The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) David Lynch
An imaginative production of Cowboys and the French that could only come from the fevered mind of David Lynch.
“Slim, the foreman of the ranch – almost stone cold deaf on account of two rounds of 30.06 going off a little too close when he was thirteen and a half – along with Pete and Dusty - sees something unusual coming down the mountain….”
David Lynch is a necessary stop on the way for any film auteur. Love him or hate him, he is an important part of independent cinema. Even though his movies are undoubtedly controversial, obtuse, and opaque many film stars nevertheless drop their schedules for a chance to work with him. I’m fairly confident that those who love cinema have all gone through their Lynch rite of passage at some point.
My Lynch-mania coalesced in my freshman year of college when we were tasked with actually trying to make sense of his films. One might argue that deconstructing (or constructing) a plot line can be diminishing of a great work in itself. I agree with that sentiment, but personally, I like to derive meaning from any work I’m looking at and I generally find that underneath chaos there is order. The rabbit hole with trying to understand the symbolic and strange is to not get too caught up with the meaning. Even Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but who here among us hasn’t daydreamed of a love story between Glenda the Good Witch/Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley/James Dean? And also, to this day will still argue that Eraser Head is a better safe sex PSA than anything I watched in high school.
My problem with Lynch recently is that his films are so energetically demanding to watch. I find that I need to be in a specific mood in order to take in the next two hours. I usually feel drained after sitting down to one of his films which unfortunately means his movies don’t make it into my regular rotation. The Cowboy and The Frenchman is my obvious and undeniable exception to this rule. Everything about this short makes me happy. Even the introduction had me laughing out loud.
Only running 20 minutes and bitingly funny, Lynch paints a picture of two stereotypes: The French and the wild western cowboys and Indians. Lynch gives his own synopsis best:
“An absurd comedy. A Frenchman was in New York City and some very kind people gave him some pills in Central Park. Then he took them, and the next thing he knows is he ends up at a ranch in the West and Harry Dean Stanton is the foreman and Jack (Nance) and Tracey (Walter) are the sidekicks. And they don’t know what he is, until they start going through his valise. Finally, they figure out that he’s a Frenchman. And it goes from there.”
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