Thelma and Louise

Wow, I really loved this on second sight, in full widescreen glory! I was tickled pink (or lavender) at the way it perfectly rounded out the Cinematic Landscapes film series, if I do say so myself. Talk about plunging into the landscape, making it a dangerous, beautiful metaphor for freedom and spirit! From the Leone to the Bogdanovich to the Ridley Scott, we went from horse opera to country & western to rock’n’roll roadtrip, from a summation of the 19th century Romantic mythos of the West, to a modernist midcentury vision of alienation and lust on the barren, windswept plains of Texas, to a pre-millenial post-modernist overturning of genre and gender -- this time we give the guns to the girls, travel through Monument Valley at night, complicate the celebration of sisters in arms. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis make magic together, as they bust out of domesticity into the Wild West. There’s a certain amount of feminist payback in their exploits, but at a distance from the uproar around its original release, it’s easy to see that the male leads (Harvey Keitel, Brad Pitt, Michael Madsen) are all complex characters, though some of the bit players are caricatures of male shortcomings. Callie Khouri deserved her Oscar for her literate and witty script, and either woman would have been a worthy Best Actress (though winner Jodie Foster was too.) Scott’s direction has both sweep and detail, the interiors meticulously set up the escape to exteriors, and the whole moral argument of the film is played out in the shadow and light falling across the faces of both men and women. Great music too. You laugh, you cry, you exult in sensation, you are forced to think. How much more can a movie do? (1991, dvd@cai, r.) *9*