ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

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Cormac McCarthy has written several books which have been made into films – The Road, No Country for Old Men, The Counselor – and All the Pretty Horses, probably this American writer’s most romantic and least complex novel.

'All The Pretty Horses' (2000) film poster, featuring Matt Damon and Penalope Cruz.

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Matt Damon stars as teenager John Grady Cole with Henry Thomas (E.T.’s mate back in 1982) as his friend Lacey Rawlins. Lucas Black was 13-year-old Jimmy Blevins and Penelope Cruz makes her Hollywood debut as the love interest, Alejandra. Set in the 1940s, the picture features Damon, who was born in Massachusetts and went to Harvard, as a young Texan struggling to survive in an atmosphere bent on defeating his cowboy ethics.

Cole and Rawlins encounter various adventures including meeting up with a 13-year-old misfit named Blevins. Arriving at a hacienda the two cowboys are hired as vaqueros and Grady falls in love with Alejandra, the wealthy ranch owner’s daughter, leading to a series of brutal events.

“It’s a story about desolation and endless searching,” explained Thomas. “Grady’s looking for his space in a changing world.”

A month before production began the actors spent time in Texas perfecting their riding skills. Damon and Thomas were especially dedicated, riding horses for five weeks.

“We worked with Rusty Hendrickson and his wranglers Rex Peterson and Monty Stuart,” recalled Damon. “We’d ride for eight hours every single day. We’d saddle the horses in the morning, unsaddle them at night and brush them. Drills were also a large part of the training. We’d be trotting and Rex would say, ‘Okay, we’ll walk around here in a figure of eight, but I want it to be perfect’, so we’d first do it at a trot and then at a gallop. It was all about feeling totally confident and giving the impression we’d lived with horses all our lives.

“The horses were incredible,” continued Damon. “They’re better actors than we are. Most had been in hundreds of movies and nothing ruffles them.”

Hendrickson supplied ‘Dollar’, his own chestnut quarter horse gelding to work as Damon’s ‘Redbo’, and cast his grey QH ‘Ghost’ as Henry Thomas’s ‘Junior’. When searching for a mount for Lucas Black he looked at saddlebreds, walking horses and thoroughbreds, finally selecting a little bay quarter horse which appealed to director Billy Bob Thornton.

TRIVIA

Billy Bob Thornton is a self-described ‘Brony’, a male fan of My Favorite Pony. He’s been married six times.

When the actors were finally deemed acceptable horsemen, Thornton took three days to shoot the breaking sequences with 20 horses. Damon and Thomas alternated in the action with their doubles, Richard Bucher and Mike Watson. The stuntmen rode the fiercest ones, which would often throw them, but the leading men also endured their share of falls. The scenes, filled with drama, landscape and animal action, were to showcase Cole’s unique gift for communing with horses and to highlight the pride, spirit and freedom of the mustangs in their natural state.

In the 2001 World Stunt Awards, Bucher and Watson were nominated with two others for Taurus Award for best animal work. The prize ended up going to Gladiator for some clever footage with tigers.

Henry Thomas as Lacey Rawlins, Matt Damon as John Grady Cole, and Lucas Black as 13-year-old Jimmy Blevins. Image supplied.

“The horses were incredible.
They’re better actors than
we are.” – Matt Damon

Hendrickson stayed on the project until the end, devoted to what was considered one of the greatest pieces of horse literature ever written. But the film didn’t pan out that way due to poor casting and studio interference.

Thornton didn’t have final cut on the movie and was heartbroken how it ended up looking in the cinema. Over at Miramax, headed then by the now imprisoned Harvey Weinstein, the director had been told to make numerous cuts and integrate a whole new music score.

As the Observer in London noted in its review: “Thornton’s first director’s cut apparently ran to four hours and the hacking back to less than half squeezes the juice out of it.”

Years later, Billy Bob has still not overcome his disappointment. Nor has Damon.

“It was advertised as a love story between me and Penelope. She was out of the movie halfway through. It’s really about the three young men, about the end of the west. Instead there were the posters of me and Penelope airbrushed and staring at each other.”

Matt Damon and Henry Thomas. Image supplied.

The film's director, Billy Bob Thornton. Image supplied.

One of the film’s most stirring scenes is at the opening when a herd of horses pounds across a landscape at night passing the camera and out of shot. Fifty were put in pen A and when released were cued to run to pen B about 400 metres away. They were then walked, cooled down and given an hour to rest between the three takes. The running area was fenced and mounted wranglers controlled the horses at all times.

In another sequence where the three actors ride across the Rio Grande River into Mexico, the bottom of the river was a concrete-like flat base, not slippery, and free from mud and muck. The three horses were ridden by stuntmen through the water.

It cost $57million to make but only grossed just over $18million worldwide.

You can buy All the Pretty Horses (2000, Columbia Pictures/Miramax Films) on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Amazon Video as a download, or rent it from all the same services.

Next month, ‘Ladyhawke’ (1985) starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer, Matthew Broderick and some very handsome Friesians. EQ

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