Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

My fellow students always considered a film in class to be some sort of break from education – the presence of a television in the classroom was a clear indication that absolutely no learning would occur that day. Sometimes they were correct; I still remember the look on my high school biology teacher’s face when the O. J. verdict stopped the universe in its tracks. Easily shifted into a lesson about DNA, one may have expected. And I shall never forget losing the “rainy day lunch” vote, when The Sound of Music (1965) triumphed narrowly over The Wizard of Oz (1939) in my third-grade class. If you think I don’t remember the names and addresses of those so-called “friends” who voted against me, I’ll have you know I hold a grudge better than a woman whose chichi shoes have been stolen off of her dead sister’s feet.

The intertwining of a film with a lesson plan was one of the few times in my early education when I paid attention and actually absorbed a thing or two. Eventually in college I would enroll in a course called “The Language and Literature of Film,” and in that semester, I skipped not a single lecture. But years before I found myself enjoying the role of “student,” I got a sneak preview of things to come. My high school English teacher had us set aside our copies of Dante’s Inferno, leaving our narrator and Virgil somewhere between Circles Five and Six. He wheeled over the television that had to be ordered weeks in advance and popped in a good old-fashioned video . . . yes kids, a VHS tape – look it up on the Internet. A film I had already memorized was about to reinvent itself, and as it played, I began to see the distinct parallels between Virgil and Dante’s descent into Hell and the epic journey that is Thelma & Louise (1991).

I hadn’t thought about that critical moment of my school years in quite some time, until recently when I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) in its entirety. Whether on the backs of horses or in a ‘66 Thunderbird, nothing brings two people together like the deep-rooted bonds of crime.

After two margaritas on a hot Friday afternoon, I confessed to a dear friend that I need to give the boys some attention on my blog. I love my Garbos and Crawfords to itty-bitty pieces, and although I have bowed down before giants like Bogie and Spencer, it’s worth our time to have a gander at a few other fellas. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of those films I had never seen from beginning to end in a single sitting. A scene here and a scene there, yes, and perhaps the entire movie over the span of a few decades, but it was time to begin at the beginning. I’m certainly a fan of Paul Newman’s for all the obvious reasons, so I figured I should have this one under my belt (or, when I can find one, my Gaultier holster).

Plunk Newman in front of a camera with Robert Redford, and let me tell you, that Netflix bill is a small price to pay for such beauty. These two men were made for one another – the story of two bank and train robbers who have a fascinating, humorous, and most importantly, entertaining professional and personal relationship? Yes, perfect! When the pesky law gets a little too close, Butch and Sundance make tracks for Bolivia, taking a girlfriend with them, played by the humdrum Katharine Ross (she just doesn’t do it for me, here or in The Graduate). She’s perhaps the one complaint I have here, but fortunately she doesn’t hang around too much, and we get to spend most of our time with the two lovable outlaws. If only Paul Newman had Robert Redford on his bicycle handles instead of Katharine Ross during that playful scene, we would have had a flawless piece of art in this film.

Irresponsibility is awfully tempting when one’s daily responsibilities fail to hold one’s interest. My office job has failed to interest me for quite some time now, but turning to a life of crime isn’t a realistic option . . . seriously, if I couldn’t crack a safe on the first try, I’d start to panic. Instead I find it relaxing to escape into a world of characters and misfits who make up their lives as they along, free for a few hours of others’ expectations. Watching a movie can be very educational indeed: in life, chases may ensue, gunfire could be exchanged, some bad guys will die (even though technically they were good guys), money is won and lost, lovers come and go, but when the right ones come along, some friendships are sealed forever.

And, freeze frame!

Academy Awards for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970): Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score, and Best Original Song (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”)

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The Graduate (1967)

Dear Mom and Dad,

Although you’re no longer together, I felt the need to write you two a single letter. Dad, I can’t stop thinking about the stories you used to tell of the summer after you graduated college and returned home to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. You said one of the few times you ever felt peaceful was when you were under water in their pool, either in a full wetsuit or leaning your head off a raft wearing a diving mask. I’m beginning to understand this distracting feeling—both peaceful and frustrating—at a time in life when I’m just below its surface with nothing to cling to but a slogan promise of hope. In this postmillennial world, all I can think about is finding my own pool in which I can submerge and escape, completely indifferent to its peacefully frustrating aura. At least it’ll be quiet.

Your generation let us down, folks, and I have a few questions. I’m not pointing fingers at you specifically . . . Mom, as kid I remember you saying “that hippie thing was just a fad,” and Dad, you’ve never been one to conform to nonconformity. The Summer of Love and Woodstock may not have had a telethon “Do it for the children” theme to it, but weren’t you trying to change the future by changing the present? What happened to that energy of your generation? How did we end up in this society of plastics from which, Dad, you told me you were so determined to run away? When you drove all the way up to Berkeley to chase Mom down and beg her to marry you, that was Real. When he showed up at your would-be wedding to that jock and the two of you ran off together, that was Real. So tell me, what caused you kids to surrender that four-letter word and embrace the plastics industry?

As accusatory as I can get towards your generation, I wonder if you felt the same towards the one that came before you. Maybe the unifying goal of your late-60s movements was simply a shared determination not to end up like your parents. Getting to know Grandma Robinson after you two separated was, putting it mildly, a bizarrely entertaining experience. I had spent my whole childhood accepting the fact that she simply was not in our lives, but as a kid, naturally I didn’t think to question it . . . I assumed every kid had one grandmother, not two. Grandma Robinson was pretty senile by the time I came to know her as an adult, and I’m not sure she always knew who I was when I went to visit. She’d tell me stories of her frisky teenage years, and for some reason her deteriorating mind often confused Dad with Grandpa Robinson. After all these years, I still don’t understand why you both found her so undesirable, unless it was just a generational thing?

The world seems to be getting angrier. Am I the only one who sees it, or is it just something that we all feel as they age? Maybe I just need to let it to go and accept the fact that the world your generation was supposed to hand us was not possible. Blaming you may not be the fairest course of emotional action on my part, but I can’t help pointing a finger in the direction of your generation. And you know precisely which finger that is! How did you let the Real (that resulted eventually in my existence) unravel your marriage and become so synthetic?

I understand that I need to make changes happen if I want them so desperately—life doesn’t owe me calm waters free of the occasional riptide. But would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work? Terrified of leaving a steady paycheck, here I sit at a job in which I no longer have any interest, punching numbers into a computer so consumers can buy and read books on the other end of the wireless wires. Still I cling to the hope that one day something more will come along and try to seduce me.

Thanks for letting me vent. My love to you both.

Your son,

Benjamin Braddock Jr.

Academy Award for The Graduate (1968): Best Director

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