The Horse Whisperer
I saw, "Buck", last night. And, "Buck", is the famous horse whisperer.
And as usual it gave an insight into American culture.
We had Hollywood royalty trot out the tiredest and oldest American cliche when he told us this was a true story and was authentic. And this is a bloke who has devoted his whole life to being phoney telling us how refreshing it is to discover someone authentic in front of him. I couldn't help remembering the old American saw, "In America, once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made".
Of course a movie stands or falls by whether it can suspend our disbelief. And when they fail artistically to suspend our disbelief, they tell us it is a true story full of authentic people, when it is just a failed work of art that they are flogging for business.
But the trops did not stop there. The tried and true trop of sin and redemption was trotted out. Only sin these days is child abuse, while redemption is recovery. And we saw a man in this whole movie recovering from his child abuse and recovering with horses.
And yet we watch these cliched movies as though our lives depended upon it, when really it is only the cash flow that is dependent.