Some random thoughts about Robert Duvall, Horton Foote, Tender Mercies and COVID-19

Today I received an advance copy of the May/June Cowboys & Indians magazine featuring my cover-story interview with Robert Duvall. And I must admit: When I opened the FedEx envelope, I felt at once extremely happy and unspeakably melancholy.

I felt happy, of course, because I always enjoy interviewing Robert Duvall — and not just because he always insists on my calling him “Bobby.” (Which I do, even though I cannot help thinking: “I am not worthy! I am not worthy!”) And seeing the cover reminded me of our most recent conversation, when we talked about everything from his plans to attend the Western Heritage Awards celebration at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City — where he was slated to receive a lifetime achievement honor — to his experiences working with director Steve McQueen on 2018’s Widows. (“He’s a terrific director — one of the best I've ever worked with! I love working with that guy!”)

But I also felt sad when I remembered that we’d had that conversation before the full fury of COVID-19 began to be felt in this country — and, indeed, before the Western Heritage Awards had to be cancelled because, as long as we’re stuck in this Brave New World of The New Normal, such events are being postponed indefinitely, if not cancelled altogether.

So my mind started to wander. And I couldn’t help thinking of something I wrote about my favorite Robert Duvall movie of all time — Tender Mercies, the 1983 drama that earned Academy Awards for Duvall’s lead performance and Horton Foote’s original screenplay — just three years before Foote’s death in 2009.

“Several years ago, a colleague at the now-defunct Houston Post wrote a story about movies that some people – celebrities, mostly – like to watch over and over and over again on videocassette. (Hey, I told you this was several years ago.) When he ran out of really well-known folks to interview, he collared me in the newsroom and asked: ‘What movie do you watch repeatedly?’ And so I told him: ‘There’s something about Tender Mercies that deeply and profoundly affects me on so many levels that, yes, I’m addicted to watching it. Whenever I get depressed, I want to pop the tape into the VCR, and hear Robert Duvall say: “I don’t trust happiness. I never did, and I never did, never will.” God, I know exactly how he feels.’

“Flash-forward a few weeks: I am at Houston’s Stages Theatre for the opening night performance of Talking Pictures, a play by the great Horton Foote, the Oscar-winning scriptwriter of Tender Mercies (and To Kill a Mockingbird). There’s a post-performance party, and I’m off in a corner, munching on fried chicken I obtained from the bountiful buffet, when I spot Foote — who I’ve met maybe once or twice before that evening —across a crowded room. I nod, give him a thumb’s up — the play actually was quite good, and deserves to be revived — and go back to eating. Much to my surprise, however, Foote cuts short a conversation he’s having with someone, walks across the crowded room, makes his way over to me and, without a hint of irony, says: ‘Oh, Joe, I’m so sorry you get depressed…’”

To this day, I cannot understand why I didn’t break down crying right on the spot.

Masterfully directed by Bruce Beresford, Tender Mercies is a spare, subtle film that speaks in a quiet yet compelling voice about faith and despair, regret and redemption, lower depths and second chances, while considering the restorative potential of human and divine love. Duvall is absolutely heart-wrenching in his portrayal of Mac Sledge, a down-and-out country singer who’s redeemed by the love a good woman (Tess Harper), then pushed back to the brink by a devastating tragedy.

But as much as I admire his performance, and the movie that contains it, I’m not sure I can watch Tender Mercies again anytime soon. (And I am pretty damn certain I can't watch 1918, the 1985 film version of Foote's play that deals in part with the Spanish Flu epidemic.) Because, really, it’s no longer a matter of not trusting happiness. Rather, it’s a question of: When are we going to be happy, really happy, again?

Robert Duvall talks about (among other things) Get Low

Robert Duvall and I are tucked away in a quiet corner of the spacious lobby of a luxurious Los Angeles hotel, largely hidden from the view of passers-by, and our freewheeling conversation often has an almost conspiratorial tone. We’re supposed to be talking about Get Low – the exceptionally fine comedy-drama opening Friday in Houston – for a cover-story profile I’m preparing for Cowboys & Indians magazine. But, hey, I did say this was a freewheeling conversation, right? And besides: While he would prefer not to name names – well, not for the record, anyway – really, some anecdotes are too juicy, and some episodes are too flat-out bizarre, not to share.

“I guess it’s like they say,” Duvall begins. “You have to be careful what you wish for.”

In this particular case, Duvall had been greatly impressed by the bravura performance of a flamboyant European actor in an Oscar-nominated film, and remarked to many interviewers at the time that he’d appreciate the opportunity to work with this fellow. So, of course, he jumped at the chance to appear opposite the guy in an independent film directed by an idiosyncratic, cult-fave filmmaker.

Early in the production, however, Duvall discovered that the director, for all his visual flair, left a lot to be desired when it came to communicating with actors. (And not just because English was his third or fourth language.) Worse, the actor Duvall had admired on the screen turned out to be an overbearing, camera-hogging prima donna on the set.

“Totally unprofessional,” Duvall says, practically spitting out the words in the manner of someone snapping an obscenity. “He would come into scenes, into the frame, and try to intimidate you – try to push you off your mark. Or lean into the shot, like he wanted to upstage you. Finally, I had enough of this. So the next time he did something like this, bent over this close to me in a shot – I started singing.”

Say what?

“I started singing,” Duvall says, his chuckle slowly escalating into full-throated laughter. “Just bent right back into his direction, got my face up close to his, and then” – try to imagine the sound of Rudy Vallée warbling through a megaphone here -- “What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours…”

Not surprisingly, “The guy backed off after that. I think he thought I was nuts.”

Don’t misunderstand: Duvall, still impressively robust at age 79, normally isn’t the temperamental type. He’s not known for diva-style self-indulgence, and his collaborators – co-stars, directors, screenwriters, whatever – often go out of their way to sing his praises and salute his professionalism. “He’s such an amazing actor,” says Get Low co-star Sissy Spacek, “that he simply is the character. He doesn’t act the character, he becomes the character. And so, really, when you’re working with Bobby, you just have to react.”

On the other hand: Duvall isn’t shy about standing his ground while arguing over which way is the right way to play or shoot a scene. During the mid-1980s Texas location filming of Tender Mercies, the movie that enabled him to claim his first Oscar as Best Actor, he and director Bruce Beresford (whose filmed-in-Houston Mao’s Last Dancer opens next week in theaters nationwide) sporadically clashed while seeking common ground. For that, he makes no apologies.

“Sometimes,” Duvall says, “when you have a little turmoil, things can turn out better than if you had total harmony.”

To be specific, he points to what arguably is the most affecting scene in Tender Mercies, when washed-up country music singer Mac Sledge (Duvall) mourns the tragic death of his daughter while tilling the garden of the woman (Tess Harper) who has given him his last best shot at redemption. (“I don’t trust happiness,” he says, barely tamping down his rage and anguish. “Never did, never will.”) After a long and, ahem, animated discussion, Beresford and Duvall agreed: Keep it simple, straight from the heart.

“That was a nice scene,” Duvall recalls. “And I remember saying to [Beresford], ‘Look, I don’t want to do a lot of coverage. I don’t want to loop dialogue afterwards.’ And I’m glad they didn’t use close-ups while I’m working in the garden there. The scene was nice. And the cinematographer had some great ideas: Low angles, wide shot. Simple.”

To hear Duvall tell it, the collaborations were smoother and tempers were cooler during the filming of Get Low, a small-budget, beautifully crafted labor of love that casts a well-nigh irresistible spell while spinning a Depression Era folk tale from the Tennessee backwoods. Duvall compellingly underplays the larger-than-life lead role of Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who rejoins society only to plan his own funeral party, and he’s backed by smartly cast supporting players – including, in addition to Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black -- who clearly savor the twofer of portraying vividly drawn characters opposite a much-respected living legend.

“Robert is a unique cat,” Murray said during the launch of Get Low at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. “There’s only one drum that’s marching in that head, so when you watch him work, he’s just a magnet. It was a lot of fun to watch him carry this relentless confessional story all the way to its conclusion.”

It’s a story loosely based on a real-life incident, written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell as a seriocomic fable of forgiveness and redemption, with Felix gradually revealed as man who’s genuinely curious to hear what others have to say about him at his premature funeral, but absolutely certain that anything anyone has to say can’t be worse than his own testimony about himself.

Duvall intends it as the highest of compliments when he says that the Get Low script reminded him of stage plays and screenplays by the late, great Horton Foote, a longtime friend and collaborator who earned Academy Awards for writing the 1962 film version Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (in which Duvall made his movie debut as the eccentric Boo Radley) and the aforementioned Tender Mercies.

“In fact,” Duvall says, “I’ll tell you a very interesting story. The day when we filmed the funeral service, when they brought the casket onto the set, and I was getting ready to give this speech to the people – my wife got a phone call about Horton Foote’s death at that very moment. Very spooky. It felt like things were moving full circle. Because, you know, my first part in a movie was in To Kill a Mockingbird. So it was almost like Horton was there – spiritually -- witnessing this film, too.”

And speaking of first-timers: Although Aaron Schneider won an Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short -- the William Faulkner-inspired Two Solders – he had never directed a dramatic feature before Get Low. Did Duvall have any qualms about playing such a complex role under the guidance of a relative neophyte? Not really.

“I’ve worked with a lot of first-time directors,” he says. “I met George Lucas while I was making [Francis Coppola’s] The Rain People. He was Francis’ production assistant. I mean, here was this guy, about 108 pounds, running around with the Nagra camera, doing his thing. And then we go on to do this feature, THX-1138, and he’s using two cameras, shooting in 16 mm – and it was like he’d been doing it for 25 years. Twenty-five years the right way. And yet it was his first film.

“So after that, I’ve always felt, hey, you meet somebody, you get a sense of somebody -- and if it’s a good project, why not?”

A moment of Zen

On a day like today, when I have a long lunch with Robert Duvall, and we talk about everything from M*A*S*H  to Get Low, and everyone from Horton Foote to Bill Murray, and I know I'm getting paid for this... I thank God that my father left Ireland and moved to the Land of Opportunity.

R.I.P.: Horton Foote (1916-2009)

I know I've told this story before, but: Several years ago, a colleague at the now-defunct Houston Post wrote a story about movies that some people – celebrities, mostly – like to watch over and over and over again on videocassette. (Hey, I told you this was several years ago.) When he ran out of really well-known folks to interview, he collared me in the newsroom and asked: “What movie do you watch repeatedly?” And so I told him: “There’s something about Tender Mercies that deeply and profoundly affects me on so many levels that, yes, I’m addicted to watching it. Whenever I get depressed, I want to pop the tape into the VCR, and hear Robert Duvall say: ‘I don’t trust happiness. Never did, never will.’ God, I know exactly how he feels.”

Flash-forward a few weeks: I am at Houston’s Stages Theatre to review for Variety the opening night performance of Talking Pictures, a drama by Pultizer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote, a.k.a. the Oscar-winning scriptwriter of Tender Mercies (and To Kill a Mockingbird). There’s a post-performance party, and I’m off in a corner, munching on fried chicken I obtained from the bountiful buffet, when I spot Foote – who I’ve met maybe once or twice before that evening – across a crowded room. I nod, give him a thumb’s up – the play actually was quite good, and deserves to be revived – and go back to eating. Much to my surprise, however, Foote cuts short a conversation he’s having with someone, walks across the crowded room, makes his way over to me and, without a hint of irony, says: “Oh, Joe, I’m so sorry you get depressed…”

Bless you, Mr. Foote. And thank you again for writing Tender Mercies. And To Kill a Mockingbird. And The Trip to Bountiful -- movie and play. And for dozens of other plays that continue to be revived at theaters throughout the world, and will survive and thrive while enthralling generations yet unborn.