It’s an opportunity to react to feedback,” said Van Sant, noting, “I like the whole movie, but I can see it in the other light too.” “The whole thing is I want to re-evaluate it. The writer-director said it would be “too complicated” to detail how he expects to re-edit his picture, particularly since most decisions will be made during the process, but he does not plan to make any major changes.

In a phone interview from his home in Oregon, Van Sant (“Drugstore Cowboy,” “My Own Private Idaho”) said he found after the two festival screenings he attended “the overall response wasn’t as good as I thought-it was critical.” He determined that “the pacing could be improved-in parts it’s too slow, and other times too fast.”

The ensemble cast features Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Rain Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Crispin Glover, Ed Begley Jr. The story centers on a counterculture heroine named Sissy Hankshaw who becomes the world’s greatest hitchhiker because of her oversized thumbs and the rebel band of cowgirls she befriends at a ranch run by lesbians. Van Sant-who was under pressure to complete his film in time for the fall festivals-said that after seeing “Cowgirls” play for the first time in front of audiences and getting such negative response, he realized it had problems with “pacing and construction of the story.”īased on Robbins’ 1976 offbeat hippie novel, “Cowgirls” is billed as a psychedelic road movie exploring sexual identity and social discovery.

Even cowgirls get the blues novel