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people & arts Tuesday 1 augusT 2017
Book Review: ‘The

Blinds’ moves at

brisk pace

By OLINE H. COGDILL
Associated Press
The prison system — and
how to treat incarcerated
criminals — has always
been problematic, no mat-
ter the plan. Adam Stern-
bergh’s imaginative “The
Blinds” doesn’t solve the
problem but offers an un-
usual alternative: round up
the most violent murderers,
house them in a remote, un-
escapable town and, as a
kicker, wipe their memories This image released by Netflix shows Sam Shepard from the original series, “Bloodline.”
clean. “The Blinds” expertly Associated Press
melds the thriller with the This cover image released
Western, adding a soup- by Ecco/HarperCollins shows Sam Shepard, Pulitzer-winning
con of medical-science “The Blinds,” a novel by Adam
fiction while paying a bit Sternbergh.
of homage to Jim Thomp- Associated Press playwright, is dead at 73
son’s “The Getaway,” the being a crime victim or are
novel, not the movie, and in hiding after testifying. In By JAKE COYLE immediately seemed to ing was the thread through
“Pop. 1280.” Located in The Blinds, as the residents AP Film Writer have a handle on it, on the all of it,” Shepard said in
the most remote area of call their town, they live in NEW YORK (AP) — Sam rhythm of it, the sound of it, 2011. “Theater really when
Texas, the small town of their own bungalows and Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize- the characters. I started to you think about it contains
Caesura — “rhymes with are free to roam. But they winning playwright, Os- understand there was this everything. It can contain
tempura” — is home to 48 can never leave; it did not car-nominated actor and possibility of conversation film. Film can’t contain the-
people who have entered end well for those few who celebrated author whose between actors and that’s ater. Music. Dance. Paint-
an unusual witness protec- did. Sheriff Calvin Cooper plays chronicled the explo- how it all started.” ing. Acting. It’s the whole
tion program. Here, for the presides over Caesura. sive fault lines of family and Shepard’s Western drawl deal. And it’s the most
past eight years, vicious Calvin’s not really a sheriff masculinity in the American and laconic presence ancient. It goes back to
criminals have every mem- but a privately employed West, has died. He was 73. made him a reluctant mov- the Druids. It was way pre-
ory of their past completely security guard with training Family spokesman Chris ie star, too. He appeared Christ. It’s the form that I
erased. Then they are giv- as a corrections officer. His Boneau said Monday that in dozens of films — many feel most at home in, be-
en new identifies, choosing job, along with those of his Shepard died Thursday at of them Westerns — in- cause of that, because of
a first and last name from two deputies, is relatively his home in Kentucky from cluding Terrence Malick’s its ability to usurp every-
a list of movie stars and easy. Because no one re- complications related to “Days of Heaven,” ‘’Steel thing.”
ex-vice presidents. Adding members their identities, Lou Gehrig’s disease, or Magnolias,” ‘’The Assas- Samuel Shepard Rogers VII
to the mix are a few “in- The Blinds is free of crime. amyotrophic lateral scle- sination of Jesse James by was born in Fort Sheridan,
nocents,” such as Fran Ad- But the shooting of two resi- rosis. The taciturn Shepard, the Coward Robert Ford” Illinois, in 1943. He grew
ams and her 8-year-old son dents —one a suicide, the who grew up on a Califor- and 2012’s “Mud.” He was up on an avocado ranch
Isaac, the only child in the other a murder — puts Cal- nia ranch, was a man of nominated for an Oscar in Duarte, California. His
town. Innocents are there vin and the town on alert, few words who neverthe- for his performance as pi- father was an alcoholic
after witnessing horrific especially since guns are less produced 44 plays and lot Chuck Yeager in 1983’s schoolteacher and former
events they need to forget, banned. q numerous books, memoirs “The Right Stuff.” Among Army pilot. Shepard would
and short stories. He was his most recent roles was later write frequently of the
Scott Kelly binged one of the most influential the Florida Keys patriarch damage done by drunks.
He had his own struggles,
playwrights of his genera-
of the Netflix series “Blood-
too; long stretches of so-
tion: a plain-spoken poet of line.”
‘Game of Thrones’ the modern frontier, both But Shepard was best re- briety were interrupted
lyrical and rugged.
membered for his influen-
by drunk driving arrests, in
during year in space In his 1971 one-act “Cow- tial plays and his prominent 2009 and 2015.
Shepard arrived in New
boy Mouth, which he wrote role in the Off-Off-Broad-
then-girlfriend, way movement. His 1979 York in 1963 with no con-
his
with
musician and poet Patti play “Buried Child” won nections, little money and
By The Associated Press “it was so good, I binged it Smith, one character says, the Pulitzer for drama. Two vague aspirations to act,
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — twice.” He also watched a “People want a street an- other plays — “True West,” write or make music. “I
Retired astronaut Scott Kel- lot of CNN. gel. They want a saint but about two warring broth- just dropped in out of no-
ly spent one year in space Kelly spoke Monday during with a cowboy mouth” — a ers, and “Fool for Love,” where,” he told the New
on the International Space a panel at the Television role the tall and handsome about a man who fears Yorker in 2010. But Shepard
Station, but his thoughts Critics Association’s annual Shepard fulfilled for many. he’s turning into his father quickly became part of the
were often with Westeros. summer event. He was pro- “I was writing basically for — were nominated for the off-off-Broadway move-
Kelly says that while he was moting the upcoming PBS actors,” Shepard told The Pulitzers as well. All are fre- ment at downtown hang-
away, he saved “Game documentary “Beyond a Associated Press in a 2011 quently revived. outs like Caffe Cino and La
of Thrones” to watch and Year in Space.”q interview. “And actors “I always felt like playwrit- MaMa. q