f>(> ! ., I I 1 9 9 7 t: i i c 39
GEORGE STEVENS
EDNA FERBEfi
ELIZABETH TAYLOR-ROCK HUDSON; JAMES DEAN •" MfUVJMtr ll I
» • «7
A Few W o r J s A I; o II ( TEXAS M O V I E L A N D S C A P E S
Jon S c h w a r t z
X
Each landscape is formed by the point of view of the spectator; it is a spiritual tnmtm MiChuJ u/o experience, the reflection of a culture."
Magnum L a n d s c a p e , / 996 i 9 • Fall I 9•>7 61
ow a century old, movies are the of plazas; The Alamo's San Antonio tingly leads a procession of more than A TEXAS MOVIE LANDSCAPE Nbackward-glancing tinM machines looks like a conventional western 200 cars — police, media, curiosity THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN of our collective and ever-changing land- town."1 Perhaps this was a concession seekers — in hot pursuit. Spielberg's scapes. At best, they give us something to James "Happy" Shahan, owner of the landscape is one of cars and roads: If The Last Picture Show is the quintessen- memorable to dream and think and 22,000-acre Brackctrville ranch where stolen cars, highway patrol cars, cars tial small-town Texas movie, what then (xpjtul upon: in Giant, James Dean The Alamo was filmed, who — when with gun racks, used-car lots, car wreck- would be its urban equivalent? Unfor- pacts off his inheritance, a parched and Wayne's financing dried up — found ing yards, highway road markers, gas tunately, there is none. But had Billy Lee seemingly worthless strip of land that monies to complete what became known stations, police roadblocks, and lots of Brammer's The Gay Place (Austin: Texas ssill soon he wet with oil. At worst, they as Alamo Village. In the long run, this car crashes. Obviously, this was before Monthly Press, 1978) ever been filmed, mix the reel with the real so as to obscure generic Western set turned out to be of "Drive Friendly" signs dotted the things might have been different. and confuse; in JFK, Oliver Stone edits more value than a period Mexican Texas landscape. Set in an unnamed place resembling staged Dallas (grassy-knoll footage with town; Shahan has since brought over Once a genre has been lampooned, Austin, brammer's book is comprised "I 12 seconds of / a p ruder documentary — }0 productions and thousands of tourists can the revisionists be far behind? The three novellas linked together by a com- IB years later, let the viewer beware! to Braekettville. quintessential small-town Texas movie mon landscape presided over by a These Texas landscapes aren't always Filmed in Marfa, George Stevens's is Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Lyndon Johnsonesque governor named svhar they seem to be. lint sometimes Giant 11956) is an epic for its 201 - Show (19711, which co-screenwriter Fenstemaker. Upon its 1961 publication. they're a lot more. minute running time alone. Bringing his Larry McMurtry calls "a kind of anti- The Gay Place (its title taken from an While post-World War II movies Virginia bride home to Reata, a sprawl- Giant."* "Anarcnc, Texas, 1951. obscure F. Scott Fitzgerald poeml found set in New York C-ity or London or ing cattle ranch. Rock Hudson and Nothing much has changed." reads the few readers in spue ol considerable faris were satisfied to capture a local I li/.ibeth Taylor ride for miles in a eon film's poster The film ends as it begins, critical acclaim: Brammer was likened to imbiance, Texas-based movies required vcrtible over a roadless desert. At first a with a slow pan of the town's main Fitzgerald, and his novel was hailed by the mythic landscapes to complement their speck on the horizon, a three-story. street. It all looks the same, except mm likes of dore Vulal and David llalberstaiu more-often-than-not mythic narratives. seven-gabled house comes into view. the picture show has played its last movie as being the best ever written about Chronologically, these evolved as histori- Out of place in the desert, this Gothic (appropriately Rett River). Ironically, American politics. cal myth, stones set in the 19th century edifice provides a unique setting for this nothing much has changed — and yet It didn't take long for Hollywood liber th.it pitted man against a hostile land- saga that covers 25 years of changing everything has changed. Small-town als Paul Newman and director Martin Ritt scape; family saga myth, stones set in the traditions and shifting social orders. America has died. to become interested. The husband and 20th century wherein the landscape has In 196.?, Martin Ritt brought Larry And so it is with these landscapes. wife writing team of Irving Ravelch and been harnessed, freeing the generations to McMurtry's Horseman. Pass Hy to the Nothing has changed, and everything has Harriet Frank, Jr. was hired to pen the clash among themselves; and cartoon screen as Hud. Ruthless son Paul New- changed. Frame by frame, Giant is the script. With a talent tor writing colloquial myth, a List gasp lampooning ot our man and principled patriarch Melvyn same movie in 1997 that it was in 1956, dialogue, they had previously adapted two Texas myths. Douglas clash over turning their cattle In 1956, scenes of cattle grazing amid oil Faulkner titles [The I