lived. And that, I reckon, is the only kind of honour a man like me ever had a chance at.
Regret. Now that's a word folks like to throw around. Do I regret the years I spent as an outlaw? If I say yes—I'd be a liar. If I say no—I'd be a fool. I will tell you this.
A man does what he must to survive the times he's given.
When the war ended, there was no homecoming for men like me, no warm welcome back into society. We were hunted, dispossessed, and left with nothing but the guns on our hips. If we had lain down our arms and begged for mercy, do you think the victors would have shown us any?
No, sir. The banks we robbed weren't just holding money, they were holding power. The kind of power that crushed men like us underfoot. The railroads weren't just laying track, they were laying claim to land that didn't belong to them. So no, I don't regret fighting back. I don't regret riding fast, shooting straight, or out-smarting the law when the law had already judged me guilty. But do I regret the hardship? The blood? The loss? Yes. I regret Jesse dying the way he did, shot in the back in his own home. I regret my mother losing a son and nearly losing her life at the hands of the Pinkertons. I regret the Youngers spending their best years behind bars, while I had the luck to walk free. And I regret that the world changed faster than we could.
You see, we weren't just running from the law. We were running from time itself. And time, time never loses. So if your …
—
Original version —
Bob Dylan’s Instagram post —
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“Gunfire, blood, and sudden death, seems like a typical western ballad, is anything but.”
Bob Dylan — Red River Shore (Version 1).
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Best wishes,
nightly moth.
From Across the Sea. 2025. Oil paint on canvas
http://www.nightymothpainting.space
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