The Electric Horseman

If you've never heard of The Electric Horseman, I won't be surprised.  I'd never heard of this film either before I took a Film Genres course at Ball State.

I never forgot this film after that.

The Electric Horseman is a Sydney Pollack film from 1979 that stars Robert Redford's mustache and chest hair, and Jane Fonda's hilarious clothing, sunglasses, and hairdo.  (I'll pause here so that all the Vietnam veterans in the audience can mutter, "Bitch.")

In that Film Genres course, my professor billed this as a populist film, which celebrates popular themes, pitting common people's values against the elite (and often crooked) rich/ruling class/management/whatever.  Here's a good list of examples.

Basically, populist films are about the underdog majority; we might be great in numbers, and we're definitely right, but for whatever reason, we are powerless — unless we find a way to rebel.

That's sort of what Sonny Steele, Redford's character, does here.  The opening montage gives us a look at Steele's rise as a rodeo star, and his ignominious fall to washed out, drunken sellout reduced to wearing a riding outfit covered in light bulbs and hocking "Ranch Breakfast" cereal.  Trust me, the get-up is striking.

But Steele isn't the only character who should be doing something else.  We also meet Rising Star, the ironically named (at the time of the story, anyway) race horse that now serves as some corporate behemoth's mascot.  His best days are behind him.  He was a champion.  Now he helps a huge corporation make huge amounts of money.

Steele eventually goes on the lam with Rising Star, who Steele says should be "out to stud" instead of prancing around, drugged up on tranquilizers and in pain.  I can't help but think that Steele is also talking about himself.

Fonda's character, a journalist named Hallie, goes after Steele with a camera and every intention of writing a great story.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" is a frequent refrain.  I love the older film styles of the 1960s and 1970s, with that one hit song they play like 60 times in the film.  When you get a great song, you play the shit out of it.  That's a bygone film technique, but at one point Willie Nelson, Robert Redford, and some other guy break into an a cappella version over adult beverages.

(Oh, and Willie busts out no fewer than three great songs for that soundtrack, including a great cover of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider," which is totally worth hearing.  Willie can act, too.)

Pollack peppers the film with great little moments, such as when Steele and Hallie stop by a stream for a bite to eat, and Steele laments on all the wonder of his country, his home.  He makes mention of how the whole country was once underwater, and if you dig around in the hardpack, you can find skeletons of the life that used to live there.  Hallie just smiles, enjoying that Steele even knows these things.  Of course, Steele says, this is his country.

Pollack gives the audience few reasons to side with the corporate bigwigs, all of whom show themselves to be clueless assholes who care about nothing except money and their own livelihoods.  They don't count the costs in terms of impact on the world or the people they serve.  They think they're doing the right thing.  They're not.

Sonny Steele, whose life has lost meaning as he pursues the Almighty Dollar, decides to do the right thing, and damn the cost.  He steals the horse.

What follows is kind of a long story, and I can't tell you everything.

At one point, though, Redford and Fonda walk the horse across the plain, purple mountains in the distance, and they sing "America, The Beautiful" with the slightest tinge of irony.  

You know, you just don't hear many patriotic songs about money.

Anyway, the story is stirring, albeit saccharine, yet I never forgot The Electric Horseman.  I got my mom a copy on VHS for Christmas in the late '90s.  I always associated country music and horses with my mom, and knowing her, I figured she'd love this movie.  We watched it together, and I was right.

I also associate this film with my grandma.  In 2003, Willie Nelson came to Muncie and played on campus.  I knew a few months out, and I thought it would be a great idea to take Mom and Grandma.

Well, Grandma died a month or so before the show.  I ended up going with Mom and the people we were dating at the time.  I really wish I could've taken Grandma too.

While I was grieving, I found myself prowling the iTunes Music Store every night, listening to previews of old country songs from the greats: Waylon, Merle, Johnny, and Willie, of course.  George Jones was a big hit.  I spent a lot of money I really didn't have on music I ordinarily wouldn't need, but I needed it then.  Sure, I could've stolen the music, but I wasn't thinking like that.  I just wanted some peace.  I could hear my grandmother's voice in my head, and she needed a soundtrack.

Once in a while, this film would pop into my head too.  I missed this film.  I missed how this film made me feel, and who this film made me think about when I watched.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the film on DVD.  I searched and searched and no store had this one.  I didn't want another VHS copy.  Finally, I gave up; I bought a copy of the DVD on eBay when the title was out of print, which cost me quite a bit, and I didn't care — this one's a bargain at any price.  (How this film was ever out of print confounds me.)  I've watched this one two or three times since then.  The transfer, or the source, or whatever, looks terrible and sounds meh.  But this looks a lot better than VHS, and in widescreen, too.  Maybe someday there'll be a Blu-Ray.

I look past Jane Fonda's ridiculous looks.  I look past Robert Redford's cowboy thing.  I find the country music and popular themes comforting.  I look past the fact that this film is blatantly pandering to common people and their values, and in doing so made tons of money.  Watching this film is like eating at Cracker Barrel, the restaurant that commodified and perfected the food of the American working class.

This is what people want.

Well, I'm generalizing.  This is what I wanted after Grandma died, and when I fell out with Mom, and when I couldn't figure out Dad for the umpteenth time.  The Electric Horseman is my comfort food.

This is a good film for me when I can't make sense of my life and the choices I've made and the living I make, or when the things I can't control or change make me feel sort of helpless and the words don't come easily.  I can watch a film like this and disappear into the big, sweeping nothingness of America, the best parts, and go the way of Rising Star for a while.

I like to think this film can fix everything, if only for a couple of hours.