Review: How good novels can become bad films
By Michael Grais August 1, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
Film Screening & Discussion
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Thu, Aug 21, 1 & 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
50 pesos
I was given the job of writing this review/article. I did not choose my subject, it apparently chose me. Here it goes…
The film opens with a dog barking but you don’t see the dog—an auspicious opening. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues goes wrong from the start. Back when the book came out we were fans, we could relate to this hitchhiking ambisexual, big-thumbed cowgirl who believes her mission is to crisscross the country endlessly, seeing the psychedelic landscape that Tom Robbins captured in his novel. This was an experience we hippie kids were feeling when we read it. I have no idea how many “units were sold” but I imagine quite a few. It was a very popular book. So I could play it real safe in this article and spout a bunch of intellectual crap in order to avoid blaming anyone for this mess…but I’m not going to do that.
Gus Van Sant was the executive producer of the film. Gus Van Sant was also the co-author of the screenplay of the film…he was also the director of the film. So you ask who is to blame for the bad film, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins, had become? Gus Van Sant is the answer.
All of those positions of power given to a young filmmaker was a lot of responsibility for anyone to handle. Maybe a few directors could have achieved the goal while that young and succeeded, but we could mention only a very few—Kubrick, Fellini, Terry Gilliam or David Lynch and there are few others. These guys were (some are still kicking) freaky good. They made classics in their genre. They broke new ground. Whether you like their films or not, they were unique. Mr. Van Sant is a good filmmaker. But so far he hasn’t proven to be a great filmmaker. Some may disagree. But I’m writing this article, not you. So just relax.
Van Sant started out on this project right: Great material. He adapted the novel by Tom Robbins to film. And he assembled a great cast—Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Sean Young, Keanu Reeves, Grace Zabriskie were among them. Unfortunately, Uma Thurman’s “southern” accent in the film makes her sound more like an unintelligent person with marbles in her mouth than a Southern or Western girl. That isn’t good. Our big-thumbed, beautiful, buckskinned heroine sounds like a dumb girl with some defect we can’t put our finger on. Uma made me want to pay a voice coach for her before the cameras rolled. But I wasn’t writing, directing and producing this film. So basically, I know nothing. But I’ll continue despite that fact.
Often good books defy a “category or genre” (makes me sound like a French film critic from the sixities when people thought these “authorities” knew what they were saying.) And this is one of those books that should not have been made into a movie. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues defies convention; it thumbs its nose at authority, and is sexy, funny and relevant for its time. Maybe Stanley Kubrick could have pulled off what Van Sant was trying to do.
Can you imagine if you were a Hollywood executive at a studio and Kubrick had “pitched” you the idea for Dr. Strangelove? If you didn’t know of his talent before this, you would have said something like, “Get out of my office and come back with a movie idea!” And slammed the door… and wondered about the prospects of your being around another year when word gets out about the film this guy wants to make and you cannot stop him.
Well, try to “pitch” or tell someone the plot of Cowgirls, and let’s say you get it right, which is highly unlikely. But let’s pretend. And then you write it, produce it and direct it and…and it becomes a classic. It’s funny and chilling, politically charged and (like Dr. Strangelove) Peter Sellers plays at least three of the lead roles.
But that is not what happened to Cowgirls. The miracle did not happen. And a great film is a kind of miracle. There are so many ways to go wrong and not many ways to do it right. There are so many people involved in making a film (you’ve sat through those endless credits when the lights came up) and if one of the really important elements in that long list goes wrong it can really sink your picture.
So when I sat down to watch Cowgirls again in order to write this, when Uma Thurman spoke and sounded stupid, I said to myself, “This is not going to be good.” Writing this article, I have to criticize a film for not succeeding. Well, I could accuse myself of that many times over but what good would it do? There is one film I wrote that I literally cannot watch all the way through. It is pitiful. With great actors walking around in it (wondering what the hell is going on). What a waste of talent it is. Oh, well, there I go sinking into self-pity. Many things went wrong on that film and on Cowgirls but the director is the C.E.O. of the film and must take full and total responsibility when he is also the author and producer.
Of course, there are other novels that have been translated into disappointing films. Love in the Time of Cholera comes to mind because I just saw it on Netflix. But I cannot think of the many others because their defining trait is that they are forgettable.
Van Sant, however, should be given credit for being ambitious. He did not opt out to do Superman, Batman, Hellboy, Spiderman, The Hulk, Iron Man, or Saw…or any of the studio’s other projects that are produced for the only demographic that matters—boys 18 to 25 years old. I would probably love these movies if I were that age. These movies are comparable to the cowboy movies, war movies and horror movies I loved when I was a boy. The sad thing is these kids today aren’t going to grow up to see movies like The Godfather, Rebel Without a Cause, Being There, Bonnie and Clyde, Network, Easy Rider, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Manhattan, Last Tango in Paris, Coming Home, M.A.S.H., The Shining, The Wild Bunch, Klute, Hud and On the Waterfront. But then, I’m so far out of the demographic that my opinion is as important as a grain of sand on Malibu Beach…and so will the opinion of these kids be irrelevant when they are mature and want to see a really great film, with an adult theme, starring world-class actors, directed by
masters of the art and written with the intent of saying something from the heart and not just for the coffers of the studios. Those days are gone. But enough of that rant because when I was in Hollywood I was writing for that same demographic. I’m as guilty as anyone.
Now some of you out there might want to make the argument that Van Sant is a great filmmaker and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a great film. You are welcome to your opinion but I don’t want to hear about it. You have to hear my thoughts because I was given the job of writing this article.
I’d like to know what Tom Robbins thinks of the film of his novel. That is the only opinion that means anything to me.
So pay no attention to this “article,” if you haven’t read the novel. Read it and rent Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. And after you’ve read the novel and seen the film, think about what you’d say about it. And if you get the chance to ask Mr. Robbins what he thinks of the film…tell me what he says. I’d really like to know.
Michael Grais is a successful screenwriter in Hollywood, but now lives full-time in San Miguel. His career included penning Poltergeist, Great Balls of Fire and a dozen other films.
Summer Literary Festival set to open
Summer Literary Festival
Tom Robbins, Alan Rinzler
Tue–Thu, Aug 19–21
Hotel Real de Minas
Cnr Stirling Dickinson & Ancha de San Antonio
US$30–250
| The film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is part of the Summer Literary Festival featuring legendary American icon Tom Robbins and his editor Alan Rinzler. |  |
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The four-day
event features:
-A rare public address and on-stage interview with Tom Robbins
-An extraordinary workshop for writers with Tom Robbins: “Teaching a Sentence to Sing.” (Limited to 30 participants so sign up now.)
-An on-stage book group with Tom Robbins (You could be in this book group!)
-A “tell-all” presentation by editor Alan Rinzler about what it was like for him to work with Hunter Thompson, Toni Morrison, Shirley MacLaine, Nora Ehpron, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Robert Ludlum.
-Small-group book discussions, private dinners, workshops and coffee in the country.
Registration for the full festival is US$180 (add $70 for Tom Robbins workshop). The three keynote addresses are only US$80 (or each keynote is 300 pesos at the door).
Register on line at www.sanmiguelauthors.com or in person at Mail Boxes, Etc. Reloj 26.
For full festival schedule, go to www.sanmiguelauthors.com.
Don’t miss out on San Miguel’s first Community Book Read: Fierce Invalids
Home From Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins. Copies are available at El Tecolote Bookstore, Jesús 11 and La Tienda at the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25.