7/5/15 (Part Two): A Jackrabbit in a Den of Wolves

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Andrew Robertt, Ben Mendelsohn, Best of 2015, betrayal, bounty hunters, Caren Pistorius, cinema, class systems, dark humor, directorial debut, father-daughter relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashbacks, greenhorns, Jay Cavendish, Jed Kurzel, John Maclean, Kodi Smit-McPhee, love story, Michael Fassbender, Movies, optimism vs pessimism, outlaws, Robbie Ryan, Rory McCann, sardonic tone, set in 1860s, Silas Selleck, Slow West, the Beta Band, the myth of the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, UK-New Zealand films, upper vs lower class, voice-over narration, Westerns, writer-director

There’s a point in writer-director John Maclean’s instantly classic feature-debut, Slow West (2015), that just may be one of the subtlest, most cutting bits of insight into the human condition that I’ve seen in some time. As they recover from the aftermath of a particularly chaotic, violent robbery attempt at a general store, 16-year-old Scottish greenhorn Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) looks past the stack of still-smoking corpses and right into the eyes of the dead robbers’ now-orphaned children. The children are impossibly young and innocent, their wide eyes seemingly unable to process the complete upending of their world, as they stand silently, gripping each others’ hands tight.

Feeling the instant onus of responsibility, Jay tells his travelling companion, hardened, sardonic gunfighter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), that they’ll just need to take the kids with them. It’s the only thing that makes sense, after all: Jay and Silas weren’t responsible for the death of the urchins’ parents but they would be complete monsters if they just left them there, on their own, to die. The kids can just hitch a ride with them as they proceed on their mission across the frontier wasteland, in search of Jay’s beloved Rose (Caren Pistorius). Jay is eager to help, his eyes bright and determined, until Silas take all the wind out of his sails with one off-handed response: “And then what?” Silas, you see, is nothing if not a realist and knows one very important fact above all else: the desire to do good just isn’t enough…without the ability to follow through, it’s all just stuff and nonsense…smoke and bullshit. He accepts the fact that Jay won’t: taking the kids with them would be as sure a death-sentence as leaving them there to rot, good intentions be damned.

It’s precisely this level of insight and intelligence that makes Slow West not only the best Western to come down the pike in years but also one of the very best films of this still-in-progress year. A mature, darkly humorous and gorgeously shot character study that has little use for easy stereotypes or empty action, Maclean’s debut is the perfect antidote for overwrought, multiplex inanity, the very antithesis to the gazillion-dollar superhero films that currently clog cinematic arteries. Featuring a fantastic cast, a brilliant script and images lovely enough to frame, Slow West should be a poignant reminder of a time when cinema didn’t need to rely on shouting and CGI to slug audiences right in the solar plexus.

Plotwise, Slow West is the very definition of streamlined efficiency. The aforementioned Jay Cavendish, the son of a Scottish lord and lady, travels to the untamed chaos of 1860s frontier America in pursuit of his beloved Rose and her father, John (Rory McCann), after a terrible accident finds the father and daughter forced to leave their native land one step ahead of a lynch mob. With only the vaguest idea of where to look for his beloved, Jay sets off across the plains, so wet-behind-the-ears that he practically leaves a puddle wherever he goes.

In no time, Jay finds himself in the crosshairs of a group of miscreants hunting a fleeing Native American, one short step from getting his naive brains blown out all over his citified duds. At the last-minute, however, a mysterious gunman appears and blasts everyone but Jay straight to hell: this is the silent, contemplative Silas, a character who would’ve been played by none other than Clint Eastwood were this about four decades older. Silas knows that Jay is an accident waiting to happen, a plucky little chicken traipsing his way through an entire country full of hungry foxes, and he offers to be his bodyguard, in exchange for a little cold, hard cash. Jay heartily agrees, although he’s completely unaware of the other half of this particular coin: there’s a huge bounty out on Rose and her father (dead or alive) and Silas wants Jay to, unwittingly, lead him right to a much bigger payday.

As the two ride across the Old West, they encounter an almost endless variety of outlaws, wandering musicians, grizzled bounty hunters and foreign immigrants, each individual following their own particular path to salvation or destruction. Chief among these unique characters is Silas’ former gang leader, the extraordinarily lethal Payne (Ben Mendelsohn): Payne and his gang also have their sights set on Rose and her father and certainly won’t mind burying an old colleague, if they have to. As Jay and Silas continue to bond, they get ever closer to the beloved Rose, albeit with some suspiciously gunfighter-shaped shadows following behind. Will Silas be able to overcome his patently cynical nature in order to help his young charge? Will Jay ever reunite with Rose? Will true love really save the day or it just a myth as fanciful and false as Jay’s sunny view of this “brave new world”?

First off, let’s make one thing clear: Slow West is just about as perfect a film (certainly as perfect a full-length debut) as I can recall seeing, the kind of movie that hits you immediately and keeps you rapt right through the closing credits. From the genuinely stunning cinematography (if Robbie Ryan doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, I’ll punch a hole in a wall) to the often whimsical score to the utterly thrilling action setpieces, Slow West is one exquisitely crafted piece of art. Add in a truly smart script, full of great dialogue and surprising doses of humor (the scene where Jay and Silas come upon the skeletal body of a logger crushed beneath a tree, ax still in hand, is one of the single greatest sight gags ever) and one of the best casts in some time and I’ll be honest: I can’t really find much fault here. At all.

Fassbender and Smit-McPhee are absolutely perfect as the unlikely partners, each playing off the other in ways both expected and truly surprising. The aforementioned Eastwood reference is not stated lightly: as someone who worships at the altar of everything Eastwood (at least through the ’90s), I found plenty of nice parallels between Fassbender’s performance, here, and my squint-eyed childhood hero. His is a low-key performance, as much about what’s not said as what is. While I’m usually not the biggest fan of cinematic voice-overs, Silas’ narration throughout is an integral part of the perfection, leading us to one of the most perfect endings I’ve seen in some time.

For his part, Smit-McPhee finds the perfect balance between Jay’s inherent helplessness and the steely determination that allowed him to make this dangerous trek in the first place. At any point, the character of Jay could have slipped into either obnoxious comic relief (look at the silly Scottish wimp!) or complete irrelevancy (why focus on this yahoo when you’ve got badass Silas over there?). It’s to both Smit-McPhee and Maclean’s tremendous credits, however, that Jay is always sympathetic: we want him to succeed because he seems like a genuinely good, hopeful and positive person. This pie-in-the-sky optimism is absolutely critical to the film’s underlying themes and Slow West wouldn’t be nearly the overwhelming success it is without his able participation. My advice? Get Fassbender and Smit-McPhee into another film, stat!

Like the best films of Jim Jarmusch, however, the supporting cast gives as good as the leads do. Pistorius is perfect in a relatively small role, imbuing her character with such a co-mingled sense of joy and unbearable sorrow that she makes every second of her screen time count. Mendelsohn, who might be the very definition of an actor who really needs no introduction, absolutely shines as the gang leader, turning in one of the coolest, most fun and vile villains to hit the big-screen since the glory days of Peckinpah films. In fact, much of Slow West recalls Peckinpah’s work in style and theme, if not necessarily unmitigated bloodshed. With his odd fur coat, droll manner and reptilian coldness, Payne is an instantly iconic creation: my only complaint, here, is that we don’t get nearly enough of him.

Production-wise, Slow West is at the absolute top of its game, no two ways about it. What really tips the film into classic territory, however, is how smart and insightful it is. This isn’t the stereotypical Western, full of flinty men blowing other flinty men to Kingdom Come. In many ways, Slow West is about the disparity between intent and action, between wanting a better world and actually doing something about it. Time and time again, Silas points out the difference between his and Jay’s personal philosophies: Jay sees the Wild West as a place of endless promise, full of hard-working people doing their best to overcome the elements (and themselves), carving out their own spot in an unforgiving landscape, while Silas sees the frontier as a no-man’s-land full of outlaws, dust, murder and drudgery. To accept Jay’s worldview is to invite absolute destruction, as far as Silas is concerned: let your guard down just once and you’re wormfood. To accept Silas’s worldview, however, is equally destructive: if no one is good, if no one can change and if the capacity for peaceful coexistence is a myth, what, exactly, do we have to live for?

As smart as it is beautiful, Slow West is an absolute treasure, the kind of film that the Coens thought they were making with their True Grit (2010) remake, only to fall short of the mark. As apt to make you chuckle as stare in awe, Maclean has established himself as one of the most exciting new filmmakers operating right now: the fact that the writer-director is only on his first film (after a pair of shorts) is even more extraordinary. The fact that Maclean comes to us not through the film world but the music world is that much more astounding: erstwhile music fans might recognize him as one of the driving forces behind Scottish indie heroes The Beta Band.

To restate the very obvious: I absolutely loved Slow West. From the craft to the message to the absolute perfect synthesis of form and meaning, Maclean’s debut is nothing short of a revelation. At 84 minutes, there isn’t one wasted scene, shot or motion, no sense of pandering, hand-holding or dumbing-down. This is cinema at its very best, the kind of movie that makes you feel glad to be alive. As a lifelong movie fan, I look for films like this all the time but it’s like finding a needle in a field of haystacks. Good thing, then, that Maclean is all needles and no hay: when I’m looking for a quality film in the future, I have a pretty good idea where to look.  If you enjoy quality movies, too, I suggest you do the same thing.

6/14/14 (Part Two): When Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend

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1960's films, American Old West, Andy Devine, auteur theory, cinema, classic films, classic movies, Denver Pyle, Edmund O'Brien, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gunslingers vs lawyers, James Stewart, James Warner Bellah, John Carradine, John Ford, John Wayne, Ken Murray, lawyers, Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, legend vs reality, Liberty Valance, Movies, Ransom Stoddard, senator, Shinbone, statehood, Strother Martin, the law vs the gun, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, Tom Doniphon, Vera Miles, Westerns, Wild West, William H. Clothier, Willis Goldbeck, Woody Strode

In many ways, the American “Old West” is just as mythical a location as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Lewis’ Narnia: composed of equal parts real history, tall tales, folk legends, personal myth-building, self-rationalization and flat-out malarkey, the Wild West has become so absorbed into the fabric of pop culture, by this point, that is hard to say where the stories end and the truth begins. Much of this mythologizing is thanks to the work of American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah and Fred Zinnemann, directors who helped shape the public’s opinion of the American Old West as a rough-and-tumble, lawless land where the six-gun was the only jury and where a strong-willed man could carve out an empire with his bare hands. Classic Hollywood Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), Broken Arrow (1950), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956),  Rio Bravo (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Wild Bunch (1969) have long posited the West as just such a brutal, beautiful and untamed wilderness, America’s last refuge against the relentless march of progress and industrialization that swallowed the rest of the nation part and parcel.

Nothing, of course, can withstand the march of time for long and the “Wild West” was no exception. Once the railroad began to unite far-flung settlements into something that resembled a larger community, as well as linking the West with the much much-maligned, industrialized East, it was only a matter of time before the formerly untamed frontier would fall to the natural progress of the modern world. As someone who became one of the mythologized West’s biggest proponents, it likewise fell to auteur John Ford to write its eulogy, once the time had passed. To that end, Ford tolled the funeral bell with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a film that purported to bring together two of the Westerns biggest stars, John Wayne and James Stewart, even as it brought the curtain down on traditional notions of the Old West.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is structured as a flashback narrative, beginning in the “present-day” and moving backwards in time to show us the events that led us to where we are. In the present, Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), have returned to the tiny frontier town of Shinbone in order to attend the funeral of one Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Once there, Ransom and Hallie reconnect with old friends, including Shinbone’s former marshal, Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) and Doniphon’s faithful manservant Pompey (Woody Strode). When the local newspaper editor pressures Stoddard for a story concerning his return to the dusty hole-in-the-wall that is Shinbone, Stoddard deigns to give him the full scoop, telling the story of how he first came to Shinbone as an idealistic lawyer fresh out of law school and met Tom, his future wife, Hallie, and the miserable human being that would end up helping Stoddard secure his reputation: the outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin).

Stoddard describes how he came to Shinbone after being waylaid, beaten and robbed by Liberty Valance during a stagecoach holdup. Despite the continued advise of the cowardly Marshall Appleyard and all-around good-guy Tom, Stoddard is determined to bring Valance to justice with the letter of the law, rather than the vengeance of a six-gun. Easier said than done, however, as Valance and his minions, Floyd (Strother Martin) and Reese (Lee Van Cleef), pretty much run the town, keeping everyone scared (including the Marshall) and under the thumbs of the local land barons. When the topic of statehood comes up, Valance and Stoddard end up on opposite sides of the issue: Stoddard knows that statehood will lead to modernization, industrialization and law and order, whereas Valance’s employers know that statehood will spell the end of their unchecked land rights. Neither man will back down, sending everyone in Shinbone, including Tom and his then-girlfriend Hallie, hurtling towards a violent confrontation that will signal the end for some while heralding a bold, new beginning for others. Liberty Valance is the second fastest gun in the territory, however, and Stoddard is the epitome of the “citified dude” – he’ll need more than justice on his side to take on Valance…he’s going to need a guardian angel.

As with any elegy, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an exceptionally sad film, not only for the events which take place on-screen but for the greater significance that these events held for our society. Although Ford’s film is full of rousing action set-pieces, lots of sharp humor and some nice, broad characterizations (Andy Devine is particularly goofy as the whiny, constantly eating sheriff), there’s a muted, toned-down feel to the proceedings that mark this as the furthest thing from one of Ford’s more “traditional” Westerns, such as Fort Apache or Rio Grande (1950). There’s very little in the way of celebration here, even in those moments where the “good guys” are succeeding (the saloon scene where Tom kicks Valance’s guy right in the face, the statehood representative meeting), since the film seems to be all too aware that these successes will, ultimately, spell doom for the old-fashioned Old West. If Tom Doniphon stands for the traditionally rugged Western settler/survivor, he also stands for the mythologized Western director, as well: whereas artists like Hawks, Ford and Zinnemann plied their trades for a particular mindset in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, auteurs like Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood were dealing with not only the “death” of the traditional American Old West but also changing audience expectations and perspectives.

Your particular stance on progress and industrialization will probably color your particular view of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as being more or less a tragedy. On the one hand, Ransom Stoddard’s relentless quest to bring law and order, along with the niceties of “polite” society, to the untamed West is a noble (if slightly naive) pursuit. Industrialization in the American West led to a number of irrefutable benefits, such as the proliferation of better medical practices, educational institutions, the creation of a justice system that was wholly dependent on mob justice, etc… but it also led to the marginalization of hard-scrabble folks like Tom Doniphon (and Liberty Valance, if we want to split hairs), folks who would be completely out-of-step in a newly “Easternized” West. After all, this was their land, too, and there’s something inherently sad about the notion that a fundamentally good person like Tom (at least as portrayed in the film) will be allowed to lose everything, including the love of his life, in order to uphold Stoddard’s “new order.”

This notion of “the good of the many vs the good of the few” seems to be foremost on Ford’s mind, as the film makes no bones about the fact that Hallie and Tom were the “truer” couple, whereas Hallie and Ransom are the more “proper” couple. Hallie and Tom’s love is portrayed as passionate, romantic and messy, whereas Hallie and Ransom’s marriage seems to be more convenient, albeit more clinical. This, in micro, is the argument between the messier, more wild and more “authentic” Old West versus the more restrained, civilized and law-abiding “New” West. It’s the cactus rose versus the actual rose…Tom Doniphon’s antiquated notions of right and wrong versus Ransom’s Stoddard’s stubborn reliance on the rules of law and order…the emotion versus the intellect.

While The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is full of great performances, particularly John Wayne’s out-of-place cowboy Jimmy Stewart’s pompous, blowhard but well-meaning lawyer, the film really belongs to Lee Marvin’s dastardly villain: Liberty Valance is easily one of the greatest cinematic monsters to ever slime across the big screen and Marvin brings him to terrifying, shuddering life. He’s able to spit out “dude” with the same venom that others might reserve for “motherfucker” and the scene where he horsewhips Stoddard is as horrifying as something from a fright film. Marvin, ably backed up by Peckinpah mainstay Strother Martin and the one and only Lee Van Cleef, is a true force of nature in the film but he’s anything but a one-dimensional villain. In many ways, he functions as the flip-side to Doniphon’s “noble cowboy” character, showcasing the dark side of the Wild West that made Stoddard’s brand of law and order such a necessary, if game-changing, development in the building of the West.

Elsewhere, on the acting front, Edmund O’Brien provides some welcome comic relief as the besotted local newspaper editor/newly-elected statehood rep Dutton Peabody, while Vera Miles is an expressive, eternally sad presence as Tom Doniphon’s beloved Hallie, who ends up embracing both Ransom Stoddard and the change that he embodies. Truth be told, the only performances that grate a bit are Andy Devine’s ever-foolish Link Appleyard and Woody Strode’s ever loyal Pompey. Devine’s whiny schtick gets old quick, although he has some really nice, emotional beats in the “present-day” part of the film, particularly his quietly lovely scenes with Hallie, whereas Pompey is pretty much a non-entity, serving only to follow around and support Tom without much characterization of his own (the most we get is the rather on-the-nose bit where Pompey is able to remember everything about the Declaration of Independence except for the “All men are created equal” part).

As with all of Ford’s films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance looks great, a truly panoramic vision of the Old West that still manages to convey a sense of muted sadness. The black and white cinematography, courtesy of William H. Clothier (who shot several dozen other John Wayne Westerns), is always crisp and clear and there’s a typically expert use of directional lighting and shadows, particularly in the climatic scene where Stoddard and Valance face-off in the streets of Shinbone. Fittingly, the film often feels slightly oppressive, as if there’s a hanging sense of doom over everything: it’s the sense of tension befitting something like High Noon but with none of that film’s sense of release. Even after Valance is dead, Doniphon isn’t (personally) victorious and Ford’s film doesn’t seem particularly interested in celebrating his failure to preserve the old way of life.

Despite it’s status as a classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just as much a character drama or tragedy (Doniphon’s fatal flaw is his inability to change with the times, which ends up being Stoddard’s biggest strength) as it is a traditional oater. While John Ford was responsible for some of the most iconic visions of the Old West put to film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just a little bit different. Rather than a celebration of a by-gone era and the people who forged a nation, Ford’s opus is a quiet, serious meditation on the unflinching nature of progress, industrialization and the “taming” of the Old West. In any other film, the moment where Ransom and Hallie end up together would be the culmination of their struggles and a source of joy for the audience. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ford asks viewers not to focus on the “winners” in the foreground, but the “losers” in the background, those men and women, including Tom Doniphon, who triumphed over a harsh landscape but ended up being shot straight in the heart by that most unavoidable of all enemies: the modern age.

6/14/14 (Part One): That Sparkling Film of Gold

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1960's films, Arthur Hunnicutt, auteur theory, based on a book, Charlene Holt, Christopher George, cinema, classic films, Cole Thornton, drunk sheriff, Ed Asner, El Dorado, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friendships, George Alexander and the Mellomen, gunfighters, Harold Rosson, Howard Hawks, iconic film scores, James Caan, John Wayne, Leigh Brackett, male friendships, Michele Carey, Mississippi, Movies, Nelse McLeod, Nelson Riddle, ranchers, Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, Robert Mitchum, romance, Sheriff Harrah, The Big Sleep, The Empire Strikes Back, The Long Goodbye, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the Wild West, The Wizard of Oz, theme songs, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, water rights, Westerns

If you’re anything like me, selecting one film as your “favorite” is probably a pretty impossible task. My likes can change based on mood, time of day, the weather outside, research I’ve done, other films I’ve seen and conversations I’ve had with other cinephiles. If 100 different people were to ask me the same question, they might receive any of seven or eight different answers, depending on any of the above. Rankings, of course, are a strictly arbitrary construction: if it seems difficult to select your favorite film of all time, try choosing your fourth favorite film of all time…at some point, it all just comes down to a question of personal preference. Truth be told, I don’t know that I could ever come up with a definitive answer to the question, although I’ll make damn sure to take a stab at it on my deathbed. By that time, hopefully, I’ll have been able to make up my mind a little better.

While it may be all but impossible for me to ever choose a “favorite” film, however, it’s a whole lot easier to choose the possible candidates. From my childhood all the way up to the present day, there have been some films that just get more attention from me than others. This group of films (more than five but less than ten…I think) still gets watched on a regular basis, at least once a year if not more often, despite my ever-present desire to continue to see as many new and previously unseen films as humanly possible. Some of this group of films tends to be seasonal (Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) and Dougherty’s neo-classic Trick ‘r Treat (2007)), whereas others are good to go anytime, anywhere (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Goodfellas (1990)). The one common thread that all of these films share is that I never get tired of them, regardless of how many times I’ve seen them. Each viewing of these favorites bring me some deeper understanding of the films and solidifies my notion that these films are, for better or worse, the very best (at least as far as I’m concerned). If you’ve spent nearly 30 years watching the same film and aren’t tired of it, I think you can pretty much assume you never will be. In this vein, Howard Hawks’ legendary El Dorado (1966) must surely take a position of honor in my list: I first saw the film when I was a little boy and have loved it unconditionally ever since. After 30-odd years, El Dorado is still as fresh, fun, thrilling and fist-raising as it ever was.

I like to think that I’m able to view films with a particularly critical eye but there are still certain movies that produce an almost Pavlovian response in me: Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) get me with their scores, The Man With No Name trilogy and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre get me with their openings and Dirty Harry (1971) gets me pretty much every damn time Eastwood is on-screen. With El Dorado, my adrenaline starts pumping the second the opening kicks in and that glorious theme song, performed so perfectly by George Alexander and the Mellomen, begins. For my money, El Dorado may just have one of the most perfect opening credit sequences in the history of film: as Alexander’s tuneful baritone begins the tune by referencing Edgar Allen Poe’s eponymous poem, we get a series of old-fashioned oil-color paintings that depict various mainstays of the Old West: the range-riding cowboy, covered-wagon riding settlers, stampeding herds of mustangs and dusty twilight landscapes. Alexander’s mellifluous voice continues to rise, creating a truly cinematic moment: you feel not only the history and “reality” of the Old West but you feel the myth and legend, as well. Never mind that the song is absolutely brilliant, perhaps the best Western theme song ever: when combined when the paintings, the tune manages to not only tell a story (in some ways, the whole of the film is in there, writ small) but to flood the viewer with the notion that what we’re about to see is just as much glorious make-believe as it is reference to a real era. Regardless of my mood on any given day, just watching the opening credit sequence for El Dorado is enough to put a smile on my face and keep me humming along for the next 24 hours.

We begin with Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), the sardonic, dead-eye sheriff of the frontier town of El Dorado. Harrah’s best friend, the plain-talking hired gun Cole Thornton (John Wayne), has come through town in order to go see land baron Bart Jason (Ed Asner) about a potential job. Turns out that Jason wants to use Thornton to help steal water from the MacDonald family, in order to help with his own developments. Harrah talks Thornton out of taking the job and Cole hits the road, leaving behind his “best girl” Maudie (Charlene Holt) and Sheriff Harrah to keep the peace. On the road, Cole is forced to gut-shoot Luke MacDonald (Johnny Crawford) after the startled lookout starts shooting at the gunslinger. After the boy ends up taking his own life, Cole brings the body back to the MacDonald ranch: “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” he tells the elder MacDonald and he’s right. So right, in fact, that MacDonald’s fiery, take-no-shit daughter Joey (Michele Carey) decides to head-out and wait for Thornton on the road. While her ambush doesn’t kill Cole, as planned, it does leave him with a bullet in his back and plenty of residual pain.

Seven months later, Cole returns to El Dorado and finds the place in a bit of an uproar: Sheriff Harrah has turned into the town drunk (and laughing-stock) thanks to a bad relationship and Bart Jason rules everything with an iron fist. He’s brought in a ruthless gunslinger, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George), to finish the job that he tried to start with Cole. Things aren’t looking too good for Cole, who’s still experiencing pain and loss of feeling from the bullet which is still lodged near his spine. Things get a whole lot better when Cole happens to meet young Mississippi (James Caan), however: Mississippi is a bit of a hot head and is completely wet-behind-the-ears but he’s also whip-smart, fiercely loyal and absolutely lethal with a hunting knife. If he can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a sixgun…well…that shouldn’t be too much of a problem: as Cole points out, you don’t need to aim with a sawed-off shotgun…you just gotta point and shoot. After cleaning up the sloshed sheriff, Cole, Mississippi and Harrah join forces with Harrah’s deputy, former “Indian fighter” Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt), in order to bring down the villainous Bart Jason. The bullets are gonna fly as Cole and his friends seek to bring peace to El Dorado one way or another.

In many ways, El Dorado functions as a remake of Hawks’ own Rio Bravo (1959): the basic plot is the same and many of the characters in El Dorado seem to be slight variations on the characters from Rio Bravo. John Wayne plays, essentially, the same character in both films, while Robert Mitchum, James Caan and Arthur Hunnicutt are just variations on the characters that Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan first established in Rio Bravo. That being said, however, El Dorado is anything but a pale imitation of Hawks’ earlier film. For one thing, Mitchum is miles above Dean Martin as far as acting goes: sorry, Dino, but them’s the facts. When Mitchum was on point, he was pretty much invincible and Sheriff J.P. Harrah might be his best role besides Night of the Hunter (1955). I’ve also got nothing against Ricky Nelson, whose Colorado Ryan is a nice addition to the “naive, wet-behind-the-ears gunfighter” club but compared to James Caan? Sorry, Ricky…lights out on this one. Caan is absolutely fantastic in El Dorado, striking a perfect synthesis of “newbie jitters” and ridiculously self-assured braggadocio.  His plain-spoken, painfully honest declarations would be the highlight of any lesser film but, here, are just another brick in a pretty amazing wall. And as for Brennan versus Hunnicutt? This is a tougher call but c’mon: Bull is such a kickass character that Hunnicutt almost wins by default.

On top of those stellar four, we get a virtual constellation of glittering stars to support them. Ed Asner does villainy up right with the merciless Bart Jason but Christopher George is a revelation as Nelse McLeod, the second-best gunfighter in the area (after Cole Thornton, of course). Coming off as a more handsome, if no less nutty, Willem Dafoe, George is able to make McLeod more than a worthy adversary for Wayne’s Thornton. One of the best moments in the film is the part where McLeod watches in curiosity (and admiration) as the “unarmed” Mississippi steps up to one of McLeod’s men and demands retribution for a previous killing. George could have played the scene any number of ways but the quiet, slightly amused tone to his delivery and his obvious interest in seeing the outcome of the skirmish mark him as a much more complicated villain than simply another “black hat.” Likewise, the part where McLeod tells Thornton that “with two like us in the same batch, sooner or later we’d have to find out who’s faster” is a masterpiece of economy, giving us not only a little good old-fashioned foreshadowing but some great character development, as well. McLeod’s laid-back, if ruthless, attitude also leads to one of the film’s funniest, most tense moments as Thornton has McLeod exit the saloon first, in order to foil Pedro (John Gabriel) and Milt’s (Robert Donner) ambush attempt. His arch, slightly bemused delivery is pitch-perfect, going miles towards establishing his begrudging respect for Thornton.

Phenomenal acting aside, El Dorado is a marvel of filmmaking craft, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that Hawks produced and directed the film. A true film auteur in every sense of the word, Hawks was an amazingly adept filmmaker who, along with John Ford and Sergio Leone (go ahead and shoot me but I’ll be damned if Leone isn’t at least as responsible for the modern Western as his American counterparts) was pretty much responsible for the entire world’s view of the American West during the Golden Age of cinema. Here, Hawks is pretty much flawless: working with legendary cinematographer Harold Rosson, he’s created perhaps one of the finest evocations of the “mythical Wild West” ever put to film. El Dorado would actually be Rosson’s last film, capping off an astounding 51 year career that included such mainstays as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Bad Seed (1956). While the photography in El Dorado is absolutely gorgeous, full of bright, vibrant and crystal-clear images, Rosson’s use of lighting really makes everything stand out. Favoring hard, directional lighting, Rosson often produces shots that resemble German Expressionism which, when combined with the beautifully artificial sets, tends to create a real fairy tale atmosphere. It’s heady stuff and none more so than towards the end of the film, where Thornton, Harrah and Mississippi stalk the deserted streets of El Dorado, picking off McLeod’s men one by one.

One aspect of El Dorado that can’t be lauded enough is the excellent, witty script, courtesy of screenwriter Leigh Brackett (Rio Bravo, Hatari! (1961), Rio Lobo (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)). The script is tight and filler-free (at slightly over two hours long, it actually feels like about 90 minutes), full of great dialogue, one-liners and asides. One of my favorite parts of the movie is the scene where Mississippi finally meets Maudie, Cole’s kind-of/sort-of girlfriend. Up to that point, Cole had been pretty tight-lipped about his past, frustrating his young partner’s attempts to get to know him. After laying eyes on the comely Maudie, Mississippi lets out a low whistle: “Well, I found one thing out,” he tells Cole. “What’s that,” the laconic gunslinger snaps back. “You know a girl,” Mississippi replies, without missing a beat. It’s a great moment between Caan and Wayne and but one example of an exceedingly fun script.

In all honesty, I really can’t find enough good things to say about El Dorado: it’s been one of my all-time favorite films since I was a boy (this and Clint Eastwood’s Westerns were the only ones I truly loved, as a boy, and I really couldn’t stand John Wayne until I was much older) and my love and appreciation for the film have never waned. Not only is it my favorite Howard Hawks film, it’s also my favorite John Wayne film and one of my favorite Mitchum and Caan films, which actually says alot. When I went to re-watch the film for purposes of my recent “film festival,” I went into it with the goal of being as critical as possible: it’s often too easy for us to simply accept our childhood loves unconditionally, without giving them proper critical consideration. I was ready to tear the film to pieces: after all, I used to love Clerks (1994) and find it to be absolutely pointless as I approach forty years on Earth.

But then, of course, a funny thing happened: the more critical I became, the better the film held up. The movie looks and sounds gorgeous, is filled with instantly memorable characters, has tons of iconic set-pieces (like Mitchum and his crippled quarry in the saloon) and has some really insightful points to make about friendship and duty. Wayne, Mitchum, Caan and Hunnicut make a perfect team, Asner and George make perfect villains and Michele Carey is one of the most amazing spitfires to ever grace the silver screen. In short, El Dorado is an absolutely perfect film. If I had my way, everyone would be required to see it at least once, regardless of their feelings about Westerns, in general. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. If you’ve seen it in the past, go ahead and watch it again. In many ways, El Dorado represents the very best that “film as entertainment” has to offer: it might not change your life but it may just make it a whole lot happier.

5/31/14 (Part Four): The Boys Are Back in Town

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1960's films, A Fistful of Dollars, bounty hunters, cinema, Clint Eastwood, Col. Douglas Mortimer, cult classic, El Indio, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, film reviews, films, flashbacks, For a Few Dollars More, Gian Maria Volonte, iconic film scores, Italian cinema, James Bond, Klaus Kinski, Lee Van Cleef, Mario Brega, Monco, Movies, Sergio Leone, spaghetti Westerns, The Bad and The Ugly, The Good, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, the Man with No Name, the myth of the Old West, the Wild West, trilogies, Westerns

Crafting a sequel to a successful, popular film is no easy feat. If the followup is too much like its predecessor, it has no individual identity, seeking only to remind audiences of the original material, usually in a watered down manner. If the sequel is nothing like the original film, however, either in content or tone, then filmmakers run the risk of losing their crossover audience: audiences who flocked to see dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) might not have been so eager to see the followup if it featured kittens instead of velociraptors. The key, then, is to make the new film work for the same reasons the old one did: if you can tap back into an audiences’ emotions, you can produce a new film that will be just as successful, in its own way.

In many cases, the most successful sequels that don’t directly continue a larger storyline (The Godfather, etc.) are the ones that make subtle tweaks to the original property, while still maintaining the core feel/vibe. One of the best examples of this is the difference between Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens (1986). Both films are very good at what they do, for very different reasons. Scott’s film is a claustrophobic horror film that is equal parts “haunted house in space” and savage childbirth nightmare, whereas Cameron’s film is a fast-paced, tense and adrenaline-soaked action film about space marines destroying the living shit out of vicious alien foes. Two very different films but each wildly successful, in its own way and for its own reasons. In this spirit, then, we can see For a Few Dollars More (1965), Sergio Leone’s sequel to his iconic A Fistful of Dollars (1964), as being a wildly successful attempt to tweak the formula from the first film. While A Fistful of Dollars was a small film about one man and his interactions with a particularly lethal town, For a Few Dollars More is a much bigger, more epic story, prefiguring the Civil War epic that is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), Leone’s magnum opus. It also ends up being a surprisingly big-hearted buddy picture, albeit one where Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef end up being the buddies. Huzzah!

The film begins with a nifty opening sequence that features someone on horseback getting gunned down in an extreme long shot, before another classic Ennio Morricone score kicks in. While the opening sequence isn’t quite as dynamic as the black-and-red James Bond nod of the first film, the song, itself, is pure gold, hinting at the titanic awesomeness that would arrive the following year with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. An inter-title introduces us to the concept of the bounty killer (“Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price”) and we’re off to the races. Right off the bat, For a Few Dollars More has a larger, more expansive feel than its predecessor: Leone has a few more things to say, this time around, and he’s going to make damn sure we’re listening.

In short order, we meet Col. Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), a man so completely badass that he makes his own railway schedule: “This train doesn’t stop in Tucumcari,” a nervous agent tells Mortimer. “This train’ll stop in Tucumcari,” Mortimer drolls back. And he’s right, of course, because he’s Lee Van Cleef: you try arguing with the dude. We then see Mortimer, as unhurried and cold as the Angel of Death himself, take out a bounty with a specially modified rifle. This guy, we see, is not the kind of fella you want to fuck with. As Mortimer gets a lead on his next bounty, he learns that someone else has been asking after the reward…some guy named Monco…some guy that we’d probably recognize better as…The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood). And now, kids, we’re really off to the races.

After we see Eastwood handily collect his bounty via well-timed karate chops and a blazingly fast six-gun, we also get to see him practice a little good ol’ fashioned frontier justice. Approaching the worthless sheriff who did nothing to either capture the fugitive outlaw or prevent his gang from attempting to shoot him in the back, Monco looks the guy in the eye and deadpans, “Aren’t you supposed to be courageous and, above all, honest?” Without looking him in the eye, the sheriff responds back in the affirmative. Eastwood then takes the star off the sheriff’s chest, tosses it to a couple of guys hanging around outside, says “You need a new sheriff,” and rides out of town. In a word: badass.

At this point, with our principals firmly established, we meet the third point to this triangle: the vicious, blood-thirsty El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). El Indio is a monstrous figure, a villain whose modus operandi involves gunning down people after his pocket watch has finished playing its delicate melody. Through a series of flashbacks, we get a gradual sense of the backstory behind the watch, leading to a pretty huge revelation in the final act. Indio is a complex man, equal parts brutish thug, calculating schemer and charming leader. He also has a $10000 bounty on his head, a reward which both Col. Mortimer and Monco have their eyes on.

After dancing around each other for a bit, Mortimer and Monco gradually settle into an uneasy partnership, one defined by an almost student/teacher relationship: Mortimer is the old-guard and Monco is the upstart young guy who will, eventually, take his place in the history books. There’s a genuine depth to Mortimer and Monco’s relationship that pays off in some surprisingly emotional ways throughout the film, while still allowing the titanic actors behind the performances to have their respective field days. It’s like a spaghetti Western version of Godzilla vs Monster Zero (1965), with Eastwood and Van Cleef subbing in for Godzilla and Rodan.

After Monco is “convinced” to infiltrate Indio’s gang (“One of us will have to join Indio’s band.” “Why are you looking at me when you say ‘one of us’?”), the two come up with a plan to take down Indio and his gang, including Klaus Kinski as a notoriously bad-tempered hunchback named Juan Wild. Things don’t go according to plan, of course, and Mortimer and Monco end things the way they began them: with steel reserve, a sneer and a whole lot of hot lead.

Right off the bat, For a Few Dollars More exists in a much more expansive universe than the first film. For one thing, we actually get to travel around a bit and see more of the Wild West than the dusty town of San Miguel. As Mortimer, Monco and El Indio continue their deadly game, audiences get to experience a much fuller dose of Leone’s vision of the West, a vision that’s every bit as interesting as John Ford’s, as far as I’m concerned. Leone’s vision is a romantic, fantastical one, informed as much by tall-tales and campfire stories as it is by actual historical precedent. At one point, as we get our first glimpse of the “impenetrable” El Paso bank, I found myself wondering if actual Old West banks bore any resemblance to the eye-popping, baroque edifice that Leone portrays in the film. I’m pretty sure they didn’t but I sure do like Leone’s idea better.

While A Fistful of Dollars was full of great one-liners and some truly ironic moments, For a Few Dollars More is a much more intentionally funny, “good-natured” film. At one point, a young boy tries to entice Monco into staying at a particular hotel by telling him that an attractive landlady runs the place. When Monco asks if she’s married, the boy shrugs and says, “Yeah, but she don’t care.” The initially throwaway bit pays off, later, when we see the landlady swooning over Monco. “He’s tall,” she says dreamily, which produces a nice moment when her husband storms off, in a huff, revealing him to be exceptionally short. It’s a pretty great gag and seamlessly integrated into the film. There’s another truly funny scene where Mortimer and Monco try to exert authority over each other by shooting their respective hats down the street: the two titans are so evenly matched that they eventually give up and just go have a drink. If only all conflicts could be resolved this way, eh?

Like the first film, For a Few Dollars more looks and sounds beautiful: the wide-open vistas are as stunning as ever and Morricone’s score is phenomenal, leaps and bounds above the already notable Fistful of Dollars score. Leone uses the score to much greater effect in the followup, culminating in one of the greatest scenes ever committed to celluloid. When Indio is broken out of jail, he gets revenge on the man who ratted him out by having his wife and baby killed right before his eyes. As is usual for Indio, he offers the poor guy a “chance” to fight him: when the music from his pocket watch stops, they can both come out blazing. In a fantastic use of sound, the music from the watch starts off as tinny and diegetic before becoming part of the score, where the music warps into a massive, Gothic processional, drenched in church organs, before returning to tinny and diegetic as the music stops and El Indio blasts his victim straight to Hell. It’s a massively impressive scene, one that didn’t really have any precedents in A Fistful of Dollars but will have plenty of competition in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Acting-wise, this is another home-run, featuring typically iconic performances from Eastwood and Van Cleef and another great turn from Volonte. Whereas Volonte’s Ramon Rojo, in A Fistful of Dollars, was akin to a rabid dog, his performance as El Indio is much fuller and more subtle. In many ways, Indio comes across as a really good Bond villain, sort of an Old West Blofeld. In fact, the James Bond parallels from the first film really come home to roost in this one, especially during the bit where Indio and his second-in-command, Nino (Mario Brega) prepare to doublecross their own gang. There’s one moment where Indio says, “It’s done now: prepare to get out of here” where I fully expected to see SPECTRE baddies running around while their lair collapsed. If this sounds like some kind of faint praise, believe me: it’s not.

Ultimately, For a Few Dollars More is that rare sequel that actually manages to expand on and improve on its predecessor. While I’ll always love the smaller, more intimate feel of A Fistful of Dollars, there no way I can deny how much fun it is to see Leone playing in a larger sandbox. The second film in the trilogy leads us perfectly into the last, where everything becomes much bigger, more epic and more badass. While there’s an undeniable joy in seeing Eastwood and Van Cleef face-off in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, there’s something just as cool about seeing them team-up to administer a little good, ol’ fashioned ass-kicking. You can keep The Expendables (2010): who needs a whole team when you have the two biggest badasses in the universe?

5/31/14 (Part Three): Better Make it Three Coffins

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1960's films, A Fistful of Dollars, Akira Kurosawa, cinema, Clint Eastwood, cult films, Eastwood, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, feuding families, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gian Maria Volonte, gunfighters, iconic film scores, Italian cinema, James Bond, John Wayne, Marianne Koch, Movies, Ramon Rojo, Sergio Leone, Shakespearean, spaghetti Westerns, the Man with No Name, the myth of the Old West, the Wild West, trilogies, Westerns, Wolfgang Lukschy, Yojimbo

As a kid, I was raised on a pretty steady diet of movies…I can’t really recall a time when we were at home and not watching something, to be honest. My parents had fairly wide-ranging tastes, although certain things were pretty sacrosanct: Westerns, musicals and crime films always ruled the roost in our little castle. In particular, my parents loved John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films. Growing up, I was never particularly into Wayne: I’d seen almost all of his films by the time I was a teenager, I believe, but very few aside from El Dorado (1966) and North to Alaska (1960) ever stuck out for me. As I get older, I find myself with a little more appreciation for his body of work, although he’ll never be close to my favorite Western star. Eastwood, however…Eastwood was a different story.

To not put too fine a point on it, I absolutely idolized Clint Eastwood growing up. Not just enjoyed his films, mind you, but voraciously devoured them, sometimes watching the same movies over and over again to the point of rote memorization. There was a certain inherent badassness to Eastwood that always hit me right in the primal center of my brain: I didn’t just love his movies…I wanted to be this dude! It didn’t matter what the films were…Westerns, war movies, cop thrillers, chimpanzee road movies…I loved ’em all, man. The Dirty Harry series will always have a special place in my heart but, for my money, Eastwood was the most unstoppable during his classic run of mid-’60s-’70s Westerns. To this day, I can watch any or all of these at the drop of a hat: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); Hang ‘Em High (1968); Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970); Joe Kidd (1972); High Plains Drifter (1973); and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). For this decade+ timeframe, beginning with Sergio Leone’s unbeatable Dollars trilogy, Eastwood, as far as I’m concerned, was the single greatest action star in the world. But it all began with a humble little spaghetti Western called A Fistful of Dollars.

The setup for A Fistful of Dollars is almost Shakespearean in its simplicity: a mysterious, nameless man (Clint Eastwood) wanders into a lawless town and ends up in the middle of a seemingly eternal struggle between two feuding families. In this case, the town is San Miguel and the families are the Baxters and Rojos and each one controls a vital aspect of the town – the Baxters run all of the guns and the Rojos take care of the liquor. As The Man With No Name knows, any town with liquor and guns has got money…and he wants in on the action. Soon, the stranger is pulling strings every which way, inching both clans towards a fiery Armageddon that will see him sop up the remains like soup from the bottom of a bowl. Caught between Sheriff John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy) on one end and the feral Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte) on the other, the stranger is able to find a friend in the enigmatic saloon-keeper, Silvanito (Jose Calvo)…always a good thing when you need someone to watch your back. He even finds a cause, in a way, as the stranger seeks to reunite Ramon’s captive Marisol (Marianne Koch) with her husband and young son. It’s just business as usual in San Miguel, where a man can either get rich…or dead.

Right off the bat, astute viewers will note that the plot of A Fistful of Dollars bears a striking resemblance to Akira Kurosawa’s iconic Yojimbo (1961). While this is pretty obvious, I’ll go a little further out on the branch and suggest another possible influence: the James Bond films, which began with Dr. No (1962). While this may seem a bit odd, think about it for a minute. Consider the highly stylized credit sequence, which features stark red and black silhouettes. Compare The Man with No Name’s offhand, cool demeanor and way with a (subtle) wisecrack to Sean Connery’s portrayal of the British super-spy. Think about the effortless way in which the stranger executes highly complex plans, sort of like Rube Goldberg devices minus the bowling balls. While the James Bond similarities will really come to the forefront in the followup, For a Few Dollars More, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point them out in this one. Truth be told, I’ve been a gonzo fan of both the original Bond films and the Dollars Trilogy for so long, by this point, that I’m a little surprised I didn’t make the connection earlier.

New revelation aside, my biggest takeaway from yet another viewing of A Fistful of Dollars is how really unbeatable the film is. In fact, the only Western that might be better than this is For a Few Dollars More. And, of course, the only one better than that would have to be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (RIP Mr. Wallach), which looks down on most films from a godly height, Western or otherwise. There isn’t really any aspect of Leone’s classic film that doesn’t work splendidly well, as far as I’m concerned. Eastwood is the perfect hero/anti-hero (although his actions to help Marisol and her family seem to tip him more in the “hero” direction for this outing). The story is streamlined and quick-paced, full of lots of natural wit and some truly funny moments, much of it thanks to Eastwood’s spot-on delivery of some pretty classic quips. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, full of the huge, wide-open vistas that would make The Good, The Bad and The Ugly such an epic film. And that score…yeesh, who could ever forget about Ennio Morricone? Although he’ll always be best known for the iconic score for the final Dollars film (wah wah….wa wa waaaah…), the threads are here and they’re pretty damn glorious.

When all of the elements come together (that amazingly vibrant cinematography, the stirring score, the sight of Clint squinting, cheroot in mouth, finger itching to pull the trigger), they create a sensation that I can best describe as a purely cinematic experience. My adrenaline starts to pump, I mutter things at the screen and, before long, I’m throwing my fists in the air like it was an Iron Maiden concert: I’ve had the same, basic experience when watching these films for the best 30 or so years, without fail. Unlike other beloved films from my childhood that currently have as much relevance as month-old milk (I’m thinking specifically of Clerks (1994), which I can’t even sit through nowadays), my opinion on A Fistful of Dollars (and the Trilogy, in general) has never changed. I loved the film back then and I still love it now. Although I’m able to articulate my feelings a little more eloquently these days (“Clint Eastwood kicks ass!” has been replaced by examinations of the cinematography, dialogue and musical score), I still arrive at the same conclusion: this film kicks ass.

While it’s impossible to completely quantify what works so well about A Fistful of Dollars, I’ll close with one of my favorite moments in the film. Towards the end, as we near the final shootout, Silvanito has been taken hostage by the Rojos and severely beaten. There’s little hope of rescue for him: after all, it’s not like him and the stranger are comrades…they’re just a couple of guys who don’t have any reason to kill each other. Silvanito has no reason to believe the stranger will come to save him, even though he’s kept his mouth shut and given the Rojos nothing regarding the Man with No Name. Suddenly, the stranger appears in the street, stepping from behind a plume of dynamite smoke. Eastwood stands there, wearing that classic serape and hat, a cheroot between his teeth and steel flint in his eyes. Silvanito looks up, just then, squinting to see through swollen eyes. He sees Eastwood and a small smile creases his weary face: help has arrived after all…all hope is not lost. As Eastwood strides forward, my heart soars, like it always does. There is about to be a stomping and it’s going to be an especially righteous one.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what movies are all about. You could argue, of course, but you would be wrong. So very, very wrong.