Cowboy Movie
16mm film
TRT: 00:31, 2022
Camera: Juan Carlos Alom
The act of striking a match on a tooth is a familiar trope in Western films, a cinematic shorthand for masculine nonchalance in the face of danger. As a mythic gesture, it implies invulnerability and the fantasy of control over risk. Often performed just before a confrontation, the small, controlled flame carries latent violence: the suggestion that conflict can be sparked at will.
Cowboy Movie restages this trick and allows it to fail. Repeated attempts undo its aura of effortlessness, shifting the image from bravado to frustration and exposure. What once signaled mastery becomes an index of artifice. Shot on expired Soviet film stock, the image resists clarity and control; it appears fragile and degraded, further destabilizing the myth of autonomy and dominance that continues to shape cultural narratives of the American West.
Produced by El Espacio 23/Fotografía en Movimiento, VIII Edición