From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: BC in the movies [no longer diverging]
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 18:20:44 GMT

Okay, let consider another film.  The last one was rated MPAA R.
These make the most interesting, controversial adult level films.
Anything else is likely to be (exceptions) all smiles.  Why you might
see nothing wrong with these films and might no view them
critically?  What could we chose from the list?

Abbey is on the index, so why not use one of his films?  Hum, cowboys,
might involve some shooting, violence.  Sure.  I was thinking of a
PG film and then an example G film.  This was shot before ratings.  Okay.
We'll get to those later.

Lonely Are the Brave
has been cited as perhaps one of the ten greatest unsung films.
If you read Kirk Douglas's biography, you will find this little film,
done as a favor for a friend, is his favorite film.  Martin Scorese
also has it as a favorite, and those PBS reviewers also like it.
Minimal special effects.  Sorry, no light sabres, no computer graphics,
two interesting bits with aircraft.

The film is adapted from the book The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
(one of two films made from his work,  I'll call NBC today for the other,
I want to see Fire on the Mountain).  Brave concerns a cowboy John W. Burns
in modern America (wrong word, I should know, he's a wrangler, a cow hand,
a buckeroo, a wanderer).  He's an anachronism for an earlier time,
we find out later than Jake Burns is a war hero, college educated, and
originally from Long Island (funny, that describes friend Kim's ex-husband...).

Burns goes to Duke City, NM (actually Alb., very nice shots of the Sandia
Mountains before it got built up) to visit a college friend.  It turns out
he's in jail for helping "illegal" aliens cross the border.  So he get himself
put in jail to break his friend out.   The friend has decided to serve his
time.  Burns escapes and thus begins the whole point of the movie: a chase:
modern resources and technology trying to capture one man on a barely broken
horse.  The audience rides along with Burns, he only needs to get over one
mountain (5K ft) why he does not head West, N or S wouldn't make for a story
and he would more likely have gotten away (maybe, at least more trees
up in the mountains (that common theme that nature offers sanctuary).
The audience gains sympathy and cheers Burns.  Especially when he gets
even with a horrible/pathetic depty character played by George Kennedy
(also in the Eiger Sanction).  In the mean time, a second shorter
thread seems to be total irrelevant: a truck driver driving to
Duke City.  His load is relevant and classic Abbey humor/point.  The
two (Burns and the truck driver played by Carroll O'Connor) eventually meet.

Rent this film.  A few people might call the ending a downer.  It will depend
how you interpret what happens in the end, and what would occur after the
logical ending of the film in your mind.  The film is black and white
and viewing it in time of color would be like viewing certain Woody Allen
films.

The cast of this film is perhaps one of the most incredible assemblages
of talent ever made for a film of its scope.  Kirk Douglas has just finished
Sparatcus.  Walter Mathau plays the Western sheriff who is on his last legs
in a stiffling job.  He is one of the most crucial test characters
and his subtle role at the end is key (the only time he sees Burns close up).
I think Gena Rowlands plays the ex-girlfriend and wife of his college friend.
William Shaltter and Bill Bixby (a deputy and the helicopter pilot)
when on to major period TV roles (Patty Duke and My Favorite Martian).
Edward Abbey appears in the film in a bit part as an unspeaking
deputy (they'd have to have paid him more if he opened his mouth, James
Dickey isn't the only author to appear in his work).  Abbey wrote briefly
about this.  The horse is in many ways is one of the most noble ever
to appear on film and it would be bad taste to leave him off.
BTW: seeing Abbey next to Douglas is "interesting."

The friend serving time is symbolic in two ways, it's a kind of surrender
to real life.  Both can part friends and you can admire both men for
their respective courses.  The Sheriff is a man who long ago surrendered
to modern life.  One should have some sympathy, he and Burns are of the same
type (even if one is native and the other is a drifter).  It's one of those,
"in another life we would be friends" threads, but he excites in the chase.
His watching a dog pee on a fire hydrant says something about his life.
It is easily possible to over analyse Abbey's film and a PhD thesis was
written which had a chapter on this book and film (U. NV Reno).  So some
of what I am pointing out isn't original (email if a ref is required).

Burns is a recurring character in many of Abbey's pieces of fiction.
He bears some but far from perfect resemblence to Abbey and his ideals.
The film makes a few interesting comments about society.  If you don't
catch subtly, you will miss the double meaning of the trucker's paylod.
The weather is also symbolic.

The question at the end of the film is: does the sheriff recognize Burns
in the end?  Only readers of Abbey books will understand and appreciate the
answer.  Another excellent film.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
  Scientific Programming
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