by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Welcome back to year two of Printing the Legend, where I journey far and wide across the western genre in search of the horizon. What is the horizon in this context? This column has a few purposes: to explore the history of a storied genre, find out what they say about America, and what they say about the time they were made in. For the second year, I will continue to explore landmark films in the genre in even months (February, April, etc.), and in odd months I will be focusing on westerns that center women, Black people, or Indigenous cultures. To kick the year off properly, I wanted to talk about one of each.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid debuted to middling acclaim at first, though it did pick up seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, and Picture and won four (music, song, cinematography and adapted screenplay). At this point, it is one of the most popular entries in the genre. On Letterboxd, it is currently the 16th most popular western, but if you remove movies from the last 13 years, it jumps to 6th, beaten only by 3 Sergio Leone pictures, Unforgiven, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It is an interesting metric, and I knew I would have to cover it for this column. I had never seen it all the way through before, though I was familiar with the overall plot and some key sequences thanks to cultural osmosis. 

As a first watch, I was very much caught up in the whiplash between the film’s tones. The opening paragraph from the original (uncredited) review in Time sums up my reaction: 

"I got vision," brags Butch Cassidy, "and the rest of the world wears bifocals." Unfortunately, the rest of the world includes the makers of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Every character, every scene, is marred by the film's double view, which oscillates between sympathy and farce. 

It took me a long time to catch on to the tone. Almost every 10 minutes I found myself asking if I was watching a comedy western or a more straightforward western. Adding this seesaw feeling to the very modern feel of the movie and it almost made me question how well it actually fits in the genre. Which is ridiculous, because Butch Cassidy is about the end of the frontier, and the endpoint of the genre. The movie depicts these real life figures, Butch (Paul Newman), Sundance (Robert Redford), and Etta (Katharine Ross) in a loving and lighthearted way as they continually run out of ‘untamed’ land on which to run their criminal gang. I know that I will enjoy this a lot more the next time I watch because I won’t be figuring it out as much as just enjoying its central juxtaposition. But for now, The Sting remains king for Newman/Redford.

Released in 1969, it was the top grossing entry at the box office that year, one of the oddest and most interesting years in Hollywood. Following it are The Love Bug, Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, Hello Dolly!, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Paint Your Wagon, and True Grit. And taken overall, it sort of makes sense that Butch landed at the top of this list. It’s got a musical-esque sequence (more on the bicycle in a minute), it's one of three westerns in the top eight, but it has a light counterculture bent to it with its satirical outlook. Hollywood excels at distilling counterculture into the mainstream, and here in 1969 it already feels like they are assimilating New Hollywood at the same time that it is emerging. As a western, it comes a year after Once Upon a Time in the West, and it feels like screenwriter William Goldman and director George Roy Hill are trying to find a way that isn’t in debt to John Ford or Leone. Taken with movies like Easy Rider and True Grit, it feels like these movies are recognizing the need for the genre’s next evolution, even if they aren’t sure what that is yet. 

But it just feels wrong for a western outlaw to be civilized enough to ride a bicycle. That scene is cute, mostly because Paul Newman is maybe the most charming person to ever step in front of a camera. And it looks great too, cinematographer Conrad Hall is a master and this is a perfect example of how to convey the emotions of a sequence, the charisma of an actor, and the kinetics of the action on screen in camera. However, that sequence is one of the clearest examples of my favorite thing in the movie, its approach to masculinity. Allowing it to be playful and tender as often as it is strong and posturing as invulnerable.

Butch and Sundance are as close as two men can be. They rely on each other and help each other when one has more experience than the other, like swimming or shooting a man for the first time. This approach actively pushes back on the archetype of the genre of the lone hero saving or bettering the community. Here there are two men, but they are soft anti-heroes. They clearly love each other and have no problem being vulnerable with each other. While many point to a homoerotic subtext between the two, it’s still one of the most positive portrayals of male friendship I can think of in any medium. These guys are the Riggs and Murtaugh of their day. 

However, it’s not that simple. Despite being the titular characters, they aren’t a duo so much as a trio. Etta plays an important role in the film and in the dynamic between Butch and Sundance. There is no jealousy there, just acceptance, even when Butch jokes about stealing Etta from Sundance. Their bedroom walls are so thin they can have a conversation at normal volume. She rounds out their dynamic, and she has a strong connection to Butch as well as to her primary partner. It’s difficult to read this as anything but polyamorous, especially with the romantic tone of the whole movie in mind. The most heartbreaking thing here is not the implied death of the men, but Etta leaving them to return to the United States after failing to convince the two to settle down somewhere. The two men don’t feel that any country that has law and order in place will accept them. Their three-person unit bucks convention, and they keep searching for new frontiers so they can live their lives the way they want, without being thrown in jail for pushing back on heteronormative monogamy. 

I wanted to pair Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with The Belle Starr Story because they both are fictionalized stories based on real historical figures, but have very different tones and approaches. Released a year prior, The Belle Starr Story is the rare spaghetti western with a woman in the title role, and the only one directed by a woman. This was my first exposure to the directorial work of Lina Wertmüller, but it will not be my last. Here, Belle Starr is played by Elsa Martinelli, but there have been a number of other famous actresses who have played Starr in other productions, including Gene Tierny and Jane Russell. 

In contrast to some other depictions, The Belle Starr story does not include any nod to the unsolved murder of its title character, but takes a sort of episodic approach. Wertmüller also worked on the script, and centered it around the relationship between Starr and another outlaw, Larry Blackie (George Eastman). After a meet cute during a poker game, the two begin a torrid and psychosexual affair, and spend much of the rest of their time together sexually entangled or pointing guns at each other. 

An extended flashback sequence shows Starr’s origins, and explains some of the reasons underlying her masculine-coded behavior. Her uncle killed her parents and often whipped her and his employees. Her first love attempted to rape her. Only by using violence and looking after herself was she able to escape. These flashbacks add to the episodic nature of the film’s structure, but provide important insight into Wertmüller’s take on the material. As a girl, Starr was hardened by life, and only by taking a gun in her hand was she able to take control over her life. Since then, she has primarily used her skills with a firearm and her manipulation of men with her postured femininity to part them with her money and defend her own life. 

With the core of the present day narrative dedicated to the Starr-Blackie relationship, it feels as though Wertmüller is taking one of the core dynamics of the spaghetti western–the unstable partnership between unlikely allies–and making the subtext text. Because this is a heterosexual relationship (no matter how ‘masculine’ of an archetype Starr takes on, Elsa Martinelli’s feminine beauty shines through in every scene), the psychosexual dynamic around the attraction-distrust cycle the two go through can be fully explored. This gave The Belle Starr Story an unpredictable feel, and makes me recommend it for those who enjoy the genre. The DVD I purchased looked like it was transferred from a VHS copy, so I hope The Belle Starr Story gets a nice print scan someday soon so Wertmüller’s singular statement on the western looks as good as it is fun to watch.

Gender is one of the main themes I am trying to explore this year, along with racial and ethnic depictions in the genre. Come back at the end of the month for a piece on Buck and the Preacher.