All the Pretty Horses, Revisited

THROWBACK THURSDAY

In 2009 I watched  All the Pretty Horses after having read Cormac McCarthy’s superb book the previous year. I  picked up the film when I stumbled upon it at Blockbuster. (Remember Blockbuster? Seems like a lifetime ago.) Billy Bob Thornton directed the film starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz and released in Y2K. Whether it was short lived in theaters because of bad reviews or poor marketing, it sure seems like a good “big screen” film with its Mexican vistas and panoramic camera work.

It’s a coming of age story with two teens from San Antonio heading south o’ the border to find work and, perhaps, adventure. John Grady Cole is the central character (Damon) in this story of innocence lost. The film remains faithful to the the book for the most part. And maybe that is what carries the film because it is a powerful story.

Some aspects of the movie were formulaic. The usual Hollywood plot twist occurs at 25-27 minutes.

If you watch any film on DVD, check out the elapsed time when the plot turns, and you will find, nine times out of ten, that this is so. It’s called writing by the book. The book, by the way, is Syd Field's Screenplay. This is the book 1990's Disney producer Robert Schwartz sent to me when I wrote my first of three Hollywood screenplays... none reaching the silver screen. Producers, decision makers, will turn to pages 25-27 to see “what happens” with the assumption that any screen writer who knows what he’s doing will make this part of the movie into a plot twist. Instead of reading a whole screenplay, the length being one page per minute of screen time, they take a short cut. Once you see this skeletal frame, you may have difficulty closing the curtain again for a while.) Anyways, Thornton’s film follows the formula. And if you wish to take an original approach to writing screen plays, you'll discover this is why the best creative screenwriters have had to go outside the system.

Damon’s performance drew sharp criticism from reviewers. but I didn't expect a lot so I ended up surprised. The romance between Cole (Damon) and Cruz had a suppressed steaminess that was believable. 

The film did a good job of portraying the collision of cultures in their relationship. Like the book, his heart is cut out and filleted by the series of events that proceed naturally from the opening decision to go south.

McCarthy’s characters are always superbly crafted in his books and the settings so vivid you are easily and longingly transported. In the film, the scenes and settings are honest replicas of reality, and one is not distracted by any false notes anywhere in the film, other than the fact that Damon and his friend Lacy Rawlings look a bit older than the 16-year-olds they were purportedly portraying.

After years of writing darker, more brutal works (like Blood Meridian, 1985), McCarthy turned toward something more accessible—without abandoning his depth. In 1992 this novel became the opening of his Border Trilogy, widening his audience while keeping his philosophical concerns intact.

As regards the book, here’s a paragraph from a reviewer at amazon.com that summarizes my impressions of the All the Pretty Horses:

“Many people compare, fairly or no, Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" to William Faulkner's literary work. What is neglected is the strain of Flannery O'Connor that runs throughout the novel as well. At any rate, "Horses" more than stands on its own as a startling achievement. It's prose is more accessible than Faulkner, and its themes less esoteric than O'Connor. "Horses" is an immaculate novel, dealing with the extreme facets of the everyday and the ways in which people become who they are.” ~ Melvin Pena

Of the images on this page, ChatGPT created the top illustration based on a horse head I'd painted the year before, acrylic on paper. The photo below was taken in Kodak Ektachrome near a river west of Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the spring of 1981. It was a beautiful horse. (As always, click to enlarge.)