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"Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry is possibly one of the longest western films. McMurtry originally wrote the story in a novel. In 1989 in was put into Hollywood as a romantic western. The story begins with two old Texas Rangers who have a ranch on the Rio Grande River in Texas. They catch wind of beautiful, majestic land due north in Montana. They had already spent most of their life fighting off Indians and life on the southern Great Plains.
The rangers and a crew of cowboys rounded up some cattle and horses and headed north. The story continues on with hardships of love, reuniting, and death. With the exaggeration of romance put into these western films considered, "Lonesome Dove" portrays the time when the cattle industry was moving northward. I find it shocking for them to go from one climate within the country to the completely opposite side of the spectrum, winters in the northern Great Plains. I can’t help believe there was a special romance for some of these cowboys of the plains and their relationship with the land. Human nature is to continually succeed. New land showed new opportunity to both old and young cowboys.
Gus and McCray, the two rangers, definitely had adapted to the plains as much as they were going to, but they both did it in completely different ways. Gus liked to relax and enjoy luxuries of whiskey and women while McCray was addicted to work like no other. These two men, much like many other cowboys, experienced a new sense of love and care for the land, the Great Plains of North America. I see life on the plains as being fortunate to experience. It’s the land of opportunity and the need to succeed.