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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sam Shepard RIP

Sam Shepard RIP

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I’ve never seen any Sam Shepard plays. The closest I’ve come is listening to that Joni Mitchell song about him. What are some good ones that I can watch movie versions of? I watched “Fences” on a plane ride recently and really liked it (once I was sure the main character’s best friend wasn’t going to start lecturing everyone about debt forgiveness), and that made me think I should make more of an effort to see contemporary or at least semi-contemporary plays. Since I live in a small city, there isn’t so much opportunity to see it on the stage (we have theater companies, and I go, but a lot of it is greatest hits).

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55Comments

  1. 1.

    sharl

    Some of the women I follow on politics twitter were quite taken with him.

    would have let Sam Shepard ruin my entire life at any point, up to and including yesterday

    Jessica Lange said she was in a blackout love drunk with him while filming Tootsie. I think of that love drunk every time I watch it.

    RIP Mr. Shepard

  2. 2.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I could swear I’d seen at least a couple that he’d written, but glancing over this list of titles, none of them leaps out at me as familiar.

    Ditto with his list of screenwriting and book writing credits. Can’t swear I’ve seen/read any of those.

    Link is to a Sam Shepard website.

  7. 7.

    mai naem mobile

    I know more of the actor stuff. I remember watching an interview with him on one of the late night shows and he seemed to come across a lot like his characters. Just a nice guy. The NPR story said he died of ALS which is a horrible horrible way to go. RIP Sam Shepard.

  11. 11.

    Robert Burns

    I saw American Playhouse version of True West some years ago with young John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. They were young and unknown. It was pretty intense.

  12. 12.

    zhena gogolia

    If you want to see his charm as an actor, look at Days of Heaven.

    Heck, he even makes an impression as Ryan Gosling’s pa in The Notebook.

  16. 16.

    Trentrunner

    So…Chuck Yeager outlived the man who played him in The Right Stuff as a much younger man.

  18. 18.

    bluefish

    He gives a brief but superb performance at the top of “August: Ossage County.” His plays definitely worth a look. I remember also the glamour of his partnership with Jessica Lange–at the time of “Frances.” Feels like it was a million years ago. I will miss him.

  19. 19.

    Tom Q

    So, to answer Doug’s actual question: Shepard’s plays are not to all tastes; he’s something of a mix of redneck macho and artiness. Actors LOVE his stuff, because it allows for lots of extroverted acting.

    I recommend Curse of the Starving Class most highly. Also liked Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind. And True West is an effective, if limited, face-off between two brothers.

  20. 20.

    oatler.

    “The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders” has been a lifelong favorite of mine.

  21. 21.

    jl

    His plays were big back in the day. IIRC, they were considered powerful, moving elegies or dirges for loss of something or other, ‘authenticity’ or something. I’ll have to go back and take a look at them. Downscale dysfunctional white folks who ruined their own lives, or got them ruined in nightmares of co-dependency, ruminate on what went wrong, try to put the pieces back together, and fail, or they try to come to terms with mess

    So, Tooth of Crime, Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, were big things.

    I remember reading or seeing them more out of feeling of duty to keep up than really enjoying them. He was a very good and emotionally moving actor, and I think he was actor who created some of his own roles. Maybe it was his performances rather than the roles that made the plays such a big thing. I was not a big fan of his plays, though I kept having high expectations from the critical cred, so my viewpoint probably biased.

    I didn’t know he had ALS. Sorry to hear about that, and his death.

    @Tom Q: thanks, I forgot True West. Good play for two actors who want to spar and struggle with each other on stage.

  23. 23.

    Rob Lll

    I second the True West recommendation above — both Malkovich and Sinise are at the top of their form.

    And RIP Jeanne Moreau. In addition to her many wonderful film roles, I got to see her perform in a production of the classic Spanish play La Celestina when I lived in Paris in the late 80s. She absolutely dominated the stage.

  25. 25.

    Regnad Kcin

    He is exceptional, as a writer. A true American voice, probably the greatest US playwright, well maybe ever. His early work is kinetic and weird, but jacked straight into the 220 service powering the American soul. His later stuff is subtly darker, with less frenetic kinetics, but more out&out gut-punch to it. See or read his works. You won’t be sorry.

  31. 31.

    Nicole

    I never thought his plays translated well to film, so I’d recommend just reading his stuff; there are a couple of collections of his best plays. Unfortunately, “Buried Child,” which is the one he won the Pulitzer for, and “Fool For Love,” which is the spicy one, are in different volumes.

    True West ran on Broadway a bit over a decade ago with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly playing the leads, and alternating in those roles, which was kind of a fun gimmick. (Gads- I just looked it up and it was 17 years ago, so almost TWO decades. In other news, I’m getting old)

  32. 32.

    rm

    He was good in the movie _Crimes of the Heart_. I mistakenly thought it was based on one of his plays, but no, the playwright and scriptwriter was Beth Henley. I guess I only knew his work as an actor.

  33. 33.

    bystander

    First straight play I saw in NYC was Operation Sidewinder, Vivian Beaumont Theater, 1970. The play I really liked was True West. Malkovich and Sinise from Steppenwolf in Chicago brought the play to NYC in the early 80s before either of them had achieved any fame.

    The last time I saw Shepard was in a production of Caryl Churchill’s play A Number. He had a lot of granite in his presence. Tough play but he must have loved it.

  35. 35.

    TriassicSands

    The truth is that none of Shepard’s films (that he wrote) have been big critical or box-office successes with the exception of “Paris, Texas,” which was well-received crtically and might be considered a cult classic at this point. Other than that I can’t think of any films of his that did very well. “Fool for Love” was nominated for a Palm d’Or at Cannes. Shepard wrote the play, screenplay, and starred in the film. I saw it, but found it, at best, of middling quality. Roger Ebert liked it.

    I would like to have seen some of Shepard’s plays. The stage is a very different medium from film.

  36. 36.

    debbie

    @sharl:

    Though I knew there was zero I’m one of those women and have been since the 1960s. Music (Holly Modal Rounders), writing, film, whatever. To get a real glimpse of his charisma, check out the scene in “Frances” where they’re sitting in a car, talking. No one could have played a better Chuck Yeager.

    Look for the filmed play “True West.” i saw it on PBS.

    That it was ALS that silenced him is a genuine tradegy.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @debbie:

    #$@! I can’t fix my own comment?

    Though I knew there was zero chance I’d ever even meet Sam Shepard, I’m one of those women who have been swooning over him since the 1960s.

  38. 38.

    TriassicSands

    @debbie:

    That it was ALS that silenced him is a genuine tradegy.

    There are no great ways to die, though some are better than others. ALS is definitely not one of the better ways. I had two relatives who succumbed to ALS and the process is horrible to watch, even if you only see glimpses.

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @TriassicSands:

    I cannot even imagine.

    I believe his most recent book is Day Out of Days, a collection of stories. Not his best, but better than most stuff out there.

  41. 41.

    TriassicSands

    @Nicole:

    I never thought his plays translated well to film, so I’d recommend just reading his stuff;

    That’s probably good advice. And that has the benefit of making them all available.

  43. 43.

    TriassicSands

    @debbie:

    A quick search…

    Malkovich insists that he’s not at all political:

    I’m not a political person actually, and I don’t have an ideology. And I don’t think other people really think about [my political views].5

    He says he last voted for George McGovern in 1972, a Democratic candidate who lost against Richard Nixon:

    I haven’t voted since McGovern lost and don’t intend to. I see no reason to.6

    Perhaps that means he lost faith in the political process. However, friends and co-workers such as William Hootkins, disagree, calling Malkovich incredibly “right-wing.”7 And, when Malkovich was asked who he’d like to fight to the death, he mentioned, among others, British Labour politician George Galloway.8 So maybe right-wing isn’t too off base.

    Sinise is definitely a well-known RWNJ; I don’t know any more about Malkovich’s politics than what I copied and pasted above. He certainly doesn’t sound like he voted for HRC or BHO.

  44. 44.

    trnc

    @Robert Burns:

    I saw American Playhouse version of True West some years ago with young John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

    Yup, first thing that came to mind.

  45. 45.

    gammyjill

    I wonder if he took his own life to avoid the sufferings ALS brings. Going out on his own terms.

  48. 48.

    Miss Bianca

    @Robert Burns: I’d second this recommendation.

    Sam Shepard was kind of a big deal when it came to theater on my campus. Closest I ever came to acting in one of his plays was doing Cavale’s big monologue from “Cowboy Mouth” as part of an evening of Sam Shepard pieces. And then it was hard for me to take his plays seriously, after my friend Jeff Dorchen’s play “The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard”, which I remember as a hilarious skewering of Shepardesque tropes. Now, of course, the title seems sadly and creeplly prophetic. RIP, Sam!

  49. 49.

    M. Bouffant

    @Laura: Funny you should mention H.R. 30 yrs. ago he lived down the street (Maltman Ave., north of Sunset Blvd. & south of Effie St., where I lived; only time I’ve lived at a higher elev. than a celeb). Used to see him standing on his porch glowering at the world. Far as former Black Flag vocalists go, Keith Morris is much pleasanter.

  50. 50.

    TriassicSands

    @debbie:

    Sometimes I have a hard time watching performers I know to be wingnuts. I should be able to separate politics from art — Wagner’s anti-semitism doesn’t stop me from enjoying his music — but it’s different for contemporaries, especially if they are using their celebrity to further causes that hurt me or those I care about, which includes broad groups like African-Americans, women, and the poor, even when I’m not a member of a group.

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @TriassicSands:

    I hear what you’re saying, but I do have an issue with artists like Wagner (and, as I just learned, George Orwell, who, it turns out, was anti-Semitic). I can’t respect an artist who would hate like that. It also depends on how they parade their philosophies about. Both Gary Sinise and Gay Oldman are conservatives, but Oldman is more aggressive about it in interviews I’ve seen. I have trouble watching him anymore.

  52. 52.

    prostratedragon

    Sorry to hear about Shepard, whose illness I’d heard of some time ago but forgot. And just now hearing about Jeanne Moreau, bit of a shock despite her age.

    From the score to her movie Lumiere, “Soledad” performed by the composer’s conjunto.

  53. 53.

    Hob

    @TriassicSands: Malkovich is sort of a nihilist and misanthropic crank, or likes to come off as one. I remember an interview years ago when someone asked him about his position on the death penalty, and he said he didn’t think it was a big deal because human life has no value. I’m not sure how that fits with being 1. a brilliant character actor and 2. a father, but people can find lots of ways to make no sense.

  55. 55.

    Hob

    @Ric Drywall: If you look up the original quote, it’s pretty bad. After saying he’d like to fight Galloway, he changed his mind and said he’d rather straight-up execute Galloway and Robert Fisk due to their political stances on the Middle East.

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