The bonafide Hollywood Superstar Kirk Douglas was best known
for playing discomfited small-town reporter Chuck Tatum in Billy Wilder’s Ace
In the Hole, a humane commanding officer in Kubrick’s Path of Glory (1957), the
rebellious slave in Spartacus (1960), a reprobate movie producer Jonathan
Shields in Vincent Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), the revered
painter Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956). He also played excellent
roles in Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Gunfight at O.K. Corral
(1957), Seven Days in May (1964), Last Train from Gun Hill (1959), etc. But Mr.
Kirk Douglas himself considers playing John W. Burns (a lone cowboy smothered
by disorienting modern times) in David Miller’s Lonely Are the Brave (1962) as
his most favorite moment in the long career.
Dubbed by British film-maker Alex
Cox as ‘leftist American Western’, the film was based on Edward Abbey’s 1956
novel The Brave Cowboy. The novel was adapted into script by Douglas’ friend
and the most famous among Hollywood’s blacklisted professionals Mr. Dalton Trumbo. Although Trumbo started working on the script by 1958, two other Kirk
Douglas star vehicles – Spartacus & Robert Aldrich’s The Last Sunset (1961)
– released before it. By the time Lonely Are the Brave released into theaters,
the blacklist was lifted (although it took few more years to reinstate the
Oscars Trumbo won for script writing which he wrote under pseudonyms), but
unfortunately the movie wasn’t a commercial hit. Despite writing in an era of
despair, Trumbo didn’t use the material to preach. He writes a simple yet
powerful character study of a tragic Western hero, where the actions speak for
itself.
Director David Miller didn’t have a distinguished
film-making career. Except for the noir thriller Sudden Fear (1952) starring
Joan Crawford, Mr. Miller’s projects were mediocre at its best (after Lonely
are the Brave, Miller once again worked with Trumbo for the reasonably good
conspiracy thriller Executive Action). However, David Miller’s exploration of
extremely polarizing American society and disarrayed system is full of subtle
visual cues which we don’t often see in studio-backed Western films. Trumbo’s
meticulous, non-didactic script touches on themes of individual freedom,
illegal immigrants, systemic crackdowns, escalating militarization (themes which
are more relevant in contemporary America). The film opens with a spectacular scene: a
cowboy breaking his mischievous and clumsy horse Whiskey on the open range. The
atmosphere and the playful character is something we have seen in hundreds of
Westerns. But when the cowboy lifts his hat to look up he sees jet smoke in the
sky. Suddenly we are bestowed with the fact that the tale isn’t set in mid or
late 19th century, but at the present (early 1960s).
The cowboy named John W. Burns (Jack for short) rides
through New Mexico, cutting the barbed wires established by private
corporations, not because he is a proletarian who condemns private ownership,
but simply because he is a genuine free-spirited soul. There’s a beautiful shot
when Burns and Whiskey ride into town, crossing the very busy road. As he
struggles with his horse in the middle of the road with cars & trucks
blasting through, the predicament of the cowboy in modern reality becomes
plainly visible. Burns rides to his best pal Paul’s (Michael Kane) house where
he learns from his beloved wife, Jerry (Gena Rowlands) that he is in jail. Paul
is imprisoned at the local prison for providing sanctuary to illegal Mexican
immigrants. Burns decides to help his friend before he is moved to upstate
prison. He deliberately gets himself in a fight at local bar and that too with
a bullying one-armed war veteran.
Later at the police station, when the officer turns him
loose since the prisons are full, Burns delivers a vigorous blow on the lawmen.
With an amplified charge-sheet that will at least get him a year, Burns finally
meets Paul in the cell in order to tell his plans of breaking themselves out.
However, Paul denies the offer as he doesn’t want to bring more misery on
himself and his family. He doesn’t want a life on the run. It is evident that
despite an undeniably charming posture, Burns is deeply averse or even afraid
to modern rules and the enclosed spaces. After failing to persuade Paul, he
decides to breaks out on his own. He takes Whiskey across the vast, open
wilderness. A disdainful, annoyed local sheriff named Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau) leads the police pursuit. The odds are clearly stacked against Burns’ mad
dash to Mexico, since military men volunteer themselves to track down the cowboy
in helicopter (the general calls it a practice). We hope that the cowboy dodges
his pursuers, metaphorically rising his middle finger to the stern system.
There are plenty of fascinating touches in Trumbo’s
character sketches. The relationship between Burns and Jerry is at once both
enigmatic and deeply emotional. They both have been friends from childhood and
it’s evident that Jerry is in love with Burns, but Trumbo’s writing doesn’t
denigrate their connectedness or romanticizes it. Although Trumbo’s characters
involve themselves in acts against the system, he doesn’t charge it up with overbearing ideology. Paul’s act of human decency, Jerry’s decision to commit herself to
son Seth and husband, Paul and Burns’ non-conformity stand against government thugs
could be understood and related without scrutinizing it through a political
lens.
Director David Miller does a commendable job in realizing Trumbo & Abbey’s
vision of inhumane, apathetic modern world. Flawlessly photographed by Philip
Lathrop, each expertly staged scene brims with naturalism. The barroom fight
and shots of Burns gliding up the mountain with rocks tumbling down creates
truly menacing atmosphere. The best scenes in the film are when Burns tries to
break in Whiskey in order to help him escape. On such occasions, the disobedient Whiskey
stands-in as representation of cowboy’s existential crisis. He repeatedly tries
to hold onto its rein, the struggle reflects his broad struggle with the
external factors to hold onto his cherished vision of freedom.
It’s understandable
why Kirk Douglas loved playing this flawed yet fascinating cowboy. There’s a
sense of calm or lack of forcefulness in his performance. There’s no extra
glorification added to celebrate Burns’ act of self-preservation. Douglas eventually
lets Burns be the confused guy and the one detached from reality without trying
to justify himself verbally. The supporting cast including Gena Rowlands and
Walter Matthau are also nothing short of excellent. Matthau’s splendid sardonic
humor dispels the otherwise gloomy chase. Nevertheless, the film ends with one
of saddest and most memorable shots. The dazed look of the cowboy, the
empathetic gazes of passersby, the blaring horse writhing in pain, and the
relentless downpour; ‘will humanity ever triumph over the inflexible,
conformity-seeking world?’ the question haunts our mind as we look at these
most brilliant visual compositions.
Lonely Are the Brave (108 minutes) is a singular and
achingly sad Western drama about a fiercely independent cowboy fleeing away
from the clampdowns of modern industrialized society.
Trailer
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