Between the Lines: Jonathan Hodgers

When did you first come up with the idea for the book?

I completed my PhD on Bob Dylan and cinema in 2014. In the summer of 2016, my PhD supervisor, Simon Trezise, kindly suggested that Routledge might be interested in the subject as a monograph. He reached out to Routledge on my behalf. They responded positively and invited me to submit a proposal and sample chapter. So in a manner of speaking, the idea for the book emerged from my PhD proposal in 2010.

Did you start out with the intention of writing a book about a particular topic, or did a book begin to make sense as you were researching?

I had the topic, which was Dylan and film, but I didn’t have a new angle. At first, I thought the book would be a straightforward expansion of my PhD, which focused on Dylan as a historical figure as represented in cinema, both in films he was directly involved in and those featuring him as a character. As I began drafting, I realised the films Dylan actively participated in needed closer attention. Although his cinematic work is often overshadowed by his musical achievements, it offers a compelling area for exploration, which is the focus of the book.

What are the book's main ideas?

Dylan was involved in the production of several films. His filmography begins with the cinéma vérité documentary Dont Look Back (1967) [sic], which has heavily influenced the visual representation of his public persona. His directorial efforts include Eat the Document (1972) and the ambitious, self-financed Renaldo and Clara (1978). In Renaldo and Clara, Dylan fully immersed himself in the filmmaking process, overseeing performance, direction, editing, and scoring, so it offers a unique insight into his aesthetic sensibilities. He played a dual role as both actor and composer in Sam Peckinpah’s revisionist western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Later projects include his role in Richard Marquand’s Hearts of Fire (1987) and his self-penned Masked and Anonymous (2003), which marks his most recent major cinematic engagement.

I treat these films as a semi-cohesive body of work and analyse them for recurring themes and structures that might collectively characterise them as ‘Dylan films’—a categorisation that goes beyond their simply sharing the common figure of Bob Dylan. Underneath the films’ very different surfaces, there were patterns to be found. In looking for some theory that would account for this, I cycled back around to auteur theory—that Dylan, in a sense, auteured at least some of the films—and found it useful for explaining connections between his films, but also the connections between his cinematic work, music, painting, and prose.

What did writing a book allow you to do that wouldn’t have been possible in another medium eg. journal article?

The book presents in-depth analyses of several Dylan films, examined sequentially and with a consistent methodological approach. At journal article length, it would be difficult to address all the films in any meaningful detail or to fully unpack the logic behind the chosen methodology. I’d need to reintroduce the methodology each time too if the research was doled out across multiple articles.

There’s something to be said as well for the longer journey you can take with books. They allow for side roads and scenic routes. A shorter format would have precluded these. Each film required a somewhat different approach, and the inclusion of secondary, comparative material helped flesh out my ideas. For instance, segues into other films, such as Carné’s Children of Paradise (1945), or other media, like music videos, weren’t strictly necessary to persuade people of the value of the methodology I used, but nonetheless contributed a range of useful contextual material. While these secondary topics might have worked as standalone journal articles, they relied heavily on the surrounding context provided by the broader discussion of the core films.

How did you decide which publisher to place the book with?

This was decided for me—my supervisor had a preexisting relationship with Routledge and was able to facilitate the introduction, which proved invaluable. Additionally, Routledge had a ‘Screen Music’ series that explored how music interacts with moving images, making them a perfect fit for the topic of the monograph.

How long did it take to write?

Too long! Due to teaching commitments, COVID, and other work taken on during a couple of summers, the book progressed in fits and starts over about eight years. Some months were extremely productive, but then the project would fade into the background for months at a time to accommodate teaching, marking, and other responsibilities. Unfortunately, during these pauses, the mental dexterity needed for creative synthesis—pulling from various sources and ideas—would diminish owing to my distance from the material. It often took considerable effort to warm up again and refamiliarise myself with my ideas and trains of thought. In hindsight, I should have tried harder not to lose that momentum. Even dedicating just an hour a week to the book, no matter how many other pressing demands there were, would have been worthwhile.

Did you ever experience any moments of writer’s block? What did you do to overcome this?

I did experience blocks during the writing process. They would arise from concerns about methodology, the need to address and reconcile contradictions, or the challenge of capturing an idea that wasn’t easily expressed. Recognising the source of a block seemed to be the most effective way to tackle it. I found that identifying the precise cause of the problem—whether it was a methodological issue, difficulty making a particular point, or something else—was the first step. From there, I would begin writing out the problem with the goal of resolving it. Often, that process of articulating the issue in writing led me to a solution, and once the block was resolved, the scaffolding around it could be deleted.

Sometimes, the sheer volume of what needed to be written was overwhelming. In those cases, using the speech-to-text feature in Microsoft Word was useful for clearing the mental backlog. Simply talking instead of writing could generate a large amount of raw material, which could then be refined into something coherent and succinct.

What advice would you give someone thinking about writing a book?

Start! It can be a great experience. I suppose I’d also encourage others to be aware that it’s (several) marathons, and not a sprint. The whole process can be quite protracted and unwieldy. There are periods full of play and discovery, like during the research and writing, but there are also technical matters, formatting, indexing, and after the book is released, the marketing, which all demand long spells of concentrated work. It’s worth learning a lot about the entire process from the get-go, and beginning all of it in tandem with the initial drafting of the manuscript.

Permissions, in particular, can be a major time sink. If you’re dealing with commercial works or rights holders, prioritise securing permissions early. Some may be denied (as happened with me), which can curtail your ability to interweave primary texts and necessitate some significant rewrites. Identify the most critical permissions early and begin the process as soon as possible.

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before you started writing, what would that be?

Establish an informal community of supporters to help. As much as I might have wanted advice on the manuscript, I often hesitated to ask for it. And sometimes, people openly volunteered to help, but I wouldn’t take them up on their offers. This set a bad precedent, making the process of writing the book unnecessarily isolating and lonely. It also meant that valuable ideas and perspectives from people I was directly in contact with—people who could have offered specific insights or feedback—never found their way into the book.

Looking back, I’d tell myself not to be so protective or to feel guilty about asking for a reasonable amount of oversight on ideas or short drafts. Asking for help isn’t something to shy away from; in fact, given appropriate lead time, most people are flattered that you value their opinion enough to seek their input. Embrace the support. You might even tie brainstorming sessions to something social, like meeting for coffee. I wish I had done that. Maybe next time!