Poet and actor Kris Kristofferson may be gone, but he’s still with us in spirit Dear Listener. Gareth and Jett talk about his work in the sublime Sam Peckinpah oater Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, as well as touching on his performance in the American classic Heaven’s Gate. They also give a nod to the always welcome, OTG actor, John Amos, who recently passed as well.
-
It's when I take over Sheriff of Linden County.
Old Pat.
Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Santa Fe Rain.
It feels like times have changed. Times, maybe, not me. In my hour of need, I turned to Jett to feel worse about myself.
But there is somebody that didn't make us feel worse, dear listener, and that of course is the magnificent masculine.
And I want to talk about that.
Oh, that's interesting that you bring that up at the start. Yeah.
Kris Kristofferson. welcome to The Film Talk, folks. I'm Jett Loe.
I'm Gareth Higgins.
The conversation never ends. And here we are to talk about Kris Kristofferson, who, you may ask yourself, why are we talking about him in The Film Talk when he's most known as a singer-songwriter, musician.
And that's because he had one of the more unusual careers in that he could have written no songs and sung none of them and still have had a really substantial impact on culture as a movie star.
118 credits.
Right. I was going to say he was in over 50 movies. 118 is more than 50.
That is correct. He's genuinely the original actor and of course, the songs and the meaning of the songs, which do represent this very thing you just mentioned, a certain kind of masculinity. There's two dimensions to it that I can see.
One is there's the self-reflective vulnerability of a song like Sunday Morning Coming Down. This is a guy who recognized that he was in trouble, and he had to tend to that trouble.
And the other dimension is the guy was clearly what you would call, at the risk of being reductive, a progressive, a left-leaning person, and yet he managed to appeal across the board in a divided America.
I saw him a couple of times live, the most interesting time when he was playing with Merle Haggard, not a liberal, not known as a progressive, and the interplay between the two of them was exactly the kind of public storytelling we need.
But we're not here to talk primarily about his music. We're going to talk about him as an actor. We're going to focus, I think, on one or two films in particular.
And Jett, what would you like to say about Kris Kristofferson to begin with?
Well, out of that 118 credits, I know the folks out there are probably thinking, well, you know, his best work is in Blade 2. I disagree. I know, bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.
Do you know he played a character called Jim Cameron in The Sailor Roof Hill Race with the Sea?
That is a surreal and bleak film.
You know, I think what Gareth said is correct. And of course, you know, you see, if he even didn't write all these amazing songs. Boy, I can't, you know, not a week goes by.
I don't think about the smell of fried chicken from the song Sunday Morning coming down.
The person that he embodied in his songs is inside the characters you see on screen, even in the characters he played in Blade, Blade II, I don't believe he's in Blade III.
The couple of films that I want to talk about, listen, we don't have much time, we'll just narrow one for me, and that would be Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The initially much maligned Sam Peckinpah film.
I don't know who the real Billy the Kid was, we don't know, we're far removed from it. In the film, he's an archetype, he's the idea of freedom. He's very similar in some ways to the film.
He's your writer where you have this idea of they hate Jack Nicholson, became a star when he says they hate you for what you represent for the idea of freedom. That idea of America as freedom is a lie or that it's changed.
And Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is real people that take place and that lived in New Mexico. The West is closing, fences are being put in. And Billy the Kid is sort of representation as criminal and outlaw.
I think it's probably a better word. Someone who's outside the law, outside the constraints, the boundaries of civilization, the things that constrain the human. He represents this idea of freedom.
And the way that this actor embodies it, the way this, I would say man embodies it because it's a film about men. They're all killing each other. Women, are they just props in the film?
You could argue yes, but then of course, there's the great Mexican actress, Keira Udoh, crying over the death of Major Call from Dr.
Strangelove as he tries to reach the water as Bob Dylan plays, kind of takes the sting out of that, out of the toxic masculinity in that film. I haven't had enough coffee folks, I'm sorry.
It's a brilliant film, and he is brilliant in it, representing freedom. And I think that's part of his appeal in his songs and in his work, at least to men, is that he represents freedom, but at the same time, he has the strength.
And it's very interesting because we're in this point in America that is presenting different aspects of masculinity on the political stage, where we have someone like Donald Trump versus someone like vice presidential candidate, Tim Walsh, who can
admit his failures and his fractures. And in Kris Kristofferson's performances, in films like A Star is Born, Semi-Tough Convoy, for goodness sakes, Heaven's Gate, he also is clearly very cognizant of his frailties.
And part of that idea that's coming across is that to be a strong man is to admit that you also have weaknesses. And that's completely opposite of Donald Trump. Does that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense.
Heaven's Gate, I was thinking as you were talking about Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, that in Heaven's Gate, he's actually, he embodies like multiple dimensions of masculinity in the course of the film.
Because, you know, there's three movements to Heaven's Gate. And dear listener, if you haven't seen Heaven's Gate because of its reputation, I think we would both urge you to reconsider and watch this film.
It has a reputation as a terrible film, but it's probably the most egregious example of where what was reviewed was the budget and the production process.
You know, and that reminds me of another film that just came out. What could it be now where people are saying it's terrible and so much money was spent, and there's so many ideas and it's a jumble? Megalopolis.
See it while you can in theaters. Dear listener, I implore you, Gareth will come around. He's going to watch it again where you do Megalopolis Part 2 soon.
Okay.
Are you reviewing my review?
It's reviews all the way down.
All right. So Heaven's Gate has three movements in it. The first is this elaborate graduation sequence in which you see the kind of, you know, the future power of America getting ratified by Joseph Cotton, of all people.
And then you're suddenly in the kind of pioneer, country side, person against person, every person for themselves, everything kind of just exploding and literally exploding and people murdering each other in order to achieve business ends.
And then the film, I don't want to spoil it, there's a third movement to the film, a kind of a code to the film. And throughout this film, Kris Kristofferson, at some points, he looks like the grizzled countryman.
At other points, he's this young, clean shaven. And at the end, you can see that he's like a this place of complete mournfulness and apathetic despair.
It's almost like the, it's a parallel to the end of Once Upon a Time in America, a person who didn't get what he wanted and wasn't able to prevent harm coming to the people that he loved.
Now, we talk about Heaven's Gate a lot, and I can't overstate it. It's one of the masterpieces of American cinema. And it's a great way into discovering Kris Kristofferson as an actor.
Reminds me of another film coming out.
One of the unsung masterpieces.
Yeah, but it's recent.
A recent masterpiece, Rebel Ridge.
You're talking about Rebel Ridge?
Well, we got to talk about that on His Three Daughters, perhaps The Wild Robot. How about Bones and All? We never talked about Bones and All.
No, we never did.
Have you seen Bones and All?
That is fantastic.
And in this tribute to Kris Kristofferson, I'm sure he would be happy that we were talking about other movies he wasn't in.
I'm sure he appreciated cinema. As I imagine John Amos did, another person who played on the screen who just recently passed away. And we don't have much time here.
I just want to say one thing about John Amos. A lot of people might know him from shows like Good Time and or Coming to America, the film with Eddie Murphy.
And The West Wing played Admiral Fitz.
I never saw The West Wing. We could maybe do a West Wing rewatch show. I don't think so.
Have we talked about Megalopolis? I was supposed to say one thing about John Amos. Well, he was such a welcome presence.
He was one of those films we talked about. We talked about this on the old show before. It's like, oh, thank God actor, OTG actor.
You'd be so happy when you saw him on the show.
I'm just glad that he's there.
When I saw Die Hard 2, full and die harder in the cinema, I think I saw it at the Grand Lake in Oakland, California. This is like the pre-Internet days, right? So people, maybe they saw the trailer, but you didn't know necessarily who was in it.
And the theater sold out. And when John Amos appeared, the entire audience, everyone just went, oh, you know, not that they weren't there for Bruce Willis kicking everybody's butt, but John Amos is like, yeah.
And then spoilers for Die Hard 2, colon, die harder. When it turns out he's actually a bad guy, it's a twist two-thirds of the way through, the whole audience went, oh, like literally just deflate like, oh man, you're doing Amos dirty.
They should be teaming up, you know? John Amos looked like every, all of my friends' dads in high school, he looked like my school principal and most of my teachers. He had that vibe that I know so well.
He really embodied another kind of masculinity, a masculinity born through intense hardship, which is one of the themes of the TV show, The Good Times. And he's really going to be missed. Any final thoughts, Gareth?
Any recommendations?
I hope, dear listener, you'll watch Heaven's Gate or Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid or maybe Convoy or A Star is Born, or You Know What? or The Tim Burton Planet of the Apes. But I say, I kind of hope you don't really watch that.
Never send an ape to do a man's job.
You know what? I'm going to recommend it. I have not seen this since it came out and I forgot about it.
I just remembered it. The Alan Rudolph kind of futuristic sci-fi film Trouble in Mind. Go see Trouble in Mind.
I bet I haven't seen since it came out in 1985. So I was a kid. I bet it's great.
Gareth, thanks so much for talking with me. I appreciate it. Kristofferson's death hit me kind of hard and Amos too.
So thanks for taking the time out of your schedule.
You're welcome and thank you too. Grateful for their lives and work. And lovely to be able to have a chance to talk with them.
And I get to ask you a question at the end of this little episode that usually you get to ask me. Kristofferson and Amos, Jett, still with us?
In our hearts, as long as we are people that want to strive for freedom, enjoy finding joy through hardship, through the hard times, to make some good times. I've been Jett Loe.
I've been Gareth Higgins.
We'll keep talking.
Next time.