Lonesome Dove

I scheduled this week off some time ago hoping to play golf and spend as much time outdoors as possible but the weather hasn't cooperated. It's been pouring rain all over the east coast this week and it's still raining now as I look out my window. Earlier this week I stumbled across this radio interview with Robert Duvall, whom I consider the finest actor in American films over the past fifty years (hell, he might be the finest ever) in which he mentions that his role in the 1989 mini-series Lonesome Dove was his favorite ever. I'd never seen "Lonesome Dove" so I took the opportunity this week, watching all four 90-minute long episodes over the past three days, streaming from Netflix. Perhaps it is the inevitable melancholia that builds up in one during long stretches of dreary, rainy days, but right now I think "Lonesome Dove" has had as powerful an emotional effect on me as just about any television I've ever seen. A wonderful story, and Duvall's portayal of Augustus McCrae is a triumph. The story is about two retired Texas Rangers (Duvall's McCrae and Woodrow Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who is also excellent) who leave their two-bit Texas town of Lonesome Dove to drive cattle up north to begin the first cattle ranch on the Montana frontier. I won't go into more plot detail but suffice to say it is vastly entertaining and visually brilliant, with breathtaking shots of the frontier - you understand the attachment those men had with the country. At bottom "Lonesome Dove" has what all the best stories of the West contain: love of the land, love of adventure, a sense of duty and honor, the choice between staying and going, between what will be lost and what can be gained, and an acceptance of the burdens that come with such a life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Here is a little taste, but watch the entire six hours. You won't regret it:

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