Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994) – DVD

***/**** Image A- Sound A- (DD)/A (DTS)
starring Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita
screenplay by Gus Van Sant, based on the novel by Tom Robbins
directed by Gus Van Sant

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover From its disastrous premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (which prompted a hasty re-edit) to the unanimous critical drubbing it received a short while later, few films have had harder luck than Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. The reviews were at best vague, alluding to some thing in the theatre that defied description as much as it discouraged it, while those brave souls not scared off by the word-of-mouth–even fans of Tom Robbins's 1973 source novel, people who could at least be said to have known what they were in for–came away hostile and perplexed. But anything that inspires this kind of uncomprehending panic is a special sort of film–that's right, I'm one of those lonely few who actually liked Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. And analyzing its successful failure is hugely instructive, specifically in showing how certain social forces, then as now, unfairly shape what is considered aesthetic treason.

The fact that members of Robbins's cult were nonplussed is a good indication of what the movie does right. Book and film both deal with Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman), a young woman endowed with impossibly large thumbs that grant her immense prowess as a hitchhiker. She spends most of her time hitching up and down the continental United States, with stops in New York to pose as the spokesmodel for a feminine hygiene company run by prissy drag queen The Countess (John Hurt). The Countess is having problems at his beauty retreat, the Rubber Rose Ranch: turns out that his mission to stamp out vaginal odour does not fly with the cowgirls who tend the herds, led as they are by whip-wielding mystic Dolores del Ruby (Lorraine Bracco) and typified by defiant Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix). Sissy is sent in to shoot an ad campaign just as the unrest boils over and grows to feel torn between her loyalty to The Countess and her burgeoning love for ardent admirer Bonanza. Given the pro-feminist and pro-lesbian tinge to this synopsis, one wonders how the book, let alone the movie, managed to garner a straight following in the first place.

But as B. Ruby Rich pointed out at the time (in one of the film's only positive reviews), Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a classic example of sexual-revolution hypocrisy: it espouses "women's sexual freedom" as a mere subterfuge to get them into bed. The text is full of inane narrational editorializing by the author that not only insults your intelligence but also ensures there's a male gaze to distance you from identification. The author's description of unvarnished femininity is so vague that it could easily morph into a PENTHOUSE spread, leaving aside his obsession with Sissy's virginity and contradictory obsession with her classical beauty. The movie doesn't have this option: there's some sparse narration, of course, but it's overwhelmed by the presence of the image, which represents the rough but spirited cowgirls with no obvious entry point for identification. One is overwhelmed by their striking contrast to the pretty plastic women who dominate American movies–and if one is completely locked into that image, one can't help but be appalled. The film takes obnoxious Robbins at his word, and in so doing seals its commercial doom.

Still, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is more than a thematic oddity. It's Gus Van Sant, after all, in his last star performance before his sell-out phase, and it's got the sweet demeanour and gentle, unhurried tempo that mark him as singular in the pantheon of so-called American Indies. Forming the final panel of a "road" triptych with Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, the film is completely in-character; if it doesn't quite rise to the level of the latter, it's full of the pleasures that dominate the series whole. Again we have the autumnal colours of Van Sant's palette (courtesy Eric Alan Edwards's and John Campbell's cinematography, Beatrix Aruna Pasztor's costumes, and Missy Stewart's production design)–and again we have the appreciation of transient eccentricity that makes his brand of ironic Americana so much richer than that of, say, Todd Solondz, or the David Byrne behind True Stories. If Van Sant doesn't quite do away with Robbins's crass details, such as a Japanese sage–called, ecch, The Chink–who doles out wisdom while deflowering Sissy (he's played by The Karate Kid's Pat Morita), he renders them tolerable by overwhelming them with the goodwill that pours out of his camera. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is as deserving of cult delectation as any in Van Sant's oeuvre; write me if there are takers for a fan club.

THE DVD
Of course, there is the possibility that the film has more of a following than I am aware of–how else to explain New Line's strangely involved DVD presentation, with its zippy postcard-themed animated menus and inclusion of Dolby Digital and DTS audio? The image (letterboxed at 1.85:1 and enhanced for 16×9 displays) does superb justice to Van Sant's gently muted earth tones, which leap off the screen with sticky brilliance; a slight muddiness mars fine detail somewhat, but this is a mostly attractive transfer. Meanwhile, the 5.1 soundmix is surprisingly subtle: The DD and DTS tracks each richly employ the surround channels, with the DTS a standout for its more transparent and exuberant handling of sequences like the cowgirls' liberation of the Rubber Rose. The film's trailer, trailers for Proof and Head Above Water, and a New Line weblink round out the package.

96 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DTS 5.1, English Dolby Surround; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; New Line