WESTERN MUSIC WESTERN DVDs JIM OWEN. Six Guns and Trail Songs. Jim Owen Music, McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Criterion. Blu-Ray, $39.95; DVD, $10,
[email protected]. $29.95, Criterion.com. I’d had one of the toughest weeks Within Westerns, cameramen and directors seemed forever in my life. And when you consider joined by their collaborative visuals, the images I’m 68, you know that’s saying they painted, for more than a century, mold- something. I was feeling pretty ing the genre into what it is. John Ford’s deep- beat down and disappointed shadowed landscapes, captured by Bert Glennon in myself. But leaving home and, later, William Clothier, are now the stuff of one morning at the end of that legend. Lucien Ballard’s vivid Technicolor palette miserable week, I put this CD in for Henry Hathaway became naturalistic when my car’s player. As Jim Owen’s he shot for Budd Boetticher version of “Back in the Saddle and Sam Peckinpah, while Again” spilled out, I felt myself shed- Bruce Surtees split the dark- ding the blues like a snake losing old skin. ness of Clint Eastwood’s scenes like the Cowboy songs – especially favorites such as “Ghost Rid- flame of a single candle. ers in the Sky,” “Don’t Fence Me In” and “Big Iron,” all In 1970, cinematographer Vilmos Zsig- on this CD – affect me like that when sung by a voice as mond traveled to the Pacific Northwest to fine as Owen’s. Owen is a superlative writer, too. His stack make, in director Robert Altman’s words, C.