Posted on 03/28/2021 8:19:43 AM PDT by Twotone
Larry McMurtry died this past week, in the small town where he was born and spent almost all his life - Archer City, Texas, where his greatest film was partly shot. He was principally a novelist, but Hollywood came a-callin' early, turning his very first book into an effective vehicle for Paul Newman, Hud (1963). It wasn't long before McMurtry was being asked to do his own adaptations of his novels, and by the time of the telly version of Lonesome Dove he was a bona fide famous screenwriter. His blockbuster was Terms of Endearment (1983), which Kathy Shaidle wrote about for us here. His masterpiece was his very first screenplay, which I reviewed four years ago:
The Last Picture Show is set a long way from the glitter of Houston, in a northern town up near the Oklahoma border that does not show the state at its most appealing - a desolate, decrepit Main Street, tumbleweeds bowling down it, dusty pool hall, flimsy screen doors banging in the wind, you know the drill. It's a simply constructed tale on a familiar theme, following the final year of high school through to the dawn of adulthood. But I have always loved this film, since I first saw it when I was about the age of its protagonists, and it has stayed with me over the decades.
So, once you exclude Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show, what's left? Well, there's always the film for which he won an Oscar, a decade-and-a-half back, by which point he was an admired enough screenwriter that he was being asked to adapt not just his own work but that of others - in this case, a short story by Annie Proulx. Brokeback Mountain (2006) was touted as the first gay western:
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
McMurtry didn’t write BM (Annie Proulx is the author).
I concur with your remark about his vivid depictions. There is always something so familiar about most of his characters, somehow. As though they are in the same room with you, or on the same ride. I guess that is what makes his storytelling so good.
BTTP. A Steyn classic!
;-)
I tried to watch it once and had to turn it off halfway through. It was cringe inducing and depressing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.