Love Letters to the Western: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is essentially a love letter to the western genre. It employs several cinematic and narrative choices that symbolically allude to its timely downfall, as well as respecting the genre with a sense of esteemed devotion.

The western film is notorious and unmistakable. They are set in the wild American west sometime between the mid 1800s and early 1900s. They follow a hat-wearing, gun-slinging cowboy who tackles themes of civility, nature, and change. As old as film itself, the western movie captivated America, being heralded as the genre that perfectly encapsulates the American zeitgeist. Freedom, exploration, oftentimes racism, and a cool, quick-witted, tough-as-nails main character. Western’s are America’s myths, the fables and lore that the young country developed to promote its founding values as a nation, something essential to empires. It reached its prime in the 1950s following the cold war and other events that invoked a sense of patriotism and superiority in citizens. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the genre began its decline, a time when Americans lost hope in their government and began to self-reflect on its roots. From then, westerns became relegated to prime time television until eventually fading away, never to make a recovery.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid premiered in 1967. The movie begins with the sound of a film reel against old-timey footage. It explains who Butch and Sundance are, as well as their “Hole in the Wall” gang. It is in full sepia tones, reminiscent of the first waves of westerns from the silent era. This first impression sets the stage for the audience, where we are being transported back in time to the beginning of the frontier flick days. These credits serve to infuse nostalgia into the audience, reminding them of the days past. It effectively begins two stories: the film’s story of its titular characters and the overarching symbolic story of the western genre that the characters parallel. As the film continues, it keeps its sepia tones and we see the main protagonists in modern (to the time) film. This slow transition takes the audience back gently, allowing them to immerse further into the story and period.

The plot revolves around Butch and Sundance, notorious outlaws, as they commit robbery a few too many times and end up being hunted by a hired group of police and master trackers. Fundamentally, it is about two men trying to outrun their fate. The film makes it abundantly clear that their days are numbered when Sheriff Bledsoe warns them that their, “Time is over and [their] gonna die bloody, and all [they] get to choose is where.” The group pursuing them is never shown on screen, all the audience sees of them are distant silhouettes and their hats, giving them an elusive, intangible quality, perfectly representing destiny.

Additionally, Butch and sundance are running from time itself, as the world they are living in advances right in front of them. In an iconic scene, Butch takes Etta, Sundance’s girlfriend, on a bicycle ride, amazed at the new technology. Before leaving for Bolivia, where they attempt to escape, Butch throws out the bicycle, yelling that the “Future’s all yours, you lousy bicycles!” The camera cuts to an exceptionally modern-looking close-up shot of the wheel on the ground. In doing this, it shows the characters’ rejection of modernity, and in turn, their affinity for the past.

This mirrors the arc of the western genre as a whole. By the time the film premiered, the western’s fate was clear. Just as the days of the wild west were over, the film type would fall behind as well. It could not keep up with contemporary audiences, a similar fight against modernity as the leading protagonists. This is among the way’s the film honors its history in a self-aware way, poignantly characterizing this in some of the west’s most famous bandits. The nostalgic beginning also serves to give tribute, eliciting a romantic sentiment of the genre.

In its final act of love, the film’s closing scene evokes the words uttered by Etta earlier in the film, where she states that she will join them in Bolivia on one condition. “I won’t watch you die. I’ll miss that scene if you don’t mind.” Her words ring true, as the audience does not witness their deaths. Butch and Sundance are in a seemingly hopeless situation, with, unbeknownst to them, the entire Bolivian government in a position to kill and capture them. In one last stand out, they are badly wounded and attempt a daring escape. They run out of their shelter in a blaze of glory, and as several gunshots are heard, the camera freezes on them midrun, fading back into sepia tones.

This ending literally does not let them die. It immortalizes them, symbolically turning them into legends, which, of course, never die. Furthermore, the sepia tones and photo-like composition solidifies the idea that this is the past. The fugitive’s days are no more, and what we have left of them is the great epics they’ve left behind. This reflects the concept of westerns as a whole. It serves as a swan song to the genre, its story mirroring the story of the western with a sense of attentive adoration. They may be dwindling, but they are an important part of American society, and they will never die. Their fates as an expired variety are sealed, but as is its fate as folklore, sowing mythology into the fabric of the culture, never to truly be forgotten.