Ride Lonesome

Kirk Ellis

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780826364616
• eBook ISBN: 9780826364623
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Ride Lonesome, the fifth film in the “Ranown cycle,” is both the best and most representative of the whole cycle, which has been called “the most remarkable convergence of artistic achievement in the history of low-budget moviemaking.” Director Bud Boetticher captures the alienation and loneliness of an America faced with the Cold War and the daily threat of nuclear annihilation. Shot in seventeen days for under a half-million dollars, Ride Lonesome is a masterpiece of cinematic minimalism.

Veteran screenwriter Kirk Ellis brilliantly unpacks the themes, narrative, visual language, and editing in this seminal film. In Ride Lonesome he not only shows how this one film embodies a turning point for the Western, but he also explores the unique vision and contributions of director Boetticher and his writing partner Burt Kennedy.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. | “A Man Can’t Be Too Careful in This Country”
• 2. | “A Man Can Do That”
• 3. | “Ain’t Right for a Man to Be Alone”
• 4. | “A Man Should Have Something to Belong To”
• 5. | “Fancy Running into You in All This Empty”
• 6. | “She Ain’t Ugly”
• 7. | “I Almost Forgot”
• 8. | “That Figures”
• 9. | “At Least It’s Somethin’ to Do”
• Epilogue. | “A Movie for Mister Boetticher”
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography