The Lentin season begins today, and so begins my fast of movies. This of course means that I wasted away my entire weekend watching movies- sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. My favourite time this weekend would have to have been Sunday evening. That afternoon, I watched Guy Ritchie's "Revolver" which I come to enjoy more and more every time I see (or shall we say experience) it. There are a thousand things I could go on about concerning this film, with its various facets and angles, but that's not my focus today.
Some friends came over later that night, and we watched William Goldman's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" over pizza, which is pretty much the life. Such a great movie- flawless characters, spotless story, priceless dialogue. It's just great! But something caught my eye this time around.
Why is it that the story follows Butch and Sundance? What I mean is, we are set up to empathize with the villains while their pursuers (Lord Baltimore and Lefors) are established in our eyes as terrible men. Now maybe these men of justice were in fact corrupt, like the Sheriff of Nottingham, but I don't exactly see the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang stealing from Mr. E.H. Harriman in order to feed the poor (besides themselves). And what justification do they have in Bolivia? Everyone is poor there!
On the other hand, everyone (except for Mr. E.H. Harriman, of course) likes these two thieves. They're charming gentlemen, kind, light-hearted, and Etta even points out that Butch Cassidy is generous to the point of poverty. So maybe they are the Merry Men of the Wild West. I don't know, maybe Goldman is just that brilliant of a writer- after all, he has proven himself time and time again. Or maybe I'm just getting too caught up in the adventure, but I would much rather be jumping off the cliff with Butch and Sundance than tracking them across rock for the sake of the Union Pacific.
And I can't swim either...
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