NEVADA SMITH

Let me start out with a confession: Steve McQueen was my first real man crush. I watched every single one of his movies more than once and some of them almost as often as I watched my favourite Martial Arts films. I wanted to be Steve McQueen. For much of my generation he defined cool. Other stars of his era and before could do tough and machismo, but McQueen just had an effortless physicality and presence, like he didn’t have try and he could do everything better than anyone else. That wasn’t an illusion. When I was working doing stunts I lost track of how many veteran stunt men told me that Steve McQueen was a better stunt man than most stunt men. Steve McQueen made everything look easy. Including acting. While so many of the Method actors of his generations pushed and strained and showed us how hard they were working, McQueen had a more minimalist approach that called more to mind Spencer Tracy than Marlon Brando. This has led many critics to underestimate just how good an actor McQueen was. We would find out later how troubled and difficult it was for McQueen to live inside of his own skin and how difficult, even abusive, he was on those around him. This too has coloured McQueen’s legacy. It should. But when I was a kid, what I remember most was McQueen’s Westerns, how well he sat a horse, far better than many of the actors who were known for their Western roles. He could ride like he was born on horseback, with that easy grace that he brought to all of his physicality. I remember Nevada Smith most of all, because McQueen was playing a young half breed, something I could easily relate to. I had some trepidation about coming back to watch this film, that both the film and its actor would not stand the test of time. But it did, and it does, despite it being one of McQueen’s earliest roles. (One of his first, in The Blob, listed him in the credits as Stevie McQueen.). The premise, of a young half breed who seeks revenge on the men who killed his father, is one the basic tenets of Western movies. In lesser hands it could easily have been just another B movie. But McQueen had a cat like way of making anything he did hold your attention and film never crosses the line into silly or glib. The character struggles, particularly as he reaches towards the end of his vengeance, with the knowledge that he is becoming more and more like the men he seeks to kill. It doesn’t stop him of course. This is a Western. But the struggle with his own morality just underneath the surface of the story is also a tenet of good Westerns. Nevada Smith doesn’t disappoint. Steve McQueen doesn’t disappoint. I don’t know if I still want to be Steve McQueen. But I definitely still want to be a cool as Steve McQueen.

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