Vertical Entertainment has acquired the U.S. rights to Camille Thoman’s NEVER HERE, starring Mireille Enos, Sam Shepard, Goran Visnjic, Vincent Piazza, Nina Arianda, Ana Nogueira, and Desmin Borges. The suspense thriller will have its world premiere screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 18th, with a day-and-date theatrical release scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2017, followed by an exclusive premium pay TV debut and run on the STARZ channels and services, including the new STARZ app, in early 2018.

"We’re thrilled to be partnering with Starz and the Never Here team to bring this incredibly visceral film to audiences," Vertical co-president Rich Goldberg said in a statement. "Camille’s distinct vision threads an especially unique story that calls for active participation from every viewer."

The backstory to Karen Elson’s new album "Double Roses" has a connection to our playwright. The U.K. native, an international supermodel for two decades, says a significant contribution to her second album comes from Sam Shepard. A passage from his book "Motel Chronicles" served as the inspiration behind the album name, and his poetry also gives the title track its resonance. To secure permission to use the excerpt, Elson received a little help from Patti Smith, who encouraged Elson to reach out. "I wrote a letter and gave it to her, and she gave it to him, and he gave me permission, and then I gave him cowrite on the song," says Elson. "I’m pretty stoked to have a cowrite with Sam Shepard. I mean, come on, that’s amazing! I don't know how I managed to get away with it."

Whatever the title of Camille Thoman's debut feature film, the psychological thriller will  premiere at the LA Film Festival on June 18th. Shot around NYC in the fall of 2014, it stars Mireille Enos, Goran Visnjic, Vincent Piazza, Nina Arianda and Sam as agent Paul Stark. The synopsis reads - "After a woman is attacked outside of her apartment, a series of increasingly disturbing events leads an artist (Enos), who follows and photographs strangers, to suspect that someone out there is actually watching her. As she encroaches on her suspected intruder (Visnjic), her agent (Shepard) and cop/lover (Piazza) begin to think she is taking things too far with her personal investigation. Events spiral out of control and boundaries bleed between real and imaginary...crime and art...the watcher and watched."

I recently discovered that this web site was respectfully referenced in Shannon Blake Sheldon's 2016 book titled "The Late Work of Sam Shepard". After 12 years of continuous effort, it is gratifying to be recognized as an important online source of Shepard's work.

In lieu of the possibility that Sam Shepard's film career has indeed come to an end with no new theater or literary offerings as well, there will be fewer updates in the future and I will be focusing my attention on several of the other Coymoon Creations web sites, the newest being The Michael Nyqvist Archives.

The Magic Theatre's 50th anniversary gala event honoring our playwright was held on Friday evening with Sam a no-show. Well, he did at least send actor Ed Harris who read a heartfelt handwritten message from him. I'm afraid these are the end days and we may never see a public appearance again. Here are a couple photos from the event. The female in the photos is Magic's artistic director. Good grief, woman! Why do you think old fatty boobs are attractive?

Philip Martin of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette wrote a review today on Sam's latest offering, THE ONE INSIDE, and there were certain observations that struck home with me. [You can read the full review here]

"While 'The One Inside' lacks the sort of narrative drive that usually attaches to a story - there's no resolution and possibly no point, just the detached and grim observations of a man we might assume to be Shepard himself - it is a powerful thing, no matter what you call it."

Certainly, there has been much discussion on exactly what this storytelling might be classified as, but perhaps we can agree that it can't be duplicated by the common man or woman. It is an original.

"They (men and women) can love you in whatever ways they can muster, but in the end they can't compete with the other within, the one inside. Ziggy Stardust called it making love to your ego."

I think Mr. Martin nailed it on the head. He continues,

"I'm a sucker for this sort of masculine self-examination; this way of presenting your smart self as dumbly male, surrounded by the accoutrements and accessories of the wild boy intellectual: battered Tacoma pickups, near feral dogs and D.H. Lawrence's Mornings in Mexico. Competence with tools, incompetence with electronic and digital technologies. Roadside cafe breakfasts and DVD-bingeing Breaking Bad. Graham Greene novels and the inexorable, disgusted withdrawal from modern frivolity."

The "wild boy intellectual" captures Sam Shepard to a T. I don't think I've ever heard him described that way. I love it! And finally Mr. Martin envisions Sam, "writing with the furious ambition of a 17-year-old who has just discovered Rimbaud and Verlaine - this fractured, tender book. He's everywhere, yet invisible. Ask him what he's written, he'll tell you tersely, 'Words.'" Right on, Mr. Martin!

You can now rent IN DUBIOUS BATTLE via Amazon Video for just $4.99. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 21. Sam has a minor role as an orchard farmer named Mr. Anderson in this James Franco-directed film, based on John Steinbeck's novel. Classic photo, eh? It didn't fare well on the Rotten Tomatometer but it does feature a fine cast with names like Duvall, Harris and Cranston.

San Francisco's Magic Theatre has announced that their 50th anniversary gala fundraiser  will be held at the Minnesota Street Project at 6 pm on Friday, April 7, 2017. Besides honoring its previous artistic directors, the evening will also honor three playwrights, which will include Sam Shepard. 

Sam began his ties with Magic beginning in 1975. His plays were written and premiered during his decade-long residency, including "Buried Child", "True West" and "Fool for Love".

Honorary Committee Member Ed Harris said, "Doing 'Fool for Love' with Sam and the great cast at the Magic was a time I will always cherish. The Magic's belief in the power of the playwright afforded Sam a great place to work out his magic time and time again. It's an honor to be coming there to honor my friend, who has and continues to be such an inspiration."

In Patti Smith's Foreword to THE ONE INSIDE, she describes Sam's book as "a coalescing atlas, marked by the boot heels of one who has instinctively tramped, with open eyes, the stretches of its unearthly roads." What a writer! She notes that on a golden Kentucky afternoon, she reads the manuscript while Sam looks out the window. She writes, "Glancing up at him, it occurred to me that everything I ever knew of Sam, and he of me, was still inside us. I thought of a photograph of the two of us in New York City, walking past an automat on Twenty-third Street, some forty years ago. It was shot from behind, but it was us, without question, about to embark on separate paths that would surely cross again."

There have been two book reviews this past week in The NY Times. Oddly, they're both written by older and strongly feminist writers. Pulitzer Prize-winning Michiko Kakutani  describes the narrator -  "There is his estranged wife of almost 30 years with whom he had two children — the pair still amicably visit from time to time, reminiscing about their daughter and son, and 'how remarkable it was for two stubborn, crusty, old codgers like ourselves to have spawned such mild-mannered, calm kids.'" How autobiographical can you get! Ultimately, Ms. Kakutani spends too much time quoting the book and wraps up her review by saying it "may be a minor Shepard work, but it provides a sharp-edged distillation of the themes that have preoccupied him throughout his career." That's a given. Rather than "preoccupied", I would use "obsessed". The past is the past, it's over, done with, it's unchangeable, move on.

Times reviewer Molly Haskell also shares an overload of info on Sam's stories rather than expressing her opinions. This is a pet peeve of mine about book reviewers. I do strongly disagree with Ms. Haskell when she says, "one of the things that have made Shepard so attractive on the screen is our sense of his reluctance to be there." Absolutely untrue! What makes him attractive on screen and in real life is his charisma. He's this tall, rugged and handsome cowboy. Think Gary Cooper. Acting is in his blood and the camera loves him! You know most movie audiences aren't even aware of his plays. Yes, they know he's connected to the stage but they've never read any of his plays, can't even name one, and most likely have never seen one.

What Sam Shepard objects to is the phoniness and excess in the Hollywood industry with its shallow and dsyfunctional stars. Yet, he was willing to tie his life to one of those stars which only exacerbated his problem with the Movie World. My opinion is that his success as a playwright has been actually strengthened through his film career. It has definitely benefited him in many ways, which I'm sure he would be most reluctant to agree with. His fear that his ultimate fame would come from being a movie star rather than a playwright is justified. Female reviewers of his written works are certainly affected by his sexy screen appeal and often give skewed reviews.

Another Molly from the Santa Fe New Mexican attempted a book review but instead she seemed too focused on German author Heinrich von Kleist. Does it ever occur to some journalists that most of us don't have a Doctorate's degree? Does anyone know what "limn" means? In all these reviews, I have read way too much about Blackmail Girl. I have not personally come close to such a character but it is intriguing that I have played with the fantasy, yes, fantasy, that I could publish all my emails with a famous movie star over the past 20 years [smiling].

After three years, the paperback edition of TWO PROSPECTORS: THE LETTERS OF SAM SHEPARD AND JOHNNY DARK will become available on March 1, 2017. We have a new cover with Johnny's name less noticeable this time. With only a $10 difference, I would still go with the hardcover edition. Being one who pays attention to aesthetics in publishing, the first edition is one of my favorite Shepard books. The paper quality and weight are excellent and the way their letters are photographed in their original and different styles adds such immeasurable pleasure to any bibliophile.

I highly recommend this book of letters for those of you who want to know the real Sam Shepard, not the movie star, not the playwright, but the man. It's probably the closest you'll ever get to his autobiography because it's written in his own words. Here's an excerpt:

* * * * *

Last nite I'm sitting in the T.V. room - (me, Jessica & the kids) watching a program on the Lost Continent of Atlantis.... ...I'm more or less enjoying myself when out of the blue Shura says to me, "Why do you always snicker and laugh at everyone? Why are you so cynical?"

"Me? Snicker & laugh? Cynical? Me?"

"Yes, she says. Then Jessica says, "Yes, it's true. You laugh at everyone."

"I do?" I say.

"Yes, you do."

I don't change my posture. I suddenly "see" my posture: Arms cocked behind my head, legs stretched out & crossed in an attitude of total arrogance & disdain. I feel a terrible tension across my stomach as the reaction sets in & the recognition that this is indeed a true aspect of my character - cynical, arrogant & self-righteous.

I keep looking. I don't change anything. I don't speak. I just watch & I swallow whole the almost unbearable internal pain & humiliation of the moment. How could I be this way? How is it possible? After all these years; all this time & so-called effort? I'm just an arrogant self-righteous old prick watching T.V. & snickering.

* * * * *

Here's an update on Shura, Sam's stepdaughter who lived with him from the time she was a baby until she left for college in 1999. As most of you know, she is the daughter of Mikhail  Baryshnikov & Jessica Lange. I have never seen a photo of her with Sam except for those taken at the 2006 Tribute to Lange at  Lincoln Center.

Though he helped raise Shura all those years, there are simply no public pictures, no stories, no history of her life with Sam except through his letters to Johnny. Today she is a 35-year-old dance instructor, sometime stage actress, living in Rhode Island as a divorced mother with two daughters. In an interview a few months ago, Shura admitted to an unstable childhood and the cycle of "life without father" continues with her own children. Neither of Sam's two children are married. Here's a recent photo of Shura looking very much like her famous dad.

I also want to share this passage from one of Sam's letters, dated September 24, 2008:

* * * * *

I've decided it's not so great living so much of the time alone & I've told Jessica that I think we should find a way to spend more time together. I've also told her I'm not going to live in N.Y. city anymore & so the compromise for her seems to be some place upstate N.Y. - in order to be close to Shura's two little girls. I'll go along with that. When you know you have a destiny with someone, why put it off? We were meant to live together for the rest of our lives & that's now become more important than horses & farms & fishing & New Mexico & Kentucky & running up and down the American road like a chicken with his head cut off.

* * * * *

Within two years, it was splitsville.

Last week Berlinale presented the premiere of Volker  Schlöndorff's film, "Return to Montauk", inspired by the book "Montauk" by Max Frisch. After reading some of the passages from "The One Inside", I got to thinking about the Swiss novelist and his earlier work, "Homo Faber", which happened to also be directed by Schlöndorff and starred Sam. Some of the narration by Walter Faber captures similarities to our playwright.  Is this from "Homo Faber" or "The One Inside"?

"Her supposition that I was melancholy because I was alone put me out of humor. I’m used to travelling alone. I live, like every real man, in my work. On the contrary, that’s the way I like it and I think myself lucky to live alone, in my view this is the only possible condition for men, I enjoy waking up and not having to say a word. Where is the woman who can understand that?"

Washington Post:
Much of the book’s contemporary story has the substance of an extended, self-pitying sigh. In short, oblique chapters — sometimes only a small paragraph floating on a page — we divine that the narrator, an actor and writer with "a reputation for discarding women," is still reeling from the collapse of a long relationship. (There’s no mention of Jessica Lange, but it’s hard not to think of the actress who was Shepard’s partner for almost 30 years.) There’s an awful lot of wandering around the house, looking for the dogs, feeling bereft. He thinks about suicide, mulls his dreams, considers the smell of his urine... ...the best parts of "The One Inside" are those least hobbled by its fractured structure and mannered dialogue. When he stops letting vagueness masquerade as profundity, when he actually tells a story about a real man caught in the peculiar throes of a particular moment, he can still make the ordinary world feel suddenly desperate and strange.

The Culture Trip:
"The One Inside" is tryingly male in its indulgence of the macho unconscious...  ...a lesson in how our culture dresses things up as things they’re not, and while the edgy cover, the faux-poetry of Patti Smith’s foreword, and Shepard’s wannabe Beckettian prose will deem the book cool to many a brooding American bachelor, this "cool" is one that privileges self-pity and the evasion of catastrophic behavior over any attempt to do the hard work of self-reflection.

The Bowed Bookshelf:
Literature, language, and its portrayal in film or on stage, has been his work for forty years. He may be winding down, but this he can still do: write with clarity, dreams or memories or lies or wishes or denials. This may be a memoir, but who’s to say the memories of an old man aren’t half fiction?

I loved this work. Shepard always read a lot of books but famous writers like Mailer, Capote, or Nabokov confused him. Shepard knew what was important, and stashed language like memory, in red naugahyde suitcases, ready to be pulled out in wonderment years later, and used to describe this world of his, or ours. He may be an ordinary man (who knows?), but he has extraordinary skill. This is a special, wonderful, joyful, ugly, painful look at our past century, a western landscape, and a man in it.

San Francisco's Magic Theatre begins its 50th season with a legacy revival of FOOL FOR LOVE, opening February 9th. This timeless masterpiece first premiered at this theater in 1983. Artistic Director Loretta Greco says, "Magic  is thrilled to be bringing 'Fool for Love' back home thirty-four years later, as the fifth event in our 'Sheparding America: March to Fifty series'". She adds, "Sam's been writing for five decades. There's no one who's done it for as long, in such varied forms, in such an astounding, brilliant and imperfect way." Greco previously directed "Buried Child" in 2013 and "A Lie of the Mind" in 2015. "Sam's work springs from the terrain from which he's from," Greco explained. "'Fool for Love' is a pressure cooker of desperate intimacy, the mythic fall of the American cowboy, and the marks a father leaves on his children. It's compact, muscular, and wickedly funny."

The play also opened at the Cellar Theater at The Playhouse San Antonio and continues through February 12, 2017. I much prefer this poster as it captures the raw relationships and bleakness of the story. The poster used by Magic is quite popular and is the one you'll see on the book. To me, it looks like Elvis sneaking a kiss from a fan. And after doing a little research today, it is, in fact, Elvis, copyright of Alfred Wertheimer. What does Elvis (in a jacket and tie) have to do with Eddie, a broken-down rodeo cowboy?

In a recent interview, 93-year-old Chuck Yeager talked about "The Right Stuff", the 1983 film chronicling the early space race in which he's played by Sam. Often times famous people grumble about the screen version of their life but Yeager is positive. He shares, "It was interesting. I did a lot of flying in it, and Sam Shepard did a good job portraying me. Barbara Hershey looked exactly like [my wife] Glennis, too -- wonderful. Though it’s sort of 'Hollywood-ized,' the whole story is accurate. I did get burned badly in an F-104 crash. All in all, the movie is educational, and it’s very well made."

James Franco's IN DUBIOUS BATTLE is about to have a limited theatrical release on February 17, 2017. It has previously been screened at several film festivals - Venice, Deauville and Toronto in September, Mill Valley in October and Stockholm in November. It will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 21, 2017.

This could well be Sam Shepard's last film.

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