Cowboys — Understanding Spirituality and Culture through the Gospel

Painters depict reality through paint and canvas. Writers depict reality through words. Movie makers are privileged to straddle both realms. Hence in one sense, movies get to reflect reality in a unique way. Even as we enjoy the comedies, it is the tragedies that often truly reflect life. The saddest movies are the ones which are relationally unresolved, whether it be the 'Titanic' or 'Gone With the Wind'. Depiction of unresolved relationship is painful to watch and feel.

The TV seriese of the novel 'Lonesome Dove' which won the Pulitzer prize in 1986, took the angst to a whole new level. The story ends relationally unresolved at multiple levels which reflects the problem with the society we live in.

When I started seeing the movie, it seemed a sort of 'happy' movie. Then I got to part 4, I was bawling for the most part and my nose was clogged almost through the entire episode. Every time my nose cleared up, it clogged right back again. I have seen many movies, quite a few that made me cry. When I saw "Forest Gump" I must have cried for about 10 minutes at the least. I was upset for having cried. Then I told my friend, "I saw 'Forest Gump' yesterday". He replied, "I have seen it too." After a pause, looking away I said, "I actually cried". He replied, "I did too". I looked at him and smiled. I was glad, I wasn't abnormal.

In spite being used to movie-crying, what "Lonesome Dove" did to me is abnormal. The morning after I watched 'Lonesome Dove', I lay in the bed for (may be) 30 minutes thinking how so sad "Lonesome Dove" was. What makes the movie really, really sad, for me, is that though the materialistic goals of the protagonists are fully realized and the 'hard virtues' of justice, bravery and honor were most beatifully epitomized, deep hunger for relational fulfillment was not satisfied.

The movie is about a couple of Texas Rangers Gus and Call, revered for their brave campaigns destroying the Apache Indian tribes. The movie is about their retirement plan to drive some cows North into Montana and build a ranch there with a bunch of cowboys. As I was watching the movie, I realized that to me, the movie wasn't so much about whether the cowboys will get to build the ranch in Montana as much as it was about whether Gus would allow himself to truly love a woman and Call would acknowledge Newt to be his son (this bias of mine explains why I am harsh on the character of Gus and Call in this post). Neither of the wishes get fulfilled making the end truly 'lonesome' for all involved, including the viewers.

The movie is overflowing with the great virtues of Justice, Courage, Honor and Fortitude discussing which would be a topic for a different blog. But it is bankrupt when it comes to matters of love, especially familial love. The closest you get to love in the movie is expression of tender feelings for beautiful ladies who happen either to be sex workers or wives of other men. Sometimes, it is honor masqueraded as love. I find this bankruptcy of true love quite baffling. In one sense the cowboys pay the highest honor to womanhood by making her the priced trophy and the end of all. In another sense, the women are more a figment in their imagination and a burden to be exchanged for freedom.

Without Clara and Lorine, Gus' love interests, "Lonesome Dove" wouldn't be what it is. They bring so much to the table but really take nothing in return. Except to live their lives in a state of perpetual angst at the non-committal boys they can't help falling in love with.

Gus and Call are opposite personalities. Gus is happy-go-lucky. Call is the most serious guy ever. But they both have one thing in common, their disdain for anything that smacks of family ties. In fact Gus repeatedly tells Newt that Call wouldn't acknowledge that he is Call's son because to do that would imply that he is just as any other human being. Gus concludes that Call wanted to make a god of himself. Almost like the Great warrior Achilles who wasn't interested in being a Father or a Husband, but rather was keen on showing himself more then human, a god.

Interestingly, Gus too has the same problem, though in a different sense. Clara and Lorrine are DEEPLY in love with Gus, especially Clara. Gus knows it, but choses not to love in return. Lorrine who has known Gus longer tells Clara something that amounts to, "Gus loves being himself more than he loves you or me".

Finally, Gus is injured. Both his legs need to be amputated or he'll die. He has to chose between dying with a warrior's legacy or choosing to live crippled being taken care of by Clara who DEEPLY loves him. He says he can't imagine himself being crippled. He chooses to die instead of devoting the rest of his life to the love of a woman. I saw an uncanny parallel to Alexander the Great, who couldn't imagine himself being same as ordinary men and wanting everyone to believe him to be a god, tried to drown himself into a river.

Both Call and Gus, in spite of their personality differences, had the same problem. They wanted women for sex and good company. They wanted to build a bigger than life image. They saw the family as a burden. They wanted to leave behind a godlike legacy. Every man has in him the urge to prove he is himself and that the himself is someone Great. Sometimes men do it at the cost of family life. Such men are spineless for to be a Great man and have a family takes a lot more courage than to be a Single and Strong.

I say 'spineless' because it takes more courage to start a family than to start a war. Yul Brynner of the classic, "The Magnificient Seven" would agree. A kid tells him that his father is a coward and not as brave as Yul. Yul quickly gets angry and forbids the kid to every think his father to be a coward for not standing up to bad guys. Yul explains, "it take more courage to handle the plow and serve a family than to handle a gun to fight bad guys."

When a society has too many Strong single men who are so preoccupied about being who they want to be and don't want to burden themselves with family ties, such a society would self-destruct. The modern society, in expanding the base of freedom and individuality has cursed a good chunk of its men into being lonesome Rangers who live godlike but, ironically, relationally-spinelessly, only for themselves.