THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1993 Frank Maloney
THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO is a film written and directed by Maggie Greenwald. The cast includes Suzy Amis, David Chung, Bo Hopkins, Ian McKellen, Carrie Snodgrass, and Rene Auberjonois. Rated R for violence and sex scenes.
THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO is based the life of Josephine/Joe Monaghan, a woman who spent her life in the frontier mining districts of Idaho as a man. Josephine was expelled from her wealthy Eastern family for having a baby out of wedlock. She drifts out West and soon discovers, almost too late, that a woman without a male protector is a victim in the making. After being betrayed and narrowly escaping a gang rape, she finds the only ready-to-wear clothes available are men's and thus almost casually begins a lifetime role as a cross-dresser. The historical Little Jo is mostly unknown, but she did become a cowboy in Owyhee County, Idaho. She was thought to be "odd" for her stand-offish attitudes to drinking and whoring, but enjoyed some respect for her horsemanship. Her secret was discovered only upon her death. (See THE COWGIRL COMPANION by Gail Gilchriest for information about Little Jo and the other known female cross-dressers of the Old West, as well as women in the West in general.)
One should note en passant that the phenomenon of women assuming men's clothes and men's roles is by no means either extinct nor unnecessary even in today's society. I have a friend who says she feels she loses all her personal power if she wears women's clothes--even women's jeans, instead of men's. And it is still difficult for women to pursue full careers in many fields--director Greenwald suggested in a New York Times article--"whether it's playing jazz or directing films or flying planes. Then there's being president of the United States." And there is the locally famous case of Billy Tipton, the American jazz pianist and saxophonist, who upon his death in 1989 in Spokane, was discovered to be a woman and who originally assumed a man's persona to get ahead in jazz.
However, the pressure to pass a man was even greater in the last century than in this one. Even wearing clothes "inappropriate to one's sex" was illegal throughout the states and territories. On the other hand, the mere act of wearing pants might well have been enough to let a woman pass as a man, the sight was so unthinkable to most people that they appear to have been blinded to any other possibility.
And it is to everyone's credit that Suzy Amis--even though she never really convinces us--is presented without mascara or lip gloss--unlike Barbra Steisand in YENTL or Julie Andrews in VICTOR/VICTORIA. Amis worked with voice and movement coaches and pumped iron and learned to shoot and herd sheep on location in the Red Lodge country of Montanta. Amis does an admirable job as Little Jo, giving us little hints that help flesh out a character that is by the nature of her situation strong, silent, and unable to talk about herself. Josephine was something of a rebel even back in Buffalo and that streak helped set the direction of her life as Joe. Amis gives us a performance that is full of surprises, entirely as original as the character she plays.
Amis's fellow actors provide strong backup for her, especially Rene Auberjonois as the peddler, Ian McKellan as the complex, contradictory, alcoholic cabinmate who first teaches Joe about surviving in the West, beautiful David Chung as Tinman (Tienman) the Chinese man who helps set her free to be a complete person again, and Bo Hopkins as the bigotted, violent, good-hearted neighbor who wants to be Joe's friend and who can never quite gap the distance between them. All are excellent and pretty much represent the range of the types of male characters in the film. The film's view of men is as complex as anything else in it.
Complementing this excellent cast are the cinematography of Declan Quinn and the music of David Mansfield. Quinn gives a full, lush look at the panoramic as well as the close-up beauties of the intermountain West, in addition to interior work that looks like available light--the beauty of sunshine through a cabin window or the murk of a cold and grimy tavern/whorehouse. Mansfield's music is charming and appropriate throughout, picking up folk and ethnic themes, but never overwhelming the scenes.
But clearly the real star of LITTLE JO is writer/director Maggie Greenwald. Greenwald has worked carefully and imaginatively within her limited budget to give us a rich and full realized film. I liked this film even more than I did the excellent 1000 PIECES OF GOLD, Nancy Kelly's film about Lalu Nathoy (Rosalyn Chao), the Chinese woman sold into slavery and prostitution who made a life for herself in Idaho. Both stories, based in Western history, have their points of similarity, but in terms of treatment LITTLE JO has the more polished look and feel. My only quibble is that the final scenes of death and discovery do not feel entirely necessary and drag out an excellent film to an ending that seems to put the final emphasis on Bo Hopkins instead of Suzy Amis. I think an epilog would have been well used here.
However, THE BALLARD OF LITTLE JO is a first-rate film and I recommend it without reservation to all of you.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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