To make a long story short, Shane and High Plains Drifter collided with each other at a high rate of speed, creating a hybrid of the two. This is that hybrid. The result is a mostly enjoyable movie watching experience.
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western #28, 'high plains drifter.' [another day, another movie.]
I loved this movie. It was awesome.
Unfortunately, I can’t say much more than that without ruining it. Part of what I loved was slowly coming to realize what my take was on the film, as it developed.
It was basically one big metaphor, although, like all good metaphor, it was filled with layers of nuance and mystery. If you’ve seen it, I’d love to discuss it, but I’m not going to spoil it for everyone.
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western #27, 'the outlaw josey wales.' [another day, another movie.]
Yes. Yes. Yes!
Everything that frustrated me about High Noon, The Wild Bunch, and Duck, You Sucker was remedied in this movie, as well as a really refreshing response to the American Western’s portrayal of Native Americans.
It is a sampling from early in Clint Eastwood’s directorial career, and only the second Western he directed (we’ll get to his first later).
I loved it.
The story is basically about a man whose family is brutally murdered by a guerilla terror squad working with the Union army.
He teams up with some bushwhackers to get some revenge, and thus begins the story of Josey Wales. He ends up becoming an avenging angel of sorts, protecting the innocent from harm, but the story is far better than that makes it sound.
The badass outlaw with a heart of gold, as we have seen many times before, but this time, there are different themes at work than there were before.
One of my favorites so far!
Also, young Clint Eastwood looks awesome with a beard.
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western #14, 'hang 'em high.' [another day, another movie.]
With a title like Hang ’em High
Instead, it was far more ambiguous and intelligent than that. A wonderful film to watch after suffering through True Grit.
It was a great rumination on the relationship and differences between justice and vengeance, and most of the characters were a realistic mixture of good and bad. It was strong across the board, and there isn’t much more to say than that.
This was also the first film I’ve seen featuring the stunningly beautiful and heartbreakingly tragic Inger Stevens.
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western #11, 'unforgiven.' [another day, another movie.]
This is the first of the Westerns we have watched so far that I actually owned, so, obviously I liked this one going into it.
Eastwood responds to the Western genre that helped make his career. Even going so far as to say it basically encapsulates everything he feels about the genre.
It is slow and taut, filled with great characters played brilliantly by gifted actors.
If Cooperstown was for actors instead of baseball players, Gene Hackman would only have to screen The Royal Tenenbaums and Unforgiven back to back and he would have my vote to get in without any further conversation.
It doesn’t deal with the Native American issues, but it pulls back the curtain a bit on the rest of what lies implicit in the Western genre.
As is the case with much of Eastwood’s directorial work, the story turns the myth of redemptive violence on its head. There is always a cost.
Great movie, all around.
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western #7, 'the good, the bad, and the ugly.' [another day, another movie.]
This movie was great. I loved it!
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, or, Blondie, Angel Eyes and Tuco. Whatever you call it, it was fantastic filmmaking all around.
The characters were lots of fun, enjoyably acted by the three primary leads, and Leone was at the top of his game. Not to mention, Ennio Morricone composed the most iconic score in the history of the genre.
It was actually a prequel of sorts, set before the events of A Fistful of Dollars, and For a Few Dollars More.
I just wish there was a way to see the further adventures of The Man With No Name and Tuco.
The film was more of an epic than the other two in the series, covering more territory in the American West, and setting itself in a larger context revolving around the end of the Civil War, which went on for a time in places like Texas even after Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
There isn’t much else to say, aside from the fact that, like Yojimbo, I should have watched this movie a looooooong time ago.
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western #5, 'for a few dollars more.' [another day, another movie.]
It would seem the Man with No Name and the Masterless Samurai are even more connected than I initially thought. There was already the obvious connection, in that The Man with No Name was created as an adaptation of the Masterless Samurai. However, it seems to me the similarities extend into their sequels as well.
Sanjuro, the second film featuring the character from Yojimbo, was only supposed to be a straight adaptation of a novel called Peaceful Days, but after the success of Yojimbo, the studio decided to have Kurosawa bring the character back sooner rather than later and worked his character into the center of the film.
It felt to me like the same thing happened with the second movie to feature The Man with No Name.
For a Few Dollars More felt to me like the story of one man’s revenge, and that man was not The Man with No Name. Instead, he moved back and forth in the story, like we were following him in and out of the real story that was happening.
It was if Leone simply realized he had struck gold in Eastwood’s character and wanted him in the movie, even if he didn’t have much reason to be there.
The result was that I didn’t really care much about Eastwood’s character in this one. I still loved him, he’s Clint Fucking Eastwood. Yet, in A Fistful of Dollars, all of the best scenes, the ones with the most weight, were scenes featuring Eastwood front and center. That wasn’t so in the second one.
The film was a bit more scattered as well. There were flashes of brilliance, for one, the duel during the climax was pretty great all around, directing, acting, etc. And during a showdown at the beginning, Morricone was off his ass in all his composing glory, working organ music in with… well , you’ll just have to watch it if you haven’t seen it. It was pretty amazing. Outside of those flashes of brilliance, it was pretty straightforward, and at times even dull.
However, I can’t wait for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!
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western #2, 'a fistful of dollars.' [another day, another movie.]
I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about A Fistful of Dollars. Directly adapting a brilliant film like Yojimbo without ever successfully getting the rights to do so is sketchy at best (Kurosawa sued and won, receiving 15% of the film’s take).
Yet, somehow, Sergio Leone is a good enough director that he made it work. There are certainly scenes and moments that just made me want to watch the original again (yes, already), but there was enough new delights thrown in that A Fistful of Dollars is a pretty good film in its own right.
There is a scene during the climax, where they use shots of only boots to set up the tension for the final gunfight. It’s been replicated and parodied so many times since that it has become cliché and is usually annoying. Yet it is done so well here that I was impressed and drawn in by it even though I live on the other side of the overuse. It was wonderful.
Eastwood really is a great Americanization of the wandering samurai character. When our nameless hero confronts the gang of douchebags in town, asking them to apologize to his horse for scaring it, he captured everything that was great about Mifune’s performance in Yojimbo. Basically, if you view it as an homage, it rocks, if you view it as ripping him off, it sucks. Eastwood’s personal character in the years since makes me lean toward homage, but I could just be blinding myself.
The one complaint about the actual filmmaking is that the dubbing was utterly terrible. I’m not sure if this was perhaps caused by the particular master used on the dvd, does anyone else know what I am talking about with the dubbing? It really was terrible, and it would be surprising if it was released that way originally, especially in a film that is otherwise so meticulously crafted. Also, the day for night shots were a little silly as well, but they were limited by their era.
However, the rest of the film is pretty great; the use of close-ups, Ennio Morricone’s score, Eastwood’s scowling mug being unleashed on the world at large.
It is still difficult to get past the fact that they totally ripped off Kurosawa, but it’s a great film otherwise.
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western #1, 'yojimbo.' [another day, another movie.]
The month of westerns is underway, and Mr. Akira Kurosawa kicked things off in style.
There are loads of popular westerns. Some are as popular and famous as the “Man with No Name” trilogy (or the “Dollars” trilogy as it is sometimes called), but there are none more so. Popular culture still offers frequent homages and tips of the cap to Clint Eastwood as the main character in three films which can be understood as the adventures of one lone wanderer, whose name we never learn.
Eastwood obviously starred in more westerns, many of them argued as better than the “Man with No Name” films, but those big three, culminating in the prequel of sorts, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, are the best known.
The first of that trilogy was A Fistful of Dollars, which will be Western #2, and that film is a punch for punch adaptation of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. It is just one of many occasions in which some of the most significant films about the American west were directly adapted from Japanese cinema.
Let me tell you folks, Yojimbo is legit. I loved every damned minute of it.
Kurosawa was influenced by Irish American director John Ford, who directed western classics such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The first two of those three are on AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” list, cataloguing the 100 greatest and most important films of the first 100 years of cinema. He took the western theme and set it in Japan, turning cowboys into samurai.
However, while he was largely influenced by American westerns, it was he who is largely responsible for the trend in westerns to tell the story of one lone man beating the odds and a load of bad guys in the process.
Yojimbo is responsible for that trend.
The main character is fantastic. We never learn his name, although he makes a name up while looking out the window at Mulberry Fields, calling himself “Mulberry Fields, Age 30.” He is the ultimate badass, often to hilarious results.
Every scene is remarkably well shot. The score is great. And as alluded above, Toshirô Mifune, as the mysterious, masterless samurai, is brilliant. If I didn’t have so many westerns to watch this month, I would probably watch this one again pretty soon.
I can’t wait to watch more Kurosawa, and if the rest of the month holds up like day 1, this ridiculous idea will also go down as one of my best.
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western audacity.
Well, another day, another movie is hitting the next level. We’ve done horror movies. We’ve done time-travel. The plan was that all of these type things would be 10-14 days long.
Not so any longer.
The Western film extravaganza is going to be a full month long.
30 Days. 30 Westerns.
During that time, I will also be watching the complete series of Deadwood. And, if Gamefly cooperates, I may be playing through Red Dead Redemption as well.
Right now, the plan is to post a short post for each day, rather than waiting until the end and posting a huge long post that no one will actually read. Any ideas on a better format?
I’m looking forward to this, while also worrying a bit that I will hate Westerns by the end.
I’m going for it, because I think there is something beautiful about endeavors which are at once audacious and pointless.
For those in the Seattle area, company is always appreciated for any and all of these films.
June 1st, Western month begins!
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