Spotlight on the sideman
HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS FESTIVAL SCREENS A DIFFERENT KIND OF WESTERN.
Bill Pullman likes watching people limp. He’ll sometimes follow them in airports, observing the rhythm and difficulty of their staggered walks, even using his phone to record video of the movement for future observations.
It’s kind of a surprise, to envision the actor who usually comes off like one of the nicest men in Hollywood as a type of sadist, taking joy in people’s suffering. But that’s not his thing. The man who was president in “Independence Day” is simply intrigued by the sight of seeing people work through a physical deficiency during a time when medicine can cure many of these ailments.
“It’s a rarity,” he says of limping, with a sense of wonder that’s more someone finding beauty in the darkness of injuries than an able-bodied person relishing in his own body’s ability to function normally.
It’s also fine research for his day job, as Pullman has put that time studying limpers to good use in “The Ballad of Lefty Brown,” a Western that revolves around his titular character — an aging sidekick who speaks with gravely deference, carries a short-stock double-barrel shotgun and walks like the bones in his legs are made of peanut brittle.
He’s the tagalong pal from every old Western film starring John Wayne. But Lefty Brown is different than those sideman caricatures developed by Gabby Hayes or Walter Brennan. As suggested by the title of this film, which is playing at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival Saturday, Lefty is the star of this movie, a sidekick thrust into the spotlight of a Western tale about a man trying to avenge the death of his longtime friend and companion.
Pullman is transformative in the role, hiding his smiling charisma and friendly stature behind the scruff of a Montana cowboy who moves like a man who’s been beaten up by a hardscrabble lifestyle. After it premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival this spring, critics suggested it was Pullman’s best work.
“I never know what that means,” Pullman said on a chilly Sunday in March, one day after “Lefty Brown” premiered.
He’s humble and likable in person, the kind of guy who listens as much as he speaks, not unlike his character, who was crafted by observing limpers and the real-life cowboys and cattleman whom he calls neighbors to his ranch in the Big Sky state.
It makes sense why director Jared Moshe would cast him in the role he also wrote. But the question remains, why did he want to make a Western about a sidekick’s journey?
“Because I’ve always been incredibly intrigued by the unseen, these people who are always out there doing the work, and you don’t see them ever,” says Moshe, whose Greek immigrant father reared him on a steady stream of Western films.
That cinematic education left Moshe wondering why most of these cowboy sidekicks were played as comic relief, yet seen as the trusted right hand of the film’s macho hero — think Stumpy in “Rio Bravo.”
“I was so intrigued by this character we only saw as comedy, but John Wayne saw as so much more,” Moshe says.
Pullman can relate to Moshe’s Western wonderings. A self-described product of Saturday matinees, the actor says Westerns were a fullimmersion experience for his younger self, one that extended beyond the theater.
“I’d come out of there, and it would take me so long to get home because I would go from telephone pole to telephone pole, avoiding getting shot or being seen,” Pullman says. “I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to stay in that world.”
He’s curated a touch of that world in his adulthood, with a ranch in southwest Montana’s cattle country where Pullman spends his summers herding cows and fixing fences. It’s near where “Lefty Brown” was filmed, which means Pullman’s family, friends and horses were enlisted as extras for the movie.
“All the horses used were ranch horses,” Pullman says. “The horse I had, Will, a great looking horse.” But not the swiftest of the bunch. “You don’t get the fast horse,” Moshe says. “Lefty gets the plodder.”
Because even when the sidekick is the star of his own Western, he still has to defer to the “heroes.”
And he’s probably fine with that.
‘THE BALLAD OF LEFTY BROWN’ • When: 4 p.m. Saturday • Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonett • Tickets: $10 More: The film is part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which begins Thursday and runs until Nov. 16 at various locations in Houston. Visit houstoncinemaartsfestival.org for more information on times and venues.