BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)

Neha says

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the definitive buddy movie of the western genre. William Goldman’s Oscar winning screenplay seamlessly offsets the likes of a dreamer like Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) who has all these grand ideas to rob banks across the globe from Bolivia to Australia with the more grounded, gunslinger The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford). Brains vs. brawn, pacifist vs. aggressive, gusto vs. intensity are contrasts that play off each other effortlessly to give us a true-blue story about friendship with ripe and real moments that take comic flight and make the adventures, heists and chase sequences so involving and unpredictable. The easy camaraderie between the two veteran actors, their portrayal of these memorable characters and the mix of girth, glamour and guile that the duo embodies makes us root for them for the entire running time of 110 minutes.

The only similarity between Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, both of which released in 1969, is their comment on changing times and how technology, transportation and strengthening of law enforcement led to the decline of the outlaw way of life, driving the rebels to the South American border to seek refuge. While The Wild Bunch pays a more conventional homage to the genre, adopting melodrama and a gravitas to tell its tale, punctuated by its path-breaking presentation of violence on celluloid, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tinkers with the formula playfully, keeping traditionalism and western values intact but George Roy Hill experiments with treatment and tone, making it a matinee potboiler, a relationship story and a nod to the genre. From the opening credits that use a fast-paced, sepia-toned silent movie with a Chaplinisque flavor to it to show us a train heist with a caption that reads “Most of what follows is true” Hill tells us upfront that this fact meets fancy ride has both audacity and a certain whimsy to it that makes for a different experience. And a different experience it is as we see him corroborate that intent with treatment choices that reflect his cinematic inspirations and add that X factor to the genre. Burt Bacharach’s energetic and spirited music; the Oscar winning, memorable song “Raindrops are falling on my head” has Butch performing center stage antics with a bicycle portraying his curiosity and his receptiveness to change; Hill also uses the occasional pantomime to salute the silent era and the journey to Bolivia feel like a year book spread as a montage of photographs of travel and escapades is a nice little touch to add balance to the more home grown, sweeping vistas of the outback that dominate the first two acts of the film.

Redford and Newman are always wondering whether the reputed Indian tracker and the famous lawman are the ones on their trail. Except for the long shot and the rare profile we never see who they are, adding another layer of intrigue to the story. While cinematic convention has us believe that it’s always a woman who comes between two men here we see how Redford’s girlfriend Etta Place (Katherine Ross) has a suggested attraction to Newman one that doesn’t come in the way of two buddies. Was the common love interest a plot device used to reflect the solidarity of true friendship? Was it underwritten, leaving us with an uncomfortable question mark? Or was Redford simply not that taken in by Etta to be affected by the comfort she shared with Newman? Something to chew on but personally I would have liked the love triangle to be a bit more emphatic in its intent.

The fact is the pairing of Redford and Newman was a master stroke; the characterizations of the two only get further enhanced by the genre setting but take Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid out of the landscape and put them in any other setting, be it a road movie, character drama or even an action film and that relationship would hold its weight. That my friend’s is the transcendental power of the duo!!! The climax is one of the best culminations I’ve seen with an obvious eventuality but the build up and execution is a marvel with the duo poking jibes at each other while embracing their fate. True to character and tone it leaves us feeling not sentimental or aggrieved but with a desire to celebrate a rare and affecting relationship. We take these characters home with us and four decades down they still have the power to entertain, thrill and enrapture.

Ira says

Butch: What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.
Bank Guard: People kept robbing it.
Butch: Small price to pay for beauty.

The opening lines of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, (along with dozens of fabulously funny, wry, well-timed one liners) are classic. Newman’s i.e. Butch’s crisp interaction with the Bank guard instantly declaring a simplicity, a moral code, a way of thinking that belongs to the Western hero, or anti-hero where stealing and robbing banks in particular, is after all a thing of beauty, an art, a habit and a way of life. The iconic figure of a rebel without a cause, a symbol of the American Wild West, who lives on his own terms, moves around with faithful steed, a gun in pocket, and a loyal sidekick by his side him takes on a witty, lively, and strongly challenged new turn with the unique pairing of the nicest bad guys around. ‘You will never meet a pair like Butch and the Kid’, claims the 1969 poster. And they are right.
Cheeky, graphic, and comic book style opening credits begin the film. As a whirring projector on the left of the screen, plays out a sepia tinted chase sequence in a series of worn out but energetic images, the titles appear on the right, along with a lilting, trot-like melody, and introductory note about the Hole in the Wall Gang, ‘now all dead but once rulers of the West’, cleverly making our heroes, heroes already. Only a few minutes in, and that cool introduction, Newman at the bank and Redford, the Kid, at a cards table, the entire sequence bathed in a dusty, yellow sepia hue, and Hill wins us over almost instantly. As do the two men.

Interestingly, as I watched the film, I felt myself finding some connections with several of the films we’ve been reviewing in the AFI over these past weeks. And I started to once again look at that baffling, wonderful question, what makes a great film, a great film? While there is no one answer of course, there are some qualities that make a film, somehow unique. And funnily, you often find similarities in the kind of qualities there are! Confusing you yet? Let me explain.

Not as graphic or rich as The Wild Bunch perhaps, not as trippy as Easy Rider, and yet often as experimental in its technique and narrative style (montages, particularly the one in Coney island, reminded me of the one, again with 2 men and a lady in Sophie’s Choice and the edgy camera work and play of light that many directors of the 60’s experimented with- some of those low angles and dimly lit shots felt almost Tarantino-esque to me), Butch & the Kid, for its genre and technique, is a special film.

While its set in the mid 19th century as most conventional Westerns were, at the end of the era where technology was about to explode, where the future was in the bicycle, where the horse is about to be discarded, where the existence of the Western Hero was in serious danger, I loved how Roy Hill plays within and with the genre. Sometimes parodying it (think Lefores wearing a white straw hat and Butch & Sundance in black hats when in the course of the film, the ‘good bad guys’ are our heroes, and the unseen Lefores is more the villain) and sometimes playing with it as in the lyrical, moodily shot interlude of Butch & Etta on the bicycle, riding through fields and softly lit lenses to the tunes of Singin in the Rain, or in the constant word play and verbal comedy. Sometimes penetrating and questioning it as in the unforgettable scene where Butch and Kid are being chased and have discarded all but one single horse, as they desperately arrive at the house of a Sheriff and old friend Ray hoping he will save them by getting them enlisted into the army, or finally paying homage to it as in the rawness of the shootouts and the intensity of that climactic action sequence.

Hill combines elements of the traditional Western in his desolated landscape, his characters and the overall themes of society and its outlaws, but for the way he brings flavor and texture to his story through sharp, dark comedy (courtesy and Academy Award winning screenplay from William Goldman, the man who also won the Academy for All the Presidents Men), moody, silent moments, intermittent but potent action, a beautiful sound-score, and fantastic cinematography, and through the combination of his central pair, Butch Cassidy is not only a one of a kind Western, but a great film. As ‘colorful’, as Percy Garris (a hilarious Strother Martin) says he’s become staying in Bolivia for over a decade, Hill’s film, much like Martin’s uncanny, marginally insane character, is not just rebellious and engaging, its seriously funny, often poignant and always on the brink of explosive violence. There is tension and humor on either side of the horse at each turn, and hidden within each line. And as the film moves from establishing its characters with lively wit and cool, machismo, it lulls soon after into a more ruminative mood. As we follow Butch & the Kid being chased, we feel a growing sense of loss, as they do because Hill takes us along with humor, with pathos and with a silent desperation.

Newman & Redford make this one what it is. At least now, looking back and iconic-ally. While neither is a brilliant actor, they fit their parts fabulously well. Newman as Butch, the aging leader with the brains, multiple beauties and the heart of gold. And Redford as the silent, brooding, brute of the pair. The one with the sizzling woman and the even more sizzling gun which he can use with guaranteed precision repeatedly And yet, each has elements of the other and the great part is how well, in moments of silence, or in 4 line exchanges where they seem to have an implicit understanding, there is an innate, evident, mutual understanding and respect here. There is a code to Western films, to Western heroes, and to the Western way of life. And Hill, Newman & Redford have created and given us their own. And that’s what makes this one special, and universal. Sundance, can I make a big thing out of it?