The world of Lawrence is, by all accounts, a strange one. A singer once told me that, while visiting Lawrence at home, he was taken urgently by the need to use the lavatory. As the story was presented me, Lawrence flatly refused and the singer was forced to go outside to relieve himself. No one, it seems, uses the toilet chez Lawrence, apart from Lawrence.
Sam Shepard himself takes a rare lead in Blackthorn, which expands on the theories that Butch Cassidy somehow survived the shoot out at San Vicente, Bolivia in 1908. “I woke up and found myself alone,” he explains. “Seemed like everybody I knew was either dead or in jail. And they thought I was dead, too. So I did what any good dead person would do. I went off and raised me some horses. 20 years. That’s a big change. Quiet times.” Cassidy, in his twilight years, decides to return to America, to be reunited with family.
Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be The Place muses on the existence of a fictional rock star. This is Cheyenne, who’s spent 20 years out of the spotlight, living in a mansion outside Dublin. Played by Sean Penn and modeled physically on Robert Smith – the crows’ nest of black hair, lipstick, eyeliner, fondness for black – Cheyenne spends his days watching Jamie Oliver programmes on television, debating whether or not to sell his shares in Tesco and pondering, “Why is Lady Gaga?” Fully Gothed up, he goes shopping in a nearby mall to buy pizza.
