10) The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Watchmen
Whatever you may think of Zack Snyder’s visually gorgeous adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ iconic graphic novel Watchmen, there’s little denying that the film’s best scene is one of its first. It is the credits sequence, a gorgeous transitional montage that shows how the presence of costumed heroes altered the course of history from the 1940s forward, taking part in the Vietnam War and influencing the JFK assassination, to name two events of many.
Bob Dylan’s distinctively throaty vocals and evocative lyrics are so essential to imparting the sense of time’s passage throughout the sequence that I can’t imagine it working in the slightest without The Times They Are a-Changin.’Watchmen is a deeply political film in a lot of ways, and Dylan’s song works well in that respect, too, communicating a growing sense of unrest and upheaval in American society throughout the decades. The Times They Are a-Changin‘ is one of the 1960s’ quintessential protest song, which further solidifies its flawless placement in Watchmen, a film set in a society that has started to turn on itself, decaying from the inside out.
There’s also no denying the hypnotic edge that Dylan’s song gives the sequence, turning the scenes Snyder presents into vivid tableaus capable of being fully witnessed only by the viewer. Putting it simply, the combination of the beautiful, haunting images that Snyder creates with Dylan’s timeless classic transforms the title sequence of Watchmen into a work of art unto itself.
