Drugstore Cowboy | First Impressions

We found DRUGSTORE COWBOY, Gus Van Sant’s second feature, beautiful, imaginative and moving; a film that gets better with each viewing. We discuss Matt Dillon, so extraordinarily good looking and yet also so very believable as a ‘regular guy’. Tom Waits was the original casting and we talk about what Dillon brings to the role, his choices, and another possible connection to Van Sant, how he is also drawn to the marginal, the outsider; we talk about the experimental montages, clearly influenced by Anthony Balch’s Fires Open Fire (1963) which evoke a subjective state of mind, usually drug fuelled, but which also act as a structuring device and help make the film aesthetically cohesive. We discuss continuities: time-lapse photography, Super8 filming, the Pacific Northwest, subject matter of marginals, outsiders, small time crims, junkies. We both agree that we don’t like William Burroughs in the film, even though he was much praised upon its release. We discuss how Van Sant’s second feature is an announcement of a major American director with a distinctive voice, a very particular style, a visual vernacular, a contiguous world from film to film, peopled by recurring figures, a darkly comic tone

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

More info, clips, examples, a bibliography below:

Montages ostensibly influenced by Towers Open Fire (Anthony Balch, 1963) see below:

Images such as these do seem an inspiration for Drugstore Cowboy:

The film has two types of scenes that structure it: robberies of drugstores, it can be read as one long heist film; and the subjective montages, which evoke a subjective state of mind, usually drug fuelled, but which also act as a structuring device and make it aesthetically cohesive.

The first is from the beginning where he’s so eager to shoot up after the robbery that he does so in the car before even getting home.

The prank-on-cops montage

The ominous hat, ‘Hat on Bed!’; ‘I’ve now paid my debt to the hat)

Autumn leaves, childhood, hat montage at the burial; and time for change.

A scene that rhymes with the scene with the mother earlier on; bonds of affection, there, but over-ruled by drugs. ‘I wish I could win you back’. Very moving.

Fear of prison:

Beginning and end (accompanied by the use of Super 8 footage, which is beginning to seem a signature

Time montage and time-lapse

A junkie deals with the cops:

Initial Bigliography:

Cindy Fuchs, ‘Drugstore Cowboy’, Cineaste, Vol 18, Iss 1, (1990): 43-45

Nick James, ‘Intoxication’, Sight And Sound: A to Z of Cinema, Sight and Sound, February 1997, pp.26-28.

Dale Kutzera, ‘Drugstore Cowboy: Set Against Bleak Landscape’. American Cinematographer

Lucy Neville, Drugstore Cowboy, Sight and Sound, November 2002, p. 63.

Michael O’Pray, Drugstore Cowboy, Monthly Film Bulletin, Dec. 1, 1999, 56, 671.

Phillippe Rouyer, ‘Ironie du sort (Drugstore Cowboy)

Steve Vineberg, ‘Drugstore Cowboy’.Film Quarterly, Vol 32. Iss 3, (Spring 1990):27

José Arroyo

A new podcast to accompany a new mini-research project. Richard’s kindly humoured me and consented to help kickstart this podcast, but he’ll only co-host with me for the first three films so I shall be reaching out to some of you to talk to me about the rest – and certainly if you have a particular interest in any of Van Sant’s films and would like to podcast on them with me, do please get in touch. I’m hoping to build a resource here, not only with the podcasts but eventually with clips, images, a bibliography and more. It will be a process.

In this inaugural podcast we talk about Van Sant’s first feature, based on Walt Streeter’s autobiographical novel, self-financed for $20,000 and filmed on 16mm. We discuss what made us uncomfortable on first viewing, in my case when the film first came out: the power differentials between the characters; the racialised dimension to the casting; but we also discuss why it arguably remains a great film – and the troublesome aspects are part of its greatness. We discuss how the film is an announcement of a new voice in American cinema, with roots in a history of queer culture (John Rechy, Genet, Warhol, The Beats). We speculate on the film’s romanticism within a quite fluid representation of sexuality that distinguishes between acts, desire, feelings and identities; queer avant-la-lèttre. We talk about the film’s look, one partly dictated by the film’s budget, few lights available thus the choice of hard one-directional lighting; making for a noir look but with a beat, bohemian sensibility.

MALA NOCHE arrives in the context of new forms of finance, distribution and exhibition permitted by the developing video rental market. One could now produce low-budget films with heretofore challenging subect-matter and/or challenging forms and make money from niche markets. Van Sant appears alongside Jarmusch, Spike Lee and other indie filmmakers in the mid 80s. MALA NOCHE can be thought of as a the first of what may be considered a trilogy (alongside DRUGSTORE COWBOY and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO), at least thematically: it’s North West setting, the marginal cultures, the bohemian romance of outsiderness, it’s avant-garde components, its daring. An exciting film to re-watch and talk about.

We discuss all of this and more in the podcast, which may be listened to here: