Urban Cowboy

A shorthand for this one could be country Saturday Night Fever, which is what some folks used at the time.  A young man works a menial job by day and storms the local bar scene at night looking for a good time, meeting women, dancing and trying to figure out his identity.  It also stars John Travolta and there’s a contest finale with our lead training hard aiming for the gold.  So yea, pretty similar.

Travolta (Domestic Disturbance) plays Bud, a transplant from rural farmland to the big city looking for work (hence “urban cowboy” as opposed to “plain ol’ cowboy”).  His uncle hooks him up with a job at an oil refinery where he’s glad to be given the opportunity to start at the bottom so he can climb his way up the ladder.  He works hard and plays hard spending all his free time hitting the area bar scene with tenacity.  I mean his first night in town he lands a threesome!  His second night he falls in love!  He’s not all workin’ and fuckin’ though.  There’s nuance to the character that unfurls with time.  At first glance you’ve seen this type of hard headed personality before where he’s quick to start a fight, says dumb shit like “you don’t know what hard is” and asserts dominance over his wife.  When he’s pleasant he’s your best friend but when he’s riled up he can’t be reasoned with.  Later on we see a change in Bud, a slow change but a change nonetheless.  He starts to display commitment to a new found hobby, doesn’t fly off the handle quite so fast and accepts some life lessons handed to his ass.  And Travolta does a nice job putting all of this together.  He’s affable, driven, a dick, loving, cruel, etc.  The important thing is by the end of the movie he grows by learning from his mistakes which Travolta definitely pulls off.

Sissy is played by Debra Winger (Forget Paris) who spots Bud the night he arrives.  She doesn’t approach him until night two where the pair proceed to dance harmoniously, talk, drink and smoke the night away.  She’s not a prissy girly girl who cakes on makeup and wears frilly dresses.  She sports jeans and tank tops and works as a mechanic for her father.  She’s a strong woman who forges her own path and doesn’t take a lot of shit from anyone.  For instance when Bud lightly slaps her in the face during a tickle fight she doesn’t appreciate that at all and lets him know.  Winger is so good and engaging and believable in the role.  Her happiness and sorrow are felt deeply in all her scenes.  And she and Travolta have really great chemistry (which is the lynchpin for the whole damn thing) so by the end you’re anxious to see these two work their shit out and ride off into the night together.

Along with the acting my main praise for the picture is how much good technical filmmaking they jam in here.  The cinematography (Reynaldo Villalobos (Risky Business, Major League)), editing (David Rawlins (Saturday Night Fever, Firestarter)), use of music and costume design (Gloria Gresham (Misery, Last Action Hero)) are top notch.  It’s all put to extraordinary use but especially the main honky-tonk where at least half the movie takes place, the famous Gilley’s in Houston (which burned down decades ago) that claimed to be the world’s largest nightclub at the time.  And we do get a sense of how massive the place is with a bandstand, huge dancefloor, several bars, endless rooms and a mechanical bull.  The contrast between life outside of Gilley’s and inside is kind of magical.  In our characters’ everyday lives the world seems flat, boring and almost a sickly pale color.  But when you step foot in the bar the lighting gets dramatic and colorful, lots of shadows, the crowd is lively, the music is pumping, the beer flows like water, fights break out occasionally and everyone has a smile on their face.  This is a refuge for a large swath of the community who swing by almost daily and the film treats it like the special person in your life you can’t wait to see at the end of your day.  The folks behind the camera truly turn the place into a main character unto itself.

Editing brings the whole package together by combining awesome music with the right moments.  For the jovial times high energy country is the ticket.  Quicker cutting and wider dancefloor shots give these scenes plenty of vigor while known acts like Bonnie Raitt and The Charlie Daniels Band blast their tunes (and this was back when country music rocked hard overall (while somehow incorporating instruments like pedal steel and fiddle fairly effortlessly) and artists and performers would pick spots in their songs to insert poppier elements like the funky adjacent breakdown in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”).  Slower steamier moments make use of dissolves, spinning camera shots and songs like a down tempo cover of “Stand By Me” by Mickey Gilley (indeed the soundtrack was an enormous hit that included a bunch of heavy hitters like Joe Walsh, Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles and Bob Seger).  Furthermore, a couple of times we get scenes effectively intercut to contrast what’s going on in Bud and Sissy’s lives at that exact time.  For instance when Bud slips and dangles from a scaffolding hundreds of feet up wondering if he’s going to die we’re also shown Sissy having a ball being taught how to ride the mechanical bull.  Agony and ecstasy interwoven.  Beautiful.  And during a few of the mechanical bull riding rounds the shot stays on the rider without cutting away for the full eight seconds to drive home just how ridiculously hard and long that can seem.  All good editing tricks.

A fishnet shirt may not define you as an
urban cowboy, but it will set you apart

The one complaint I have is when Bud and Sissy fight they breakup for too long.  It feels like they’re separated longer than they’re together which throws the balance off.  Yes, we have to show them in pain and hurting each other by shacking up with other folks but it drags for a bit.  And the guy Sissy moves in with, Wes (Scott Glenn (Vertical Limit)), initially isn’t different enough from Bud.  It’s only towards the end when Wes takes a dark turn that we know Sissy is in trouble but before that both men are shown to be inconsiderate, chauvinist, carefree, stubborn, hard working, abusive, stoic, etc.  Crucially Wes doesn’t reflect on his life to become a better person like Bud does dooming him to repeat offensives and remain a piece of shit douchebag the rest of his life.  And of course, Sissy and Wes don’t have that spark.  Neither do Bud and his rebound lady.  You know Bud and Sissy are meant to be together which pushes the movie forward.

This is a damn fine picture.  There’s a lot to like across the board.  It’s the kind of film that spends the first half hour simply hanging out with the characters, soaking up the vibe and doesn’t worry about the main portion of the plot until later.  Plus it takes just as long to introduce the mechanical bull, the pivotal MacGuffin that kick starts everyone’s problems.

It’s also the kinda film that includes a very sexual dance done on the mechanical bull while in motion causing some yahoo to yell out “better than a vibrator, ain’t it!”  You know, if that sways you one way or the other.