Texcentric Cinema
A portrait of our state, in film.
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Texas is a logical locale for chase movies because it offers so much state to chase through. A Perfect World has all the familiar elements of the genre: miles of roads, pit stops, and a showdown at the catch, but in this one, the pairing up of a criminal and a kid makes for a refreshing twist. Costner plays Butch Haynes, a smart, relatively good-natured escaped convict forced to take an eight-year-old boy hostage. Red Garnett (Eastwood) is the Texas Ranger on their tail, a hard-working lawman with a cross to bear. No doubt it’s the relationship between Haynes and the boy that makes up the meat of the movie, but that could take place anywhere. What’s Texcentric about the film is its study in law-enforcement, and the unique situation the Texas Rangers find themselves in when solving a crime. Nowhere else is there an agency like the DPS’s mythic old-school rangers, separate from the county sheriff’s department and local police force. The struggle between Garnett, local authorities, the FBI, and the female criminal psychologist (played by Dern) assigned to the case by the governor also heralds a time of change for Texas and the nation itself. Set in the pre-assassination 1960s, A Perfect World portends the imperfect one that is just around the corner, without innocence and hindered by bureaucracy. In A Perfect World, the perfect metaphor is an Airstream trailer presented to Garnett for travel, a shiny beacon of the future that proves too cumbersome for an old-fashioned Texas manhunt.
PLACES IN THE HEART
Directed by Robert Benton; with Sally Field, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Harris, Danny Glover, John Malkovich, Amy Madigan, Yankton Hatten, and Gennie James. 1984
Even though it’s kind of sappy, there’s plenty to like about this story of a newly-widowed young woman determined to support her family and save her home from the bank. For one, her little daughter is named Opossum and she’s as cute as one, and for another it co-stars a young John Malkovich as a blind boarder, and Danny Glover as the farmhand that saves the day. Texas stars proudly as Waxahachie in the 30s, and pulls off some impressive dusty, flat landscapes and a spectacular tornado scene. Though there are some great shots of the famous Waxahachie courthouse whose stonework depicts a woman’s descent into madness, it doesn’t draw any parallels with the film’s warm outcome. Places in the Heart won writer/director Benton an Oscar for best screenplay (he’s a Waxahachie native) and gave Sally Field Best Actress for her role as Edna Spaulding. Places in the Heart also has to be one of the only films that features an entire dance of the Cotton-eyed Joe.
RED RIVER
Directed by Howard Hawks; with John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, John Ireland, Noah Beery, Jr., Shelley Winters, Harry Carey, Jr., and Harry Carey, Sr. 1948
Touted as one of the best westerns of all time and featuring one of the greatest roles for the genre’s king, John Wayne, this film embodies the big scale Texas myth: miles and miles of untamed land that can bring wealth and prestige to any man possessing hardscrabble pioneering qualities (of course it has to be stolen away from the American Indians or the Mexicans, first). Wayne is the determined Tom Dunson, hardened by personal loss, who breaks free from a wagon train headed west to settle in Texas. Starting with a measly herd of two cows, he grows the largest cattle ranch north of the Rio Grande. But Dunson isn’t cash rich, and he’s forced to drive his herds to Kansas for the sale. In a story that recounts the creation of the Chisolm Trail while visiting the themes of mutiny, power, regret, and rebirth, the unsympathetic authoritarian Dunson is ultimately corralled by his more humane surrogate son (played by the dashing Montgomery Clift). Wayne has a memorable line in the first moments of the film, when Dunson first realizes he’s in Lone Star land. “We’re in Texas,” says his faithful companion, Goot. “It feels good to me,” Wayne answers.
RUSH
Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck; with Jason Patric, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sam Elliott, Max Perlich, Gregg Allman, Tony Frank, William Sadler, and Special K. McCray. 1991
Based on the true story of narcotics agent Kim Wozencraft who succumbed to addiction while undercover on a case in Tyler, Texas, in the 1970s, Rush is a gritty account of the perils that law enforcement agents face in the war against drugs. Jason Patric is intense as the experienced Raynor, an undercover cop who shoots up with the dealers to prove he is one of them and convinces his inexperienced partner (Leigh) to do the same. By the end of the film, we discover that these two might not be cops posing as drug addicts, but drug addicts pretending to be cops. Wozencraft spent time in prison for her addiction, where she kept the journals that were later formed into a novel and adapted for the screen. If it’s not altogether apparent that Rush was filmed in Houston, this local true-crime tragedy is a reminder that the drug trade also exists under the big skies of Texas, and that more than just tourists and illegal aliens pass back and forth over the border we share with Mexico.
SELENA
Directed by Gregory Nava; with Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, John Seda, Constance Marie, Jacob Vargas, Lupe Ontiveros, and Jackie Guerra. 1997
In the world of bio pics Selena may not stand out technically nor substantively, but the film accurately documents the rise and premature fall of singer Selena—Tejano music’s darling, murdered by a jealous employee, just on the verge of success outside her regular channels—a subject of great import to a significant segment of the Texas population. Edward James Olmos delivers a stand-out performance as Selena’s nurturing yet strict father, and as Selena, Jennifer Lopez straddles the fence between sweet and red hot sexy with ease. Not only does the film share the details of Selena’s childhood and rise to stardom, but it gives insight into contemporary Mexican-American culture in Texas, the importance of family—Selena’s brother and sister were members in her band—and their stick-togetherness in surmounting the obstacles that come as the price of fame. Cheerful beachy street shots of Corpus Christi, where Selena grew up, will make you want to visit.
TENDER MERCIES
Directed by Bruce Beresford; with Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin, and Allan Hubbard. 1982
A very slow and genuine story of a famous alcoholic country singer (Duvall) inspired to straighten up his life by a young woman (Harper) and her son, Tender Mercies captures the wild abandon and regret commingled in the rich musical history of Texas, and at the same time tells a deeply moving tale of personal redemption. Scripted by Horton Foote (upon whose play the film is based), the loose narrative hangs on longshots of the desolate Texas landscape. Both Foote and Duvall won Academy awards for their efforts, Duvall’s role extending beyond his touching performance to the soundtrack containing songs he wrote and sang expressly for the screen.
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
Directed by James L. Brooks; with Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow, and Lisa Hart Carroll. 1983
This family-comedy-turned-melodrama appears regularly on lists of Texas films even though it lacks some of the local flavor of the McMurtry novel on which it is based. Prominently featuring Houston (it was shot there and in Nebraska), Terms of Endearment follows an emotional mother-daughter relationship over the years, and the film adaptation owes its success to rich characterization. MacLaine has burned sharp-tongued yet loving mama Aurora Greenway into our collective subconscious, and Debra Winger is a perfect example of the rebellious daughter that really never leaves the nest. The best part of the movie, the acidic repartee between Aurora and her love interest—the equally biting ex-astronaut/neighbor Garrett Breedlove (Nicholson)—serves as a compelling distraction to the tragic events that turn Terms of Endearment into an unrivaled tearjerker.
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Directed by: Tobe Hooper; with Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Allen Danziger, Edwin Neal, Paul A. Partain, and William Vail. 1974
Saw this one at my grandparents’ drive-in and was scared of Texas for years. Now I’m just sometimes leery of barbecue. A precursor in the genre of film which includes both Halloween and Friday the 13th, this grisly yet somehow silly story of a family of freak murderers who chainsaw their victims and dress in their skin plays out just like a Texas tall tale. Thing is, the film originally advertised that the story was supposed to be based on true ocurrences. Unremitting and not one bit subtle, we follow our unsuspecting vanful of teenagers through demise by meat hook, sledgehammer and ole’ Leatherface’s buzzing saw. Hands-down winner for longest screaming sequence ever.
TEXASVILLE
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich; with Jeff Bridges, Annie Potts, Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Earl Poole Ball, William McNamara, and Sharon Ullrick. 1991
Well it’s 30 years later—the picture show is long since gone from Anarene, and Sam the Lion is dead—but our principles are still kicking. Duane Jackson is head of a turbulent family and owns an oil business that’s $12 million in debt; Sonny may be mayor but he’s seeing movies in the sky and increasingly can’t recall where he left his car; and the high school homecoming queen, Jacy Farrow, is back from Hollywood to mourn a dead son. As morose as this all sounds, Texasville is quite funny. The follow-up to the quintessential Texas film has been criticized for turning McMurtry’s characters into stereotypes and it does, a little. But considering no sequel could have lived up to The Last Picture Show, at least we can be entertained by the all-out mischief that provides these folks a much-deserved break from existential dread. Director Bogdanovich may have replaced the Royal Theater with a cheesy façade of old-time Texasville (put up in the town square for the Centennial celebration), and traded the desolate black and white landscapes of the original for dirt roads littered with Dairy Queens, but it’s still all about the timeless desires that drive a simple Texas town.
URBAN COWBOY
Directed by James Bridges; with John Travolta, Debra Winger, Scott Glen, Madolyn Smith, Barry Corbin, Brooke Alderson, and Cooper Huckabee. 1980
This John Travolta vehicle helped to foster the cliché of Texas city life; the legend of Gilley’s flashy honky-tonk has found space in our collective conscience right next to Wranglers and Ropers. All about atmosphere, the script was adapted from a 1978 Esquire article about the way the young wannabe macho petrochemical workers in Houston spent their leisure time—drinking, shuffling across the dance floor, and attempting to out ride each other on that silly mechanical bull. Though the film was no Saturday Night Fever, and may in fact have been the beginning of the end (until late that is) of Travolta’s time in the spotlight, it captures a subculture of late-seventies Houston with disconcerting flourish.
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