The Horse Whisperer. A Process Analysis

The reader's forbearance at the outset is sought because although my process analysis of the movie, The Horse Whisperer, begins personally, it does not end so. I suppose that if we deny our narcissistic interest in a work of art, it will only return to derail subsequent progress; and I suspect that films do not really engage our emotional interests unless they are perceived in some fashion to be about ourselves. I also question the pretense of objectivity in many cultural analyses of film and am proposing a personal-processing mode as a corrective, albeit limited, alternative, insofar as it proves fruitful.

I begin my personal encounter with The Horse Whisperer by noting that I chose it from a field of competing mediocrities in small-town Virginia, probably because, along with my wife, I admire Robert Red-ford's moderate risk-taking and find him an attractive, resourceful performer; in addition, I have always been a pushover for Westerns' epic tales and evocative scenery. The film indeed had its stock of visual pleasures but, exiting the theatre, I was at a loss over what to make of its story. Driving home, our discussion addressed the question of whether Redford looked his age (roughly mine) or younger. In some shots with Annie, the leading lady (Kristin Scott Thomas), he looked considerably younger; in others the unsavory sight of a young Apollo crumbling into senior citizenhood was jarring, even painful. Our conversation was no doubt triggered by a recent piece in the New York Times (and subsequently in People Magazine) about aging actors (Redford, Newman, Beatty, Nicholson, Eastwood, etc.) being paired with starlets less than