Reeling Backward: "Urban Cowboy" (1980)

Let me start by stipulating that John Travolta and Debra Winger, both terrifically talented performers, are crashingly unconvincing as a cowboy and cowgirl. They don't for a second look, talk or behave like people who grew up ridin' and ropin' on the dusty Texas plains.

Travolta's accent, in particular, is a horrid sham of generic Southern clipped consonants and bent vowels that falls just this side of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood in sheer awfulness. And Winger... well, let's just say that she looks more like she sprung from a kibbutz than a frontier claim.

But perhaps that's appropriate.

The film was directed by James Bridges from a script co-written by him and Aaron Latham, based on Latham's magazine story, "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America's Search for True Grit." It was an exploration of the cowboy myth as it's been transposed to a modern big-city setting, with the accompanying music, clothes and other touchstones reimagined for a new generation that grew up thinking broncos were boxy trucks, not frisky ponies.

It was an era of faux cowboys trying to recreate the image of their forefathers, just as disco'd-up "country" bands were exploding on the airwaves with synthesized beats that would've made Hank Williams Sr. faint in his boots. 

In a follow-up story written 20 years later, Latham opined that "the cowboy is the only truly mythic figure that America had created so far. He comes to the fore in the culture, then he recedes for a time, but he always seems to reemerge when we're uncertain about the future."

The late 1970s and early '80s certainly qualifies for that description. After seeing America diminished by Vietnam, Watergate and polyester suits, there was an undercurrent of fear, of feeling unmoored from the nation's pioneer legacy. Men were trading in their Stetsons for hardhats to work on the ocean of oil wells scattering the state.

So Travolta's Bud is a representational figure standing amidst the crossflow of cultural sea changes. A legitimate cowboy who turns into a fake one, he leaves his tiny hometown of Spur for Houston hoping he can catch a job at the refinery where his Uncle Bob works.

Bob is a mentor and role model to Bud, a fellow cowpuncher who made it "big time" in the city with his own family and spread. Never mind that Bod's homestead is part of a crammed subdivision of cheap prefab houses with a grand backyard view of high-power electrical lines.

Bob is played by Barry Corbin, one of those actors with such a consummate authenticity and workaday solidity that he often plays figures of pastoral authority. (And, like Alec Guinness and Ossie Davis, he was always much younger than audiences imagined him to be -- he was still in his 30s when this movie came out.) He's terrific in a rather underwritten role.

The story revolves around the love-hate romance of Bud and Sissy (Winger), a local gal who lives to mix it up. She and Bud impetuously wed after barely starting to date, and a week later they've already separated. The main cause of friction, at least initially, is that she's better at riding a mechanical bull than he is, at least initially.

The robot bull is the hottest new attraction at Gilley's Club, a real-life honky-tonk where a large chunk of the movie takes place. Run by country star Mickey Gilley, who appears and sings in the movie, Gilley's is practically a supporting character, a modern-day bastardization of the Old West saloon, now splayed out across "3½ acres of prairie concrete" and complete with a dance floor, carnival games and more silliness.

One wonders if they even have whiskey behind the bar.

Other pop/country acts of the day also show up to perform, including the Charlie Daniels Band, Bonnie Raitt and Johnny Lee, whose "Lookin' for Love" became a #1 Billboard hit and helped propel the movie's soundtrack into a top seller. Many in the country music biz even mark "Urban Cowboy" as the demarcation between old-school country and new, when it became more popular but more commercialized.

"Urban Cowboy" is in essence a musical, with long stretches of the action taking place sans dialogue as music blares, rendering the entire endeavor into something of a nascent music video. (It was later turned into an unsuccessful stage musical.)

Don't forget, in 1980 Travolta's two big screen hits were "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever," so the studios no doubt saw "Urban Cowboy" as a way to extend his run as a song-and-dance star. Of course, Bud doesn't sing in the movie, though there is one scene of him doing some impressive clogging (or "kicker dancing," as they would call it in Texas).

The heavy is Wes Hightower, played by my all-time favorite "That Guy" actor, Scott Glenn. Recently released from prison where he was a champion bullrider in the big inmate rodeo, Wes sidles into the scene at Gilley's like a shark swimming into a school of guppies. Amidst the posers and wannabes, he's a real-deal cowboy, a throwback hardcase who's always looking for a good ride and a big payday -- even if a little blood has to be spilled in the process.

First seen wearing a ridiculous see-through mesh shirt that shows off Glenn's signature chiseled torso, Wes easily sets Bud to shame with his prowess on the mechanical bull, then starts making smiling eyes at Sissy. They scuffle, Bud has his drunken rear end handed to him, and before you know it Sissy is shacked up with Wes in a trailer out back of Gilley's, and Bud has decamped to the arms of Pam (Madolyn Smith), a rich city girl who likes to slum it with cowboys.

The story wobbles this way and that, with a whole lot of behavior and music for music's sake. At 132 minutes the movie is at least a half-hour too long. And certain events have an obligatory feel, such as a sudden tragedy and the build-up to the big bullriding competition worth a $5,000 purse (about $15k in today's dollars).

Still, the film has its memorable moments, such as Winger's sexy slo-mo bull ride, her limbs splayed across the mechanical animal like a white trash Diana prancing with the satyrs. With her liquid, soulful eyes and cantankerous stubbornness, she's the best thing about the movie.

I can't finish this essay without discussing the violence against women depicted. Sissy gets smacked around pretty hard by both Bud and Wes, though the former at least apologizes for it after the fact. Disturbingly, in both cases it's presented as something women just have to put up with if they take up with a guy in a 10-gallon hat.

"Urban Cowboy" isn't a standout piece of filmmaking, but it did launch a bunch of careers, and helped change the tide of country music, whether for good or ill. It's one of those movies that stands as a totem representing a time and place; there are worst inscriptions on cinematic tombstones.

Reeling Backward: The Paper Chase (1973)

Something that many of us do in life is look back on our youth with, if not exactly regret, then melancholy puzzlement. The things that seemed so important to us back then are rendered inert, even pointless with the perspective of the passing years. We ponder the years and mental/emotional energy spent on stuff that we now regard with little value.

This can be especially true when it comes to our schooling. I didn't really have a social clique in high school, but I was part of the stratum of grade-grubbing academic overachievers who were focused solely on putting together the best possible college application. Taking the most challenging classes, rocking a 4.0 GPA, academic societies, the "right" extracurricular activities -- it was part of the perceived on-ramp to the highway of success that had been mapped out for us going back to elementary school.

"The Paper Chase" is about a rather similar journey, cycled forward a few years later. Set at the prestigious Harvard Law School, this film based on John Jay Osborn Jr.'s novel follows first-year law student James Hart (Timothy Bottoms) as he struggles to navigate the hyper-competitive waters and earn accolades, particularly from the demanding professor of contract law, the legendary Charles Kingsfield. 

John Houseman won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor playing Kingsfield, and would even go on to reprise the role in a TV series that ran for a total of four seasons (split by a hiatus). Houseman is a strong presence, but the role isn't particularly demanding, essentially asking that Houseman be Houseman -- which is to say, the persona he came to inhabit during the latter part of his career: emotionally distant patrician, clipped elocution, a strong whiff of snobbery and disdain for his lessers.

The film would also earn Academy Award nominations for screenplay, by writer/director James Bridges, as well as sound. The movie is considered to be a nearly word-for-word adaptation of the book, so in a sense the screenplay nomination was an endorsement more of Osborn than Bridges. 

Certainly, the film suffers from shoddy pacing, seeming to grow very slow and myopic in its storytelling, then skimming over stuff that would seem way more important than the time and emotion the filmmakers invest in it. This is especially true when it comes to the romance between Hart and Susan (Lindsay Wagner), a woman is eventually revealed to be Kingsfield's daughter.

The relationship seems to exist entirely so we can have this big reveal moment, but it doesn't grow or ebb or evolve or anything. They get together for sex from time to time, go off on weekend jaunts, but can't move any further because he's studying all the time and she's his nemesis' offspring.

Now about that animosity between pupil and teacher: it exists only in the mind of Hart. The basic story of "The Paper Chase" is how Hart rises to the challenge of his stern taskmaster, not only mastering the lessons of the classroom but also how to earn the right to act as an officer of the courts. He sneaks into the law library's hidden archives to review Kingsfield's own notes from his days as a law student, and reads all of his academic writings going back 40 years. 

Initially trounced by the burden -- on the first day of class, Hart is embarrassed when Kingsfield quizzes him on material he failed to prepare, sending him scurrying to the men's room to vomit -- he eventually become the cocky favorite, boasting to Susan that he's several steps ahead of his adversary, her father. 

The truth is that the aged Kingsfield barely knows who he is, repeatedly having to lean upon a seating chart of his classroom with photos to be able to tell his students apart. One of the final scenes has Hart complimenting Kingsfield on how much the class meant to him, and he's knocked down a peg or five when the professor asks to be reminded of his name once again. There's a great reaction shot of Bottoms, as he realizes his grand quest to vanquish his academic foe has been a sustained ride of utter self-delusion.

Bottoms, one of the most promising young actors of his generation (which includes Richard Gere and Jeff Bridges, his co-star from "The Last Picture Show"), largely disappeared from the film scene after the 1970s, popping up from time to time, especially to portray President George W. Bush in several different settings. 

His poofy white-man afro was a constant source of mirth for me while watching the film. This appears to be as far as the counter-culture invades into the fictional Harvard law scene of the early 1970s, with the long-ish haired students sporting coats and ties and neurotic ambitions about landing the right job with the right law firm. They may take up causes, but there are no rebels here.

The most interesting thing to me about the movie was the group dynamic of the students in Kingsfields' class. They quickly segregate themselves into three categories: those who are destined to fail, the anointed who dominate the Socratic dialogue led by Kingsfield, and the muddled middle, which is where Hart assigns himself -- those struggling to keep up but too intimidated to talk in class. In one of he film's best scenes, Hart forms, and brilliantly executes, a plan to move to the upper echelon.

The different types are encapsulated in the study group Hart gets invited into. Graham Beckel plays Ford -- I should mention the students all are referred to by only their last names -- a wealthy scion from a family of lawyers. Edward Herrmann, who was born looking like George Will's taller sibling, plays the young patrician-in-training, Anderson. James Naughton is Brooks, the hopelessly outclassed student who lacks the brain for even basic analysis of the case law, despite a photographic memory.

My favorite is Bell, deliciously played by Craig Richard Nelson, the sniveling overachiever type who looks down upon everyone else as his underlings. Each student in the study group is assigned to write an outline of each of the courses they share so they can prepare for the make-or-break exams at the end of the term. Bell haughtily refuses to share his 800-page treatise with anyone except Hart, though later he changes his mind. 

"The Paper Chase" is a well-acted, reasonably engaging drama that never quite finds its center. It is transparently obvious that Hart is deluding himself about his adversarial relationship with Kingsfield, so that aspect doesn't hold any surprises. The romance is a fizzle. The only time the movie truly finds its mojo is in those crackling classroom scenes.

It's too bad it takes four decades of remove to have the hindsight to recognize what's really important -- in filmmaking, in academia and in life.