Lonely Are the Brave

David Miller’s Lonely Are the Brave (1962), recently revived as part of the The Sag Harbor Cinema’s 60’s Western series, is a predecessor to John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969). The difference is social consciousness versus stylized, albeit sublime anomie. Here Kirk Douglas on his horse finds himself mowed down by the oncoming traffic. In Midnight Cowboy a young Texan (Jon Voight) dresses up as a cowboy to become a Times Square hustler.The movie also stars Gena Rowlands of Cassavetes fame, Walter Matthau as the sheriff and Carol O’’Connor aka Archie Bunker as the ill-fated trucker who unwittingly becomes the representative of ugly modernity. The movie is hard to gauge at first. Who is this character riding saddle in traffic and choosing solitude over the chance for love? Then suddenly the pieces fall into place. A signature scene where Douglas in flight from a posse of cops literally drags his rambunctious horse up a mountain pass attains a mythic grandeur. Taken literally, the movie makes no sense. There are still cowboys today but they're too busy herding cattle to challenge the conventions of modernity. However, that’s the point. Lonely Are the Brave is Death of a Salesman meets The Lone Ranger. Speaking of the depredations of capitalism, the screenplay is by Dalton Trumbo, one of the blacklisted Hollywood 10. Two civilizations on a collision course is ultimately the source of the drama.