What Sam Shepard Taught Men About Being Ourselves

Like many guys I think, I found it hard to follow the life and career of Sam Shepard who passed away four years ago.

A sterling screen presence of course, in “The Right Stuff,” but later in mostly brief, terse and sometimes villainous roles, as in “The Pelican Brief,” and “The Notebook.” And after all wasn’t Sam mainly a playwright, with a Pulitzer no less to prove it? (I’m not familiar with his plays. I mean, real guys don’t read plays, am I right?).

But that was kind of Sam’s point, wasn’t it? Sam just didn’t allow easy categorization; Sam was his own man, and his own artist. He wouldn’t allow himself to just be another in the endless series of flash-in-the-pan, avant garde movie dilettantes as we have seen over the years (think: Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”).

Someone once said that Sam Shepard was a previous generation’s Gary Cooper, except not nearly as loquacious. Didn’t get the joke? Cooper was taciturn to a fault. To illustrate, think about Shepard’s indelible impression in “The Right Stuff” — burned and charred, walking away from the smoking wreckage of an experimental jet with an understated swagger. Those 30 or 40 steps literally earned Sam an Oscar nomination, the only one for the entire production. And yet can you recall a single line of dialog he uttered in the 3+ hour movie? I can’t.

And all this, from a playwright with extensive training in improvisational theater. You’d have thought that he and “Right Stuff” director, Philip Kaufman, might have come up with an iconic rejoinder or two for Sam. But, no, Shepard just needed to “be” in a film to create an indelible character. One that was mostly him.

Sam was brazenly attractive to women, especially his partner of several decades, Jessica Lange. But I think he spoke most eloquently to men, about the essence of masculinity, and how it doesn’t require talking much; doesn’t need to plead its case. I think all men instinctively want that for themselves, but then there’s that image of Shepard showing us how it’s really done.

In “Wild At Heart”, John Eldredge’s fine book about restoring mens’ right to be manly, the author makes the observation that “character,” to the extent it exists at all these days, is something “that can be bought and worn immediately. We don’t need to wait for our leather jackets or our jeans or caps to age to get that rugged look — they come that way now.”

Except not for Sam Shepard. He actually earned the rugged persona that he wore in his movies and in his very-real life. Those jean shirts and leather jackets in our wardrobes? That’s so that we can “put on” the look that guys like Sam Shepard exuded effortlessly.

Ok, that did it — I’m going to track down some of Sam’s plays in the future. I suspect there’s much to be learned, with or without words, from this guy.