The Spanish media has given us more info on BLACKTHORN as well as another photo, this time of the lone cowboy on horseback. In a recent interview with screenwriter, Miguel Barros stated that his story has nothing to do with the mythical "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The duo supposedly ended their days in Bolivia in November 1908 during a shootout with the Bolivian army. These two thieves serve as inspiration for Barros but he only took the Cassidy character and created a story in which the outlaw survives this assault. The script was written in two to three weeks in record time. The starting point is that Butch Cassidy is still alive under the name of James Blackthorn, and twenty years after his supposed death, he is dedicated to raising horses in a small village in Bolivia. Barros showed the script to Mateo Gil, who quickly fell for the project.

One of the things that Gil and Barros were clear on was that the lead actor had to be an American. The first name that came up was Nick Nolte's. Initial contact was good but due to problems with intermediaries, they offered the role to another mythical figure - Sam Shepard. When our playwright received the script, he was hooked. Barros admits it was an honor to have another writer like something you've written. Sam accepted all the conditions and within 15 days of his "yes", Gil was already with him in NY reviewing the script.

Both Gil and Barros made several trips to Bolivia to pick the locations and filming began in April and lasted nine weeks. Barros - "It was hard work for everyone because we were at an average altitude of 3,000 or 4,000 meters with the logical problems of altitude sickness and variable climatic conditions, from the tropical sun to freezing cold. But, at the same time, it was fun."

Here's a trio from the 2007 Venice Film Festival, which screened "The Assassination of Jesse James...". I wish he'd take those darn sunglasses off!

I thought I'd share an excerpt today from "Costello", one of Sam's short stories in his latest book, DAY OUT OF DAYS. This observation is so Shepard, so autobiographical. The man is oh so timid in his interviews but you can touch his soul in his writing.

I make no bones about my obsession with observation. I enjoy making notes. Jotting things down. I prefer not to be stared at when I’m furtively staring at others. There is a subtle art to the sneaking of glances. Timing is everything. To look as though all your attention is completely absorbed in the subject of your notebook when, in fact, you are lurking; waiting for the moment he picks up his coffee cup, takes a chomp out of the donut then unabashedly sucks the sticky sugar off his fingers while continuing to scan the Racing Form. These are the ripe spans of time where you seize the opportunity to look deeply into the essence of a man; see the source of his greed without his having the slightest clue. Still, you have to be constantly alert; wary of not getting caught by his quick glance. In the flash of an eye he might become aware that you are a witness and begin subtly altering his every manifestation; playing out the illusion that he is in total control of his character or worse – he might become hostile and paranoid. I’ve seen it happen. People hate to be seen. They hate the sensation of eyes on them; being looked at for what they are and not what they imagine themselves to be. Very few people can handle the blatant stare except children under five. This has been my experience anyway.

El Pais, Spain's most popular newspaper, described Sam - "His life has cultivated a magnetism and a special mystery. A chiseled face... A love for writing old stories about dilapidated motels in the American Midwest and characters at the brink of moral and physical collapse... A continuous display of talent as a writer of plays, stories, screenplays, and as a film actor and director."

No word yet on when the pilot for the EPIX new TV series, TOUGH TRADE, will be aired but I did come across some production photos taken last winter at the Thistletop Inn in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The inn, constructed by master builder and preservationist Braxton Dixon, was chosen as the set location because of its unique architecture. The contemporary one-hour drama tells the story of three generations of a Nashville music dynasty whose penchant for drink, debauchery and divorce has left it on the verge of bankruptcy. Sam plays the family patriarch, Linwood Tucker.

We all know how music has played a major role in Sam's life, and it looks as though the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Walker Shepard will be 23 years old in a few days and presently plays with the band, The Dust Busters, who have been featured on the Down Home Radio Show. Both Walker and his dad also appear together on banjo on Patti Smith's album, "Twelve". Though Sam recently referred to his son as "very, very shy", Walker's social anxiety obviously doesn't prevent him from stepping in front of an audience!

We all know the history of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard and since they coincidentally have published books at about the same time, there's much to be compared between the two artists. I came across this anonymous blog this morning and will share it here:

Sam has been named the 2010 Janet Weis Fellow in Contemporary Letters at Bucknell University. The award was established in 2002 to honor and recognize individuals who represent the highest level of achievement in the craft of writing within the realms of fiction, non-fiction or biography. Previous recipients have been John Edgar Wideman, David McCullough, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Tom Wolfe, Joyce Carol Oates and Derek Walcott. Sam is the first playwright to receive the award.

He will be present to receive the award on October 5 and will also give a talk in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts at Bucknell. The event will be free and open to the public. Information on tickets to reserve seating will be announced in the fall.

In Bucknell President Brian C. Mitchell's announcement, he said, "Sam Shepard has been a prominent fixture on the literary landscape for decades. His plays, books and movies address the issues that are relevant to all of us at Bucknell, whether we are students coming of age or adults getting older. We are delighted to welcome him to Bucknell for a lively discussion about his work and the role of his craft in our world."

Occasionally the papparazzi do catch up with the famous couple in Greenwich Village. In the photos below, they are seen walking their poodle on two occasions.
 

We have our first look at Sam starring in BLACKTHORN. The photo below shows him on location is Peruvian actress/singer Magaly Solier, who confesses - "Sam Shepard is lovely! I'm definitely in love!" She goes on to comment particularly on his kindness and treating her so well. In an interview with Bolivian's newspaper La Razon, Ms. Solier explains that she got very excited when she won the role in Mateo Gil's film because she would be sharing scenes with Sam, whom she had seen in Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven". The film will continue shooting for nine weeks in Bolivia.

Since Day out of Days was published in January, more excellent reviews continue to trickle in. Here's Kathe Connair of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Sam Shepard knows how to spin stories out of next to nothing and make them mesmerizing, gleeful, spooky, puzzling or heartbreaking. This collection of more than 100 sketches, poems and short stories is a delight throughout, as he illuminates horse trainers and actors, aimless travelers and bored spouses, and the disconnect, literally, between our brains and our bodies. "Saving Fats" is a rollicking story in which an overweight airline passenger draws a quiet-seeking seatmate into his account of personally helping save a tuxedo-clad Fats Domino - and his white baby grand - from Hurricane Katrina's roiling floodwaters. In 'Knoxville, Tennessee,' a solitary driver meditates on the history that informs the light 'yips' in Ralph Stanley's singing. These ruminations add up to an aging man's still vibrant sense of yearning and wonder. As Shepard says in 'Tops,' 'Things like these just come floating in these days. Uninvited.' But welcome, nonetheless.

In a review in Edge New York, contributor Robert Israel makes the following keen observation on Sam's writing - "If there is a key to understanding Shepard and his prose, it can be found in the short piece titled 'Chatter,' which gives as much insight as a reader is going to get when struggling to learn why Shepard writes the way he does, with such uncompromising intensity:"

"I now have an almost constant swirling chatter going on inside my head from dawn to dusk," Shepard writes. "I never could have foreseen this when I was five, playing with sticks in the dirt, but I guess it’s been slowly accumulating over all these sixty-some years; growing more intense, less easy to ignore. I wake up with it. I feed chickens with it. I drive tractors with it. I make coffee with it. I fry eggs with it. I ride horses with it. I go to bed with it. I sleep with it. It is my constant companion."

If anyone was going to make a sequel to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, you might guess that Hollywood would be all over it but it appears that the Spanish have beaten them to the punch. As reported here back in November, Arcadia Motion Pictures has announced a pseudo sequel, set years after George Roy Hill’s 1969 classic starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and this time Sam will star as the aging Butch Cassidy. Though the film is Spanish-funded and produced, BLACKTHORN will be an English-language western set around 1910. It will be helmed by Spanish writer/director Mateo Gil, best known for his screenplay of the 2005 Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film - "The Sea Inside" starring Javier Bardeem. Co-stars include Eduardo Noriega and Peruvian actress Magaly Solier. Shooting begins early next month in Bolivia with a a $7.5 million budget.

The synopsis reads as follows: James Blackthorn (Shepard) is an old Gringo living quietly in the green tropical valleys of Bolivia. He breeds horses and has a romantic friendship with a native woman. He's getting on in years and wants to die at home, in the United States. His real name is Butch Cassidy, one of the last and most famous outlaws from the far West. But the legend of his life has almost faded into oblivion as everyone believes him long dead.

As he crosses the high plateau on his way home, James encounters another rider, far younger and inexperienced. A Spanish mine engineer by the name of Ernesto Apodaca (Noriega) who is fleeing after having robbed a mine. Remembering his past and in need of money, Blackthorn decides to accompany the young man on his frantic flight across Bolivia. During this time the two men, although very different, will become friends amongst the violence and the loneliness of the Bolivian desert. But Blackthorn is not the only one with a secret... In no man's land and hounded by more and more armed men, both men will have no choice but to reveal their true intentions and face reality, once and for all.

Director Mateo Gil discusses how he envisions the film's cinematography:  "Blackthorn would not be a film made up by grandiose images and 'traditional aesthetic', of slow camera movements and tall crane shots; but of closer images, near to the characters, that allow us to see the landscape through their eyes as they reveal the most intimate side of their dramatic voyage: The deep seated feelings our main character feels for the land that has sheltered him; his feelings about the past and how they are reawakened by the appearance of his new comrade; his feelings towards the woman with whom he spends his afternoons, although the passion of love is absent, affection, respect and carnality are all present; his feelings toward a young man he has never met but who could very well be his son, to whom he writes and directs every last effort; how he feels about the small things that surround him, his clean but simple home, his horses, what he chooses to take with him on this last trek, where he chooses to sleep each night as they advance…"

As many of you know, in the winter of 2009 Sam was slapped with a DUI charge and up until this time, Sam has not commented on his struggle with alcohol. In a recent interview with The Observer (UK), he spoke about the demon that continues to haunt him. Obviously his own father's descent into alcoholism and the deterioration of any semblance of a happy and stable home did not provide enough impetus for Sam to keep his distance from booze. So, on January 3, 2009 around 2 am, a couple of officers in Normal, Illinois, clocked him on radar going 46 mph in a 30 mph zone. That sounds like a bum rap to me. However, after being pulled over, it was discovered Sam's alcohol blood level was twice the legal limit. When he appeared in court the following month, he was not only fined but also ordered to complete an alcohol treatment program and 100 hours of community service. During the past year he received counseling and treatment at a NY facility and donated 100 hours to the drama department at New York University, working with students on their theater and writing projects. (What a thrill for those students!)

In several of his literary works, the main character is haunted by the chilling possibility that he is turning into his father. Back then it was a fear; now, he says, it has become a fact.

"You think about it, you talk about it, analyze it, and then all of a sudden you have become the thing that you were most vehement against. It's very Greek. They invented this shit. Or at least gave it a name."

He's been sober, he says, for over a year. "And prior to that I was sober for four years and then I relapsed. It's a constant struggle. It's such a knucklehead disease because you refuse to see it. It wasn't until the 90s that I actually started going to AA and made a real compact with myself to quit. And I did quit for four years. And then I picked it up again. It's like being a junkie. I think I have that sort of thing in my blood, in my psyche. I can become addicted very easily, although the curious thing is that I have two sisters who are not. So I don't know. Maybe it's just a toss of the dice."

In the same interview Sam makes a comment that greatly amused me. He says, "The things that I wonder about most are not on the Internet, I promise you that." I chuckle whenever folks miscomprehend the breadth and scope of the Internet. Obviously God is not on the Internet but everything else is! I am just nine days younger than Sam so I know he's playing the Stubborn Old Man on this one. Sometimes you just can't teach an old dog new tricks...

On February 18th The New Group opened "A Lie of the Mind', directed by Ethan Hawke. The production has a limited off-Broadway engagement through March 20 and marks the first New York revival since the play's 1985 award-winning debut. Sam already had “Buried Child,” “True West” and other plays about dysfunctional families to his credit in 1985, when he directed the premiere of his ensemble drama, which depicts two families torn by violence and resentments. Starring Harvey Keitel, Geraldine Page, Amanda Plummer and Aidan Quinn, the production ran off Broadway for six months and won the Drama Desk Award for best play, among other honors.

In a NY Times article called "Getting Faster with Age", Sam discusses the revival of this play - "I’ve come to see it  as a bit of an awkward play. If you were to talk about it in terms of cars, it’s like an old, broken-down Buick that you kind of hold together to just get down the road. All of the characters are in a fractured place, broken into pieces, and the pieces don’t really fit together. So it feels kind of rickety to me now.” He further admits, "I see my older plays as clunky relatives to the ones I’m doing now, to be honest, and I don’t have a great deal of interest in those older plays."

The Atlantic Theater Company production of AGES OF THE MOON has been extended by two weeks. Directed by Jimmy Fay and starring Stephen Rea and Sean McGinley, the play was originally scheduled to end March 7. Performances will now continue at the Linda Gross Theater through March 21. Here's a great publicity shot of our playwright with his "good old boys" - Irish actors Stephen Rea and Sean McGinley.

The official opening night was held on January 27th. Playbill blogger Harry Haun posted a few comments about the festive evening - "The famously press-skittish Sam Shepard opted to grin and bear it for the paparazzi-popping that accompanied the Atlantic Theater opening of his new play... At least he stayed for some group shots at the after-party at Moran’s before hitting the door. 'He’s not doing interviews tonight,' the publicist explained.

The first photo below shows Sam with his star Stephen Rea and the second one shows him in the company of three directors with "Ages" director Jimmy Fay, Abbey Theatre's Fiach Mac Conghail and Atlantic Theater Company's Neil Pepe. For more opening night photos and reviews, follow this link.
 

John Lahr of The New Yorker has just published a rather lengthy, but excellent article called, "The Pathfinder - Sam Shepard and the struggles of American manhood." I'm always looking for wonderful new ways to describe our playwright. Lahr does justice with "Shepard was homespun and handsome, with a strong jaw and a dimpled chin. He exuded the mystery and swagger of a movie star, which he would eventually become." If you have time, you can read the full article. Here's an excerpt from his review on "Ages":

The play is slight; the weight of its sorrow is not. Shepard leaves his characters gazing poignantly into the gloaming. “Sliver of moonlight fades to black,” the stage direction reads. As Ernest Tubb’s bright voice sings them into shadow—“When you look at me with those stars in your eyes / I could waltz across Texas with you”—the men sit, drinks in hand, staring into space. The falling darkness plays as the declivity of Shepard’s life and love. “I hate endings,” he once said. “Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing, and endings are a disaster.”

On January 22nd Sam and Patti Smith appeared together at a 92nd Street Y's Poetry Project event in which the two old friends and collaborators read passages from their recently published books: Smith's "Just Kids," a memoir about her life with the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam's short story anthology, "Day out of Days". The two photos on the right show the duo meeting with children at the Poetry Center School before they went on stage.

Sadly, it was impossible for me to attend (big sigh). Furthermore, I was actually offline unable to provide commentary as well as photos on all the exciting happenings of the past couple weeks. According to those who were present at the 92Y reading, these two artists gave an engaging performance. From the Wall Street Journal blog:

“I thought this could make a good story,” Sam Shepard said last night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, going on to outline a premise whereby two people are together for a year, go their separate ways for the next four decades, marry other lovers and start families, have separate careers, become a rock singer in the case of one, and then, “forty years later they get back together and see what happens.”

Patti Smith, who was sharing the stage with Shepard, laughed and said, “That is what happens.”

The pair talked in the easy way of old friends and improvised the evening, sometimes stopping and starting over again and laughing. “We’re not entirely prepared but we’ve never been — and we’re still here,” Smith said.

Shepard began with an absurdist tale of a man trapped inside a Cracker Barrel bathroom and forced to listen to nothing but piped-in Shania Twain songs. Smith countered with the story of how she befriended Mapplethorpe while on a disastrous date with an older sci-fi writer. Shepard read a story about Las Vegas, New Mexico; Smith read a poem she wrote after meeting Shepard — a poem whose spirited recitation made the audience roar.

“Um, okay,” Shepard said. “How do I follow that?”

Eventually, he figured out a way, picking up a guitar and dueting with Smith first on an old sea shanty and then on “You are My Sunshine,” which, Shepard noted affectionately, was “my mother’s favorite song.”

From an anonymous blogger:

Attendee Lena Valencia also gave her account:

"We’re not prepared, but we never have been, and we’re still here," Patti Smith announced as she and Sam Shepard sat down on the two armchairs on the stage of the 92nd Street Y last night, facing the sold-out crowd. They read, in a sort of call-and-response fashion, excerpts from their newest works peppered with some of Smith’s poetry and a couple of pleasantly unrehearsed musical numbers at the end.

According to "Just Kids", Smith and Shepard met when she went to see him play in The Holy Modal Rounders. He introduced himself  to her as Slim Shadow and Smith, oblivious to his true identity, was attracted to this "handsome hillbilly" with a "cowboy mouth"...  The two sparked up a romantic relationship and went on to collaborate on the play Cowboy Mouth. Forty years later, after immensely successful careers in their respective fields, the two luminaries giggled and made digs at each other between readings as if they were alone. They finally did what everyone was hoping for and picked up the guitars, performing an acapella 17th Century Sea Shanty about crossing Cape Horn, along with "You Are My Sunshine."

From Jason Diamond from The Faster Times:

The duo, who admitted to meeting for coffee on a normal basis, kept the conversation between reading their work light and sweet. Smith, reading for the first time at 92Y, played the part of the nostalgic by reading from her wonderful new book of memories from her early days in New York, "Just Kids". Shepard, something of a veteran of readings at the Upper East Side institution, seemed just fine letting Smith be the highlight of the evening, but the guy could have just as easily carried the night on his own. Whatever the case, the sold out room was treated to an evening of two icons reading their works and having a good time being friends.

And finally, Margaret Eby from Interview magazine:

"We're not entirely prepared," Patti Smith announced to the crowd gathered at the 92nd Street Y last night. "But I've never been." Smith, the ragtag godmother of New York City punk, took the stage last night for a reading with playwright and longtime friend Sam Shepard. As it turns out, Smith's warning was more than just coy stage banter: The whole evening was mostly improvised, with Shepard and Smith unsure who was supposed to read when, or quite what to do with the guitars the Y had helpfully set up beside their chairs. Like most improvisations, the result was mixed: some nervous laughter, quite a few awkward silences, and a couple moments of pure, you-had-to-be-there magic.

Unsurprisingly, Shepard, in light of his considerable acting career, was the more animated dramatic reader.  The dynamic between Smith and Shepard began as something like that of competing siblings ("This isn't a contest," Shepard reminded Smith after one selection), but metamorphosed into one of artists deeply appreciative of each other's work. Toward the end of the night, Smith began to smilingly defer to Shepard, looking like a child listening eagerly to a bedtime story.

How many people get to glimpse the private space of New York rock poet legend Patti Smith? Everyone now. Last week the Robert Miller Gallery in West Chelsea opened  “Objects of Life,” an exhibit by photographer and filmmaker Steven Sebring and Smith, focusing on images and objects central to Smith’s life. The opening reception, held January 6th, was a revolving door of celebrities and artists including Sam. Smith and Sebring collaborated for eleven years on the documentary "Patti Smith: Dream of Life', which aired on PBS on December 10th.  During those years of filming, Sebring became increasingly interested in the history and mythology behind the possessions and personal treasures that Smith shared in the film's most intimate moments. It resulted in the desire to return to his roots as photographer and to recontextualise the sacred and the commonplace through his camera lens. The two artists have now put together this exhibition, which includes Patti's childhood dress, her Land 250 Polaroid camera, and a tamborine made by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or and FIPRESCI awards at the Cannes Film Festival, PARIS, TEXAS (1984) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion on January 26th. German New Wave pioneer Wim Wenders ("Don't Come Knocking") brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in a profoundly moving character study written by Sam Shepard. A mysterious, nearly mute drifter named Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape of its own) tries to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski). From this simple setup, Wenders and Shepard produce a powerful statement on codes of masculinity and the myth of the American family, as well as an exquisite visual exploration of a vast, crumbling world of canyons and neon.