On 12/18/2021 8:03 AM, Bill Anderson wrote:
I had learned more than I should have about the story and actually
feared I wouldn't like the movie. In fact, I didn't at first, but I'm
glad I stuck with it last night. I'm still pondering it this morning.
It's 1925 Montana (filmed in New Zealand) and a widow runs a boarding
house with her early twenties son who's clearly not the masculine type.
She marries a very nice and very wealthy rancher (Landry from Friday
Night Lights) who shares a prairie mansion he's inherited along with his equally wealthy and much less nice brother (Sherlock from Sherlock). And
then a story plays out.
The film is beautiful; the gorgeousness practically overwhelms at times.
I want to ride to the ranch in a Model T, spend weeks in that home,
sleep in a feather bed, dine on their food, take a dip in that stream, breathe the pristine air flavored with the scent of that corral. The
movie didn't just make it all look real, but it took me there, made me
feel I was present. This film is a lock to get the AA for cinematography
-- I have spoken.
I wouldn't say there are holes in the plot exactly. I mean it's not like
some things contradict other things. It's more that there are gaps in
the story, some pretty major, that the viewer is left to fill in on his
own. The arc of the story is easy to follow, but little things -- how
did he know to go there, why burn things of value, what's the deal with
mom and pop -- the movie just doesn't say. I think. Maybe I missed something, but I'm pretty sure I was paying attention. Still, the gaps didn't really impact my overall enjoyment of the movie.
It's beautiful, it's smart and I felt rewarded. Have a look.
Finally got around to reading the book, partly in hopes I'd enjoy it (I
did) and partly in hopes it would explain some things (it did.).
The book's prose is as gorgeous as the film's cinematography. The
author, Thomas Savage, grew up wealthy in Montana, living on ranches
like the one in the movie. His prose descriptions of the mountains, the
prairie grasses, the clean air, the smells, the animals...are like
poetry and just as descriptive as the movie's magnificent cinematography.
The old folks left the ranch because they couldn't stand living with
their son Phil.
Phil befriended the kid only to hurt the mother, but maybe it's hinted
sorta maybe he was getting other ideas before he died.
The kid had been told the hills were full of carcasses of cattle that
died of anthrax and he just kept looking until he found one.
Phil burned the hides because he couldn't stand the thought of traveling
Jews buying them up and selling them at a profit. Having Rose sell them
was really a plot device to allow the kid to offer Phil some other
rawhide to finish the rope. He said he'd acquired it so he could learn
to braid a rope like Phil.
The book is far more oblique than the movie about Phil's suppressed homosexuality. According to Annie Proulx in an updated afterward to the
book, she was approached by Jane Campion and her producer to get her
opinion about whether Phil and Bronco Henry ever consummated their
affection. Proulx assured them that Savage's poetic description of
foliage in a pertinent passage contains all the coded references anyone
who knows coded references would need to understand that of course they
got it on. Apparently such subjects were not discussed openly in novels
when this one was written. The book doesn't mention any muscle
magazines.
It's quite a story and I thought the book was well worth my time. Annie
Proulx can't understand and neither can I why the immensely talented
Thomas Savage and his novels are not better known.
--
Bill Anderson
I am the Mighty Favog
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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