Starring Texas
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RRLEADER.COM | SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021 | 7A Starring Texas Michael Barnes thought the Western was dead. Then Austin American-Statesman along came the TV miniseries adapted USA TODAY NETWORK by Bill Wittliff from Larry McMurtry’s unforgettable novel. (Both writers died To salute Texas Independence Week not long ago.) Like any good storytell- in 2019, my former American-States- ers, they employed history to turn the man colleague Dave Thomas and I put old myths of Texas cattle drives into out a list of the 53 best books about cohesive, three-dimensional human Texas. dramas. It contained some beloved classics, “Days of Heaven” (1978) — I could have such as John Graves’ “Goodbye to a sworn Terrence Malick’s ravishing dra- River,” and some thrilling newcomers, ma about urban drifters who end up like Attica Locke’s “Bluebird, Bluebird” working at a Panhandle wheat farm in and Monica Muñoz Martinez’s “The the early 20th century was filmed in Injustice Never Leaves You.” Texas. Yet I found out years later the We encouraged readers to respond locations were found in Canada. Never- with their favorites. They did. On June theless, it is among the best films ever 14, 2019, I published those provocative about Texas. responses, including several from folks “Hud” (1963) — This revisionist western who wondered why we had left off was indeed filmed in the Panhandle and Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean starred in the 1956 film “Giant.” WARNER BROS. James Michener’s doorstop novel, was drawn from McMurtry’s novel, PICTURES “Texas.” “Horseman, Pass By.” Tensions between “I had admired Michener’s early the Old West and New West, honor and novels,” I wrote, “but I could not in ego, are just part of this culturally thick accidental death followed by a brutal thriller in Austin and Hutto. Lean and good conscience recommend ‘Texas,’ drama. lynching. raw, it can still sneak up on you. And it which felt to me overlong, stale and “The Last Picture Show” (1971) — An- “Boyhood” (2014) — At first, it is hard feels very Texan. lugubrious.” other McMurtry novel inspired this to get past Linklater’s astounding “Miss Juneteenth” (2020) — A break- I was not done. despairing coming-of age movie about achievement of filming actors playing a through movie written and directed by For a “Think, Texas” column on May small-town Texas life. It was based on child and his divorced parents over the Channing Godfrey Peoples, this family 1, 2020, I expanded the list to include the writer’s hometown, Archer City. (He course of some 12 years. Yet it stays drama is set against the background of 60 volumes of essential Texas books. cowrote the screenplay with Peter Bog- with you, and so does the insight the a beauty pageant staged during an Some, such as Willie Morris’ “North danovich.) It hit a little too close to movie gives one about the state of annual celebration of emancipation in Toward Home” and Nate Blakeslee’s home for his neighbors, but it regularly Texas. Texas. Among other things, it points “Tulia: Race, Cocaine and Corruption lands near to the top of any list of “Red River” (1948) — On the surface a the way for more scrutiny of Texas sub- in a Small Texas Town,” were over- movies about Texas. standard western centered on a fiction- urbs as future film fodder. sights from the first round. Others “No Country for Old Men” (2007) — A al cattle drive, this Howard Hawks film “Lone Star” (1996) — A murder mystery were new to me, such as Elizabeth great transplanted Texas author, Cor- grapples with intergenerational and set in South Texas, this is one of prolific Crook’s “The Which Way Tree” and mac McCarthy, who grew up in Ten- interregional strife, along with unex- filmmaker John Sayles’ best films. Have Stephen L. Davis’ “The Essential J. nessee, provided the story for Joel and pected gay subtext. Once again, Wayne you noticed that southern and south- Frank Dobie.” Ethan Coen’s harrowing morality movie plays a highly flawed Texan. western Texas tend to make great back- If I revisited that list yet another set in the bleak deserts of West Texas. “Hell or High Water” (2016) — Notice drops for stories about crime and cor- year later, I’d probably add 10 more This winner of the best picture Oscar how many films here could be called ruption? There is much more to be said books. Although some of our original will give you nightmares and it might “neo-westerns”? The periodic making about that trend, but not in this space choices did not land well with critics, make you paranoid about vast open and remaking of Texas myths goes into today. I’m not ready to disavow any of them spaces. high gear in this crime film about two “Paris, Texas” (1984) — It took German without further reflection. “Giant” (1956) — Controversial for many brothers trying to rescue their family director Wim Wenders to nail the The important thing was the direct reasons, this wide-screen West Texas ranch. places, times and moods of modern and ongoing engagement with readers. drama featured three major Hollywood “Slacker” (1990) — I keep expecting to Texas, from the deserts in the western So why not try the something simi- stars — Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson see myself somewhere in the back- part of the state to the big-city sprawl lar regarding movies about Texas? and James Dean — along with the ground of Richard Linklater’s series of of Houston. No, it is not set in Paris, In “Think, Texas” newsletter no. 78, homegrown subjects of cattle, oil and disconnected scenes about quirky Aus- Texas. Although the story is slow-mov- I wrestled with the shifting idea of a racism. The ways that the movie, based tinites during a time before the city’s ing, I find it spellbinding. Texas movie: What qualifies as a on an Edna Ferber novel, got Texas big tech boom. I do still catch glimpses “Dazed and Confused” (1993) — What, movie about Texas anyway? right and wrong are the subjects of two of funky, bohemian Austin today that Michael, four Linklater movies on your The brilliant “There Will Be Blood,” I excellent books by the recently de- remind me of “Slacker.” list? That’s right. This ensemble cult wrote, was made in Texas, but is not ceased University of Texas scholar Don “Urban Cowboy” (1980) — It would be film helped define a whole generation about Texas. Graham. easy to dismiss this slick treatment of of suburban Texans. OK, the coming-of- It is not alone. According to an “Tender Mercies” (1983) — Foote de- rural and urban Texas set mostly among age movie is set in Huntsville, not a amazing online document provided by vised this original screenplay about an the industrial suburbs of Houston. Yet suburb, and was filmed in Austin, but it the Texas Film Commission, thou- alcoholic country singer who bonds setting aside the troubled romance really feels like a suburban exegesis. sands of movies and TV projects have with a younger widow and her son. Shot between John Travolta and Debra “Selena” (1997) — In some ways a stan- been filmed in our state since1910, but in North Texas, it is as true to that part Winger’s characters, this movie really dard celebrity bio-pic with a tragic end- a good number of those have not been of the state as “The Trip to Bountiful” is did hit a nerve and redefined the state, ing, this movie benefits from three about Texas or Texans at all. to the Gulf Coast. Foote had an ear for mostly for the rest of the country. amazing things: its subject, Tejano su- “The Searchers,” on the other hand, Texans. “Apollo 13” (1995) — Texas screenwriter perstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez; its is about a famed subject in Texas his- “Friday Night Lights” (2004) — I would William Broyles Jr. deserves a lot of blazing star, Jennifer Lopez; and the tory, the twice-kidnapped Cynthia Ann argue that the subsequent TV series, credit for getting Houston and NASA cultural context of the music and the Parker, but was filmed in Monument shot in and around Austin, far out- right in this Ron Howard space movie times in Texas. Valley, split between Utah and Arizona. stripped both the H.G. Bissinger book about the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar “True Stories” (1986) — Satire is hard. Does that disqualify this classic and the Peter Berg movie about the mission. Of course, the all-star cast and David Byrne gets it. Set in the Dallas film? state’s obsession with high school foot- technical assistance from NASA helped, suburbs during the Texas sesquicen- Early Texas films looked almost ball. Nevertheless, the movie, and es- too. tennial, this movie, which includes mu- exclusively to the past, specifically the pecially Billy Bob Thornton as the “Blood Simple” (1984) — Long before sic by the Talking Heads, goes far be- 19th century, the era of cowboys, coach, still holds up. they became household names, at least yond its winning birthright. Its dry-as- American Indians and wars with Mex- “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) — This sexy, in the homes of cinephiles, Joel and bone treatment of our state can be ico. By the mid-20th century, other violent and wonderfully erratic movie Ethan Coen shot this noirish crime harsh, but Texans can take it. mythic aspects of Texas — oil wild- about the infamous outlaws — about catters, military leaders, growing cities which every Texan of a certain age — became film subjects. keeps a ready anecdote on hand — took The Old West never went away — in Hollywood by storm.