Tag Archives: Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

James Cullen on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues: The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 7

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I wanted to talk to James Cullen on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues because of his untrammelled love for the film, his enthusiasm, and the wide array of references he brings to this very intelligent appreciation of the film: Tim Burton, Bergman, Araki, Godard, Tarantino, Erika Tremblay, New Queer Cinema, A24 films, Brokeback Mountain (2005), Indigenous Cinema, New French Extremity, and more, .

In the podcast below we discuss why James sees the film as part of an unofficial trilogy alongside Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and My Own Private Idaho (1991); how the film may be seen as a thesis on the queer American road movie; What does it mean to do a queer female-focused road movie? A queer Western? What are the problems of finding a visual grammar for beat novels, acknowledging that ‘beat’ itself is a very masculinist concept? James sees the film as laudably unserious, a story about finding freedom that destroys all sense of coherence; comedic, silly, with a touch of magical realism; a film that destroys all sense of heteronormative experience, throws it in Hollywood’s face, and might give you tonal whiplash in the process; a film in which Van Sant tries to reinvent himself and fails, yet in the process creates his new style.

Amongst many other reasons, James loves the film because it is  ‘Against all the heteronormative expectations we have from cinema as a medium. None of these A24 Neon filmmakers could make anything like this. There’s an audience for this film, it’s going to come from somewhere, sometime; and I want to be part of that audience’

And I want to be in the audience listening to James speak about it.

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

A previous podcast with Lisa Purse may be listened to here:

 

The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 4: Lisa Purse on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

 

José Arroyo

The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 4: Lisa Purse on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

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Lisa Purse on EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES (Gus Van Sant, 1993)

I was truly delighted when Lisa Purse agreed to talk to me about EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES. Lisa is a Professor of Film Studies at the University of Reading, one of the most brilliant scholars on action movies, and a nuanced thinker on questions of mediations, conflicts, identities. I wanted to have her on the podcast because I thought she might expand my thinking on EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, and she did. In the podcast we discuss seeing the film when it was first released, seeing it now, and explore the hows and whys of changing responses. We note the context of ‘New Queer Cinema’ and the different kinds of experiments that were then taking place. EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES  is a film that refuses seriousness and we speculate that maybe neither of us was then in a place where we could recognise the value of that. We discuss how the film continues Van Sant’s interest in ‘The Road’, and discuss movement and flow, as rhythm, narrative device, formal strategy, and condensed ideation. Is it a film that’s trying to do too much? B. Ruby Rich wrote on how the film contains references to forms of collective action. Is it more of its time than we first realised? We discuss the film as a form of active allyship that is not to be sneezed at, and note the hostility of its initial reception, referencing B. Ruby Rich’s contention that with this film Van Sant fell into the category of a female director (at least for some) and therefore got treated as one.

 

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

The Roseane Barr clip may be seen here:

The paper bag scene may be seen here:

 

 

Lisa Purse’s latest publication is:

 

 

 

José Arroyo