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.)

Gone But Not Forgotten: Celebrities Who Left Us in 2023

Jimmy Buffet (foto Gary Firstenberg)

They danced, they sang, they made us laugh, they made us think. And sometimes they made us wince... As 2023 closes out, newspapers and magazines around the world will assemble a veritable list of iconic figures and pop culture makers whose lives are now gone, but not forgotten.

This morning I read that actor Tom Wilkinson, who played major roles in two of my favorite films--The Ghostwriter and Michael Clayton--died yesterday. This prompted me to see who else left us behind this year.

Entertainment Week has a very long page of celebs with photos and mini-bios, which I skimmed through just now. Many who left us were in their 80s and 90s, and a few over 100. It's sad to read of others who died in their fifties, or earlier.

Here are some of the many whom we no longer have among us, with a comment or two of my own as they relate to my own life.

Bob Barker was the host of The Price Is Right for oh so many years, an all around nice guy, so it was hilarious when he got into a rough-and-tumble fist fight with a hot-headed Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. Barker was 99 when he died.

Tony Bennett was one of many crooners who emerged before my time, whom I actually had little interest. But like the little engine that could, his longevity and vocal chords resulted in many accolades. It caught my attention when he recorded with Amy Winehouse, whose music was introduced to me by my son.

I discovered author Cormac McCarthy via a pair of audiobooks at our Duluth Public Library, one of these being No Country For Old Men which I read ten months before it became a film. This fall I devoured Blood Meridian, a book like no other that I have ever read, brutal and dazzling. McCarthy was 89.

There were two Robertsons who passed this year. Pat Robertson, the Christian media personality/founder of the 700 Club, and Robbie Robertson, who made a name for himself with The Band, Bob Dylan's backing group during that famous mid-Sixties world tour. Controversies swirled around each, but I'm not going to get into it.

Tina Turner died this year, definitely a force. She overcame a lot to get where she got.

Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown was my hero as a kid growing up in Cleveland and one of the NFL's greatest running backs. (I could make a case that he was indeed the greatest.) In 1963 I got a Jimmy Brown football card for the first time in years of trying. Unfortunately, my brother Ron was shoplifting football cards from the Klir's store and my mother punished him by burning ALL of our football cards. I saved Jim Brown from the fire and slid the card between the cinder blocks in the wall of the garage. Though irretrievable, he was at least preserved from being burned.

Gordon Lightfoot died this year. A Canadian singer/songwriter he never achieved the acclaim of a Bob Dylan, but definitely wrote a lot of excellent songs. In college "If You Could Read My Mind" was a track that repeated itself in my mind. Gord's Gold was listened to much over the years.

Actor and singer Harry Belafonte was born in Harlem to Jamaican-born parents. His daughter produced a documentary about his career, which included his work in the civil rights movement. Bob Dylan played harmonica on one of Belafonte's albums, Dylan's first paid recording gig in the Big Apple.

Al Jaffee was a cartoonist for Mad Magazine for six decades. When I was a kid the satirical mag only cost a quarter. One time in the early Sixties I bought a box of them for a penny apiece at a sidewalk sale in Mapletown. How cool is that? Jaffee was 102 when he passed.

Raquel Welch was one of those sex symbol heart throbs that Hollywood would thrust onto posters to the delight of teenage boys. She was 82 when she died this year.

Gina Lollobrigida was an Italian sex symbol from a decade earlier who died at age 95 this year. I doubt I ever saw her in a movie and couldn't even say I knew what she looked like, nor did I have any fantasies about her. I only recall that her name sounded sexy.

David Crosby of CSN&Y passed away this year. If you ever compete in a Bob Dylan Trivia Contest, DC is the answer to the question, Who was Bob referring to in his song "Day of the Locusts"? Crosby was 81.

Lisa Marie Presley was only 54 when she died this year. Only child of The King, it must have been hard growing up in that world.

Jeff Beck was once dubbed one of the most influential guitar players in rock history by Rolling Stone magazine. Eight or ten years I go I obtained permission from Beck to use one of his collector cars in one of my ads for AMSOIL. I'm half curious where his car collection is today.

My brother Ron and I used to enjoy watching the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. I would pretend I was the Robert Vaughn character Napoleon Solo, and he would be Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum who died this year just six days after his 90th birthday.

Everyone remembers Burt Young as Paulie in the Rocky series of films starring Sly Stallone. I remember him for his role in the perfectly crafted Polanski film Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

I once performed Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffet in a celebrity fundraiser at the Sports Garden here in Duluth. Backed by a live band and patterned after one of those TV shows where you're critiqued (lacerated) publicly, I chose the song that Roger Reinert had intended to select. Roger, a state legislator, is now Mayor of Duluth. I wasn't the first time I competed against local mayors. 15 or more years ago I beat the mayors of Hermantown, Duluth and Superior in a celebrity race at Proctor Speedway. Buffet, who was born on Christmas Day, would have been 77 had he not passed away in September.

* * * 

For a more complete list of Celebrities We Lost in 2023 visit EW.

All the Pretty Horses

Watched All the Pretty Horses earlier this week, a much better film than I was led to expect. Having read Cormac McCarthy’s superb book this past year, I decided to pick up the film when I stumbled upon it at Blockbuster on Tuesday. Billy Bob Thornton directed this year 2000 film starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz. And whether it was short lived in theaters because of bad reviews or poor marketing, for sure it 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 got very critical reviews for his performance here, but I did not expect a lot, so I ended up surprised. The romance between Cole(Damon) and Cruz has suppressed steaminess that is believable. The film does a good job of portraying the collision of cultures in their relationship. Like the book, his heart is cut out and filleted by the whole series of events that proceed naturally from the opening decision to go south.

McCarthy’s characters are superbly crafted in his books and the settings so vivid you are transported easily and longingly. 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.

Of the images on this page, I painted the horse head last year in the spring, acrylic on paper. The photo 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.)

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

“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

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men is an incredible story so very well told. I listen to audio books and this one made me want to keep driving. I could hardly wait for the morrow's commute.

It's one of the classic thriller story lines. An ordinary person accidentally gets caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man is a nail-biter example of this genre. A Simple Plan, with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, is another.

And like any exceptional story, No Country has memorable characters. Llewelyn Moss is the unfortunate man who while hunting comes across a dope deal gone bad in the expansive back country of South Texas, and ends up with a satchel containing two million dollars in cash. There's a lesson here, though it is never stated as such: if you ever find a couple million dollars that are not yours, it's best to just stay out of it. Even though everyone involved in the transaction appears shot up and pretty much finished off, Moss knows that there will likely be others coming for the money. Little does he know how bad one of these others is.

NOTE: This Review Contains Spoilers

The guy who keeps you sitting straight up in your seat, and may keep you awake at night after, is Javier Bardem as Anton Chiguhr. Think sugar and chigger, and you have this pathological, human version of The Terminator, relentless in pursuit and seemingly indestructible. Nothing sweet about this man whose conscience is dead and determination unstoppable. Your heart rate increases every time he's on the screen.

No Country for Old Men has been receiving fabulous reviews. The Coen brothers (Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) wrote the screenplay and directed this first rate film. Like another current book adaptation, Charlie Wilson's War, there is much that has to be sifted out and only hinted at, lest we have something tiresome to watch after a while. The Coens were successful at creating the emotional tension that is generated by the book.

How did they do it? One noteworthy item is the total absence of a music soundtrack. They deserve high praise for avoiding the commercial temptation to make a music bed that would generate additional revenues afterward. Instead, they went the direct opposite way with this film. No music, no sound at all in the opening or closing credits. No fake strings section to tip viewers off that something bad is coming. The tension is created totally by the intersection of characters and circumstances. And it does get intense.

In terms of execution the film was flawless. Congrats to the Coens for their ability to bring everyone together and pull off this kind of feat.

But there were a number of problems for me with this film adaptation. First, Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. I mean, I just couldn't get past that this was Tommy Lee Jones playing a caricature of himself. He has been in too many movies where he's this hard boiled veteran whose seen too much of life. It is through his eyes that we see the story unfold. As a central character he plays this role well, but I know him as an actor from The Fugitive to Men In Black and, gosh, couldn't we find anyone else to do this? Sorry, guys. That's how it was for me.

Second, some have criticized the short amount of time Woody Harrelson is onscreen. Yep. He is a more important character in the book. Like William Hurt's brief appearance in Syriana, it was not necessary to have such star power here. O.K., it maybe sells more tickets at the box office? I really liked this character in the book, and Harrelson does play Carson Wells the bounty hunter very well, but I just don't know.

I consider both of these criticisms relatively minor compared to my one major criticism. It simply ended too fast in too confusing of a manner. I think a tight, fast ending is usually great in films so that they do not drag on after the final rush. The problem here is a tight, fast and confusing ending. If I had not read the book, I would not have known what happened. And I am not talking about the scene where Chiguhr is hit by the car. I'm referring to the preceding homicides that end the cat-and-mouse drama.

The reason this is a problem is that, in my opinion, the last emotion one should have after this kind of a thrill ride is that same relief you get when the roller coaster slams back into the station and they unlatch the mechanisms that keep you in the car. Relief. Catch your breath. Instead of a big "wow," I left the theater perplexed and disappointed, with jumbled thoughts. Instead of being in awe at the way they created such a fabulous film, I walked out baffled, dampened by the lack of clarity in the films last scenes. This should not have happened.

I still think it a powerful film and worth seeing if you like this kind of story. It will put you on the edge of your seat.