Critique of the Oil Frontier and the Spectacle Behind it in Comes a Horseman

Critique of the Oil Frontier and the Spectacle Behind it in

Comes a Horseman

Oil Drilling films from Cimarron (1931 and 1960) to There Will be Blood (2007) illustrate well the ongoing conflict between eco-disaster on display and spectacle, a conflict between an explicit and implicit environmental message and the “sensuous elaboration” that, as Susan Sontag argues, filmic representations provide (212) . Whether the films respond to environmental history from the 19^thCentury, the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, or today, that conflict remains. We assert, however, that reading these images in relation to environmental history can make the sometimes disastrous workings behind spectacular oil events transparent. 

The less well-known Comes a Horseman(1978) serves as an apt illustration, since it reveals the environmental disasters behind resource exploitation while grappling with questions regarding ranching and oil frontiers. The film pits ranch owners Ella Connors (Jane Fonda) and Frank “Buck” Athearn (James Caan) against Jacob “J. W.” Ewing (Jason Robards) and his oil-developing friend, Neil Atkinson (George Grizzard). The film is set in post-World War II Montana but illustrates the conflict between oil and cattle ranching immediately. Atkinson is negotiating with Ewing to drill on his land and claims from the film’s beginning that “oil and cattle are not incompatible.” 

Ewing, however, still sees his ranch as a heartland and looks toward a painting of buffalo racing across a prairie to reinforce his point. Ewing wishes to own the ranch land in the valley, but it is unclear at this point whether he supports oil drilling instead of ranching. Ewing’s henchmen kill off one new rancher and injure another, Frank, thinking they will scare him into selling Ewing his land. Frank pairs up with Ella when she takes him back to her ranch and nurses him. Together Frank and Ella defeat Ewing and Atkinson, saving their land from both Ewing and oil production.

The first conflict they encounter concerns whether Ella can earn enough money from her cattle to save her ranch once her husband is dead. With only Dodger (Richard Farnsworth) to help her round up her cattle, she seems doomed to failure, but Frank talks her into becoming partners for the season, so they work together to round up both of their ranches’ cattle.

The second conflict begins when a geologist comes to the ranch to test for oil. He checks with Ella about getting a seismic record and completing the tests, but Ella refuses. Here Frank again partners with Ella, making clear that he too rejects oil drilling because it “means they’re going to tear the earth apart.” He has “seen places where they’ve drilled for oil” and knows the score. 

Ewing, on the other hand, is under the thumb of a banker, Virgil Hoverton (Macon McCalman), and must agree to allow them to test for oil on his land. We hear blasts from an oil test, and, as if to reinforce the impact of blasting on the environment, Dodger is thrown from his horse and breaks his ribs. The conflict between Ewing and Ella accelerates because Ewing also wants Ella and may lose his ranch if no oil is found there. 

Before leaving, the geologist leaves a report that says seismic shooting brings up no good test area on his ranch. Good drilling is only available on Ella’s ranch, so they must drill diagonally from Ewing’s land to Ella’s, in order to strike oil. They need Ella’s permission in order to continue. Virgil tries to take Ewing’s ranch, but Ewing kills Atkinson, the oilman, in a plane crash and kills Virgil at Ella’s house. The battle then is between Ewing and Frank, with Ella as the prize. Ultimately Frank and Ella survive. Ella has lost her house but has kept her land. 

Comes a Horseman critiques oil drilling in several ways. It illustrates how oil exacerbates greed, when Virgil attempts to undermine even the cattle baron, Ewing. It also explains how oil drilling tears up the land because Frank has witnessed the effects of drilling and rejects them. Finally it critiques oil testing and drilling in a more general and dramatic way because it is associated with Dodger’s fall from his horse. More importantly, the film avoids the reliance on spectacle and the spectacular evident in most oil frontier western films. The seismic tests and blasting are heard only at a distance, and the violent confrontations are resolved. In this context, the notion of spectacle obscures or even erases ecological readings, but primarily the film highlights the disastrous environmental consequences of oil drilling rather than their spectacular effects.