Meek’s Cutoff

October 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Meek's Cutoff (2010) movie poster

(2010) directed by Kelly Reichardt
viewed: 09/25/2011

The latest film from Oregonian film-maker Kelly Reichardt, Meek’s Cutoff is essentially a Western, but placing it in that genre might seem more a misnomer than any kind of indicator of what the film is really like.  If you’ve seen other of Reichardt’s films, such as Old Joy (2006) or Wendy and Lucy (2008), you might have a better sense of what to expect.  Reichardt makes films about smaller stories, more intimate narratives, with naturalism taken to levels of low-key that blends toward the oft boring reality of life.  So far, always set in Oregon.

Meek’s Cutoff is a period film, set in the mid-19th Century, following a trio of covered wagons being led west by a dodgy trailblazer named Meek, whose shaggy face and demeanor, plus his long-promised, though not yet found destination have made the families suspicious of his abilities.  In this, the film faces a more epic reality than a lost friendship or a lost dog, but survival of men, women and children.  In that sense, there is a deeper drama than in her prior films, and perhaps a more epic scope behind the tenor of quietude and empty space.

The easy criticism is that it’s slow and boring.  While in some ways more things happen than in the other films, Reichardt portrays the probably reality of being lost in the Western emptiness, that it’s isolating and not filled with raging excitement.  Perhaps in that sense, there is a realism not attempted by many Westerns, that starving to death is just not a very exciting thing to watch.

The film stars Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy star, Michelle Williams.  Here playing a bonnetted woman of her day, stronger perhaps than her societal role or clothing might suggest, but one who is still beholden to the highly unreliable Meek.  When Meek captures a native American, with whom they cannot communicate, the moral dilemma is struck.  Is he, as Meek tells them, a killer who would just as soon bring his tribe down upon them, or is he possibly their only real hope of finding fresh water?

I appreciate Reichardt’s integrity, her approach to narrative, of telling smaller stories, stories regionally tied to a specific place.  I also don’t necessarily recoil at a slow film (not that I’m up for one everyday).  But Reichardt has yet to achieve something greater than its smaller scope.  For even Meek’s Cutoff, with its inherent drama in the life and death struggle of the European settlers, the moral ambiguity of their relationship with nature and the native people, their hopes hung upon an unreliable leader, it still doesn’t manage to speak to deeper, more powerful depths.  Her interests are often in those who are lost, in small ways or psychological, emotional ways.  And she wants to achieve narrative completion without some false element or device, but when this film ended, it felt incomplete.  Not because it ends without resolution (it does end without resolution), but because the interior story didn’t manage to make even that lack of resolution resonate in a way of power.

I have hopes for her yet.  And I like Michelle Williams.

Filed under DVD, Westerns

Cowboys & Aliens

August 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Cowboys & Aliens (2011) movie poster

(2011) director Jon Favreau
viewed: 07/30/2011 at Century San Francisco Centre 9 & XD, SF, CA

Alien invasion movies have become more and more common.  Does that signify some cultural commentary on xenophobia or is it simply the largely bankrupt creativity in Hollywood aligning itself with facile digital effects?  Whatever the case may be, the aliens themselves are less and less unique from one another and these films typically have a hard time distinguishing themselves from one another, much less “the pack”.

So, a good ol’ alien invasion film set in the Old West earns its share of novelty.  In fact, many people hearing the title hoped somehow for some possible strange mash-up of two staple American genres, the Western and the sci-fi film, something different for sure.  Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010)’s Jon Favreau, and starring both Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, this enough was to expect one of the more intriguing summer movies of 2011.

Adapted from a graphic novel, this novel idea isn’t purely novel, though it might emanate from a more obscure comic compared to the slate of other major flagship comic book adaptations hitting the screen over the past few and coming years.  This film certainly has/had potential.

And its potential is not entirely squandered.

Actually, after initial reviews came in fairly weak, my expectations were lowered most likely.  I have to say that while I liked the whole concept pretty well, I wasn’t wowed or intrigued by the trailers.  And despite a lot of valid critique, it’s a reasonably fun film.

Of course, I took the kids, with whom I’ve seen almost all of my recent films and certainly an increasing number of the summer fare of 2011.  They both liked it.

The story opens with a shot of the desert, and then Daniel Craig popping up looking confused.  He’s got a large metal bracelet on his arm, no shoes, and no idea who he is or where he is.  It’s a little The Bourne Identity (2002) with OO7 as a cowboy.  He tracks back to the closest town where an attractive, fairly unlikely historical female character (modern, tough, and independent), played by Olivia Wilde, sidles up to him with interest.  As his memory comes back in chunks, it seems that he was a bandit before, with some weird paranormal thing that gets set into action when the aliens come into town in force and start blasting everything and abducting people.

The mash-up ends about where it starts.  The film lacks that “meta” mentality and sticks with the summer action thrill-ride and straight-forward narrative.  Which works in its favor, mostly.

The thing about the Western is that it began a post-modern bent by the 1960′s almost, and it’s virtually impossible to make an un-self-aware Western in the 21st century.   I guess that is where so many critics have found disappointment, in the film’s adherence to genre conventions and a significant disavowal of trying to make anything more challenging from the conventions.  We’ve got two genres riddled with conventions and an adherence to those conventions even when they’re being flung at one another in some weird mix of possibility.

Well, maybe you shouldn’t complain about the film that it failed to be and simply try to enjoy what they managed to put on screen.  It’s disappointing if you hoped for more, but if you’re like Felix and Clara, who went in with few expectations and preconceptions, you can take the whole thing much more at face value.  And that face value is decent.  Good perhaps.  Not great.

Filed under Theatrical, Westerns, With the kids

The Magnificent Seven

July 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The Magnificent Seven (1960) movie poster

(1960) director John Sturges
viewed: 07/09/2011

Eight years ago (this film diary denotes literal perspective and history by its own existence), I saw The Magnificent Seven (1960) for the first time in my life.  I was utterly taken with it, classic that it is, and felt utter reinforced in the realization that a lot of the “greats” of cinema are greats of cinema for a reason.  It was a lot of goddamn fun.

When my mother passed away five years ago, in going through her belongings, I found a DVD copy of this film that I had so enjoyed and took it home to my small DVD library.  But I hadn’t watched it again in that time, despite having it on my shelf.  But then when the kids and I were due to watch Empire of the Sun (1987) and the DVD came cracked from Netflix, I was pushed to look to my small collection of movies on disc that I could watch with the kids.  Considering how many animation collections I have, there were only 3 movies I deemed possibilities.  And this film became, somewhat by accident, their introduction to the American Western.

I have to say, in some extremely haphazard way, my programming for Felix and Clara is possibly my projection of my fantasy of curating my own art house cinema, with some aspect of education and breadth.

The Magnificent Seven is indeed magnificent, but it’s power on the big screen was much more large and potent for me.  And I would imagine it so for anyone.  This is the thing about the big screen, right?  To be overpowered by the sight and sound, by the narrative and imagery.  And for a film like this, it’s easy to recall how rapt I was in seeing it thus.  It’s still terrific on my not-so-large screen television.  And it still has power, as films do, even diminished in their projection and experience.  But it struck me how overwhelming and pleasurable it is to have Yul Brynner looming above you.

In the time since I last saw The Magnificent Seven, I also finally saw the Seven Samurai (1954), the magnificent Akira Kurasawa film that “inspired” it.  I also managed to see director John Sturges’ other populist classic, The Great Escape (1964), which is also charming (and perhaps equally so on the big screen).  I have also, in those eight years hence, seen any number of Samurai films and Westerns and come to have somewhat a better context for appreciating the film.

For me, this viewing was nowhere as rapt, but was still struck by the pure charm of Brynner and Steven McQueen, by the great supporting roles of Eli Wallach, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson.  I was also struck again by the so frequent references and asides to it and its predecessor, such as Pixar’s A Bug’s Life (1998).  And the amazing score by Elmer Bernstein, which I would definitely place among the most iconic in cinema.

The kids really liked it in the end too.  Felix mentioned to me before it ended that “the next movie that he was going to make” would be a “cowboy movie”.  Given that this was his first, I’m very eager to initiate him further into the genre.  Clara also said she liked it a lot, which surprised me a bit, since she was more wriggly during the early parts of the film.  But towards the end she settled and got into the final shoot-out.

The Western is a great genre.  The Magnificent Seven is a great Western.

Filed under DVD, Westerns, With the kids

Jonah Hex

November 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Jonah Hex (2010) movie poster

(2010) director Jimmy Hayward
viewed: 11/20/10

Rancid, joyless tripe.

Filed under DVD, Westerns

Rio Lobo

August 31, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Rio Lobo (1970) movie poster

(1970) director Howard Hawks
viewed: 08/28/10

A rather disappointing swan song for the great American auteur Howard Hawks, Rio Lobo is his second re-working of his great Western Rio Bravo (1959) from a decade prior and his final film.  Also disappointing was his prior re-working of Rio Bravo, El Dorado (1966).  Many critics consider Rio Bravo to be his last great film, but it’s interesting that he went back to the well not just once but twice.

I’d queued up both Rio Bravo and Rio Lobo back when I’d seen Red River (1948), but only got around to seeing them after watching John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which truth be told, is better re-working of the material than Hawks himself managed.  By the 1960′s, the classic Hollywood Western had gone through some major evolutionary changes, whipped about by directors like Sergio Leone (and other Spaghetti Westerns) and Sam Peckinpah.  Like many film genres, the Western is a lens upon the time of its production, a set of rules or standards or structures which can be used as a metaphorical setting for stories about other things.  But the Western in the 1960′s and 1970′s became typically more revisionist, at least in regards to the way that the classic Western had mythologized American values and history.  It’s actually probably a fantastic cultural study to pore over the bulk of the genre this way.

But Rio Lobo is stuck.  It’s still trying to be the classic Western as in the heyday of the studio system, following the conventions, not breaking from them, and it pins its Hollywood style on its leading man, John Wayne, yet again.  But here, he’s now over 60 and his voice is raspier and more tired-sounding.  He’s bigger and older, still a commanding presence, but now surrounded not by quality players as in Rio Bravo, but a bunch of not so hot young actors (with the exception of the great Jack Elam).  And the story, which is kind of convoluted when you boil it down (even though it is written or co-written as was Rio Bravo by Leigh Brackett), is more of a paint-by-numbers sort of build-up to the shoot-out at the end.

What’s interesting about viewing films through the auteur theory lens is that even the poorer films of a great director’s oeuvre are fascinating.  In studying authorship, it probably is more interesting, particularly with a good Hawksian film scholar.  But sadly, watched for simple pure enjoyment, it’s not an argument in and of itself for Hawks, Wayne, or the Western at all.  It’s tired and heavy with re-tread.  And especially so for me, since only earlier in the day I’d watched Rio Bravo.

I’m not trying to say what makes a film great or not great.  I’m sure there are a lot of ways to slice it, analyze it, parse it, and study it.  I watched it because it was a Howard Hawks film, a sibling of sorts of Rio Bravo.  So, don’t get me wrong, I do watch films accordingly.  It’s just too bad that his final film was a mere shadow of his finer work.  But one might find that that is often the case.

Filed under DVD, Howard Hawks, Westerns

Rio Bravo

August 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Rio Bravo (1959) movie poster

(1959) director Howard Hawks
viewed: 08/28/10

Inspired by watching John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which was inspired by director Howard Hawks 1959 Western, I decided to queue up Rio Bravo, which I’d actually had in my film queue for a few years now anyways.  I’ve often noted that it’s pretty impossible to have seen all the great films of the world, probably impossible to have seen simply all the great films from Hollywood alone.  And I watch a hell of a lot of movies compared to the average Joe.  Bottom line, I’d never seen Hawks’ great western, though I had seen one of his own re-tinkerings with it, his 1966 film El Dorado.

It’s one thing to see the films that cannibalized Rio Bravo, or paid homage to it.  It’s another to go to the source material, one of Hawks’ most-beloved films.

It stars John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ricky Nelson, so the cast, while a little on the odd side as a grouping, is actually pretty damn great.  Wayne is the sheriff in a Texas town, holding prisoner the murderous low-life brother of a wealthy, disreputable family until regional authorities come to take him for trial.  But the villain’s brother hires a litany of would-be killers for money to stake out the town and wait for the right moment to strike and free the prisoner.  All that Wayne’s sheriff has on his side, is the gimpy Brennan, the recovering alcoholic Martin, and eventually the young hotshot Nelson against the crew of killers-for-hire.  Well, actually, he’s go the sexy, slightly sullied Dickinson and the diminutive Mexican hotelier on his side too, but then that’s all part of the film’s legend.

It’s said that this film was made, partially, in response to High Noon (1952), the classic Fred Zinneman Western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, which is considered a metaphorical critique of McCarthyism and the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC).  In High Noon, Cooper is a sheriff who can find no one to help him fend off the coming of a gang set to kill him.  The town’s cowardice is meant to reflect the cowardice of those who didn’t stand beside the accused Communists.   Wayne in particular hated High Noon for these reasons, and the common reading is that Rio Bravo is a conservative political response to the earlier film.  In Rio Bravo, while Wayne’s buddies are all a little questionable on the outside, they all stand up, show their pluck and their worth in the end.  I actually don’t know how that plays out with the HUAC metaphor, but it is oppositional in its narrative.

More than anything, it’s a Howard Hawks film, and a great one for applying the Auteur Theory to as it exemplifies many of Hawks’ ideological considerations, visual styles, characterization, and humor.  It’s certainly the best of Hawks’ Westerns that I have seen and a very likable film.  You can easily see why it’s a favorite of so many.

I grew up disliking Wayne, perhaps for what he symbolizes (and how much of that includes his conservative politics) or perhaps what I’ve projected on him.  But Wayne in cinema is quite a grand and interesting figure, who starred in numerous great films made by a number of great directors.  This film, made at the end of what is sometimes referred to as the “Western cycle”, or the end of the period of the classic Hollywood Western, still works from that same set of staple elements that made the classic Hollywood Western a great genre.  It’s still part of the studio system, it’s classic Hollywood, up and down.  Wayne is 50 years old in this film, but he’s still a rock-solid hero and star.

Angie Dickinson is striking beautiful in this film (I can’t say as I’d ever thought much of her before), and she’s a classic Hawksian female lead: fast-talking, able to drink and “be one of the guys.”  Martin puts in a solid dramatic performance, with added humor and a song as well.  Heck, Ricky Nelson, even not given much to do and not doing a whole lot with it, also is a charming asset in the film.  And Walter Brennan.  Jeez, I love Walter Brennan.   A fine film, all told.

Filed under DVD, Howard Hawks, Westerns

The Iron Horse

July 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

(1924) director John Ford
viewed: 07/15/10 at the Castro Theatre, SF, CA

One of my favorite things is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, a now 4 day event showing any number and variety of silent films.  I’ve been attending now for a few years and was excited to go to the opening night showing of John Ford’s epic silent Western, The Iron Horse.  I’d never seen it before, but it seemed a great film to check out, an early epic Western by the film director most associated with the genre.

The film retells the tale of the building of the transcontinental railroad, a crowning event in American history, and a fascinating and meaningful story.  Of course, it’s told through the story of the son of a “dreamer” who, while a neighbor of Abraham Lincoln’s, pondered the possibilities of a railroad that connected America’s East with the American West.  But it’s his son who works the railroad, helps to find the passage through a tough area, not to mention some conniving villains which all add this up to a much more traditional “oater” as the writers of crossword puzzles like to call Westerns.

What is fascinating is that the two trains that meet at Promontory Summit the where the “golden spike” was driven in are the two actual locomotives that were at the real event.  Ford has much dedication to this narrative and sought to make it as true to life and accurate as possible from an historical standpoint.  Additionally, according to some of the notes, some of the Chinese workers on the film also participated in the building of the railroad.  But I have to wonder, since the railroad was completed in 1869 and this film was made in 1924, one has to wonder about the potential accuracy of such a statement.  (I also have read that the story about the locomotives being the actual engines is also potential hooey.)

It’s a rather rip-roaring yarn, though, and quite a bit of fun.  One other aspect that is quite interesting is the dedication Ford puts into showing the diversity of the work effort.  Irish, Italians, Chinese, and even the good natured Pawnee indians are on the side of good, and he likes to show the combatative members of each various group of national origin working alongside each other.   A strong melting pot message.  Of course the Cheyenne are the baddies, though the two-fingered main bad guy is supposed to be a white man who poses as an indian.

What’s additionally interesting is the whole of the Western genre, what will continue to be a popular genre through the better part of the 20th century, was already going through its ups and downs.  The festival offers an insightful booklet on the films, plus a slide show of images and facts prior to each film, plus an introduction by experts or notables on each film.  I tell you, it’s a great way to see these movies.  I keep telling people about them and I really think they’d enjoy getting to see these films on the big screen with full musical accompaniment.

Filed under John Ford, Silent Film, Theatrical, Westerns

Fort Apache

May 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Fort Apache (1948) movie poster

(1948) dir. John Ford
viewed: 05/10/09 at the Stanford Theater, Palo Alto, CA

Part two of the John Wayne/John Ford double bill at the Stanford Theater was Fort Apache, one of Ford’s many films that I hadn’t seen before.  Certainly, I wouldn’t classify it as one of his masterworks, but a solid film through and through, starring Henry Fonda alongside Wayne and Shirley Temple and John Agar.  Not purely a Western, I would suggest, because it’s also a bit of a military film or war movie to an extent, with the nearly ever-present refrain of “You’re in the Army Now”, reminding the audience of some of the more comic asepcts of military life.  It also seems significant in that this film comes only a couple of years out of World War II, and the miliatry dignity is a key issue at the film’s heart.

Roughly based on the legendary fiasco of Custer’s Last Stand, the film centers around Fonda, a Civil War hero who, brought into the army is shifted out to the outskirts of civilization to the post at Fort Apache, which he deems to be well below him.  The camp is populated heavily with Irish-Americans, who drink heavily and offer much comic relief.  At times, in fact, the film almost seems more comic than dramatic.  When Henry Fonda’s Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday sees an opportunity at glory on the range, bringing back the Apache tribesmen who’ve abandoned the reservation due to mistreatment, he starts a battle that he cannot finish, much against the recommendations of well-respected Captain Kirby York (Wayne), who sizes up the situation accurately.

The film actually is quite poignant regarding the plight of the Native Americans, a noble groups of tribes, who have come to agree to peace, yet will not be crushed or insulted.  The life on the plantation has been far from positive for them, in which they are lead to alchoholism (a somewhat ironic comment given the giddy, good-nature of the drunken Irish-Americans), and the Apache refuse to be exploited more.  But Thursday, against better judgment, leads his cavalry to decimation and a highly symbolic insult to the leadership of the Native tribes.

It’s interesting to see this in 1948, and while it’s far from bleeding-heart liberalism, it shows a greater humanity toward the Native Americans than one might anticipate.  It’s Thursday who is the foul-mouthed racist, despite his West Point background and stiff, military rigidity.  Of course, it’s that very rigidity that turns out to be his weakness, rigidity and pride in search of glory.  Wayne is the pragmatist, who speaks “a little Apache” and who understands their plight and dignity.  The film tends to blame their exploitation more on an individual capitalist rather than the American government, and the ending suggests a cover up of Thursday’s death to translate him into a hero for the recordbooks, something that will be good for the country, the goverment, and the military.  An oddly ironic contrast with the tonality.  Wayne clearly grimaces at the fabrications but justifies it nonetheless.

As always, Ford is a master at the landscapes and the character, imbuing the Western with great depth and social criticism, despite his denials that he put too much into them.  And it’s just plain awesome to see these films in the cinema.

Filed under John Ford, Theatrical, Westerns

The Searchers

May 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

The Searchers (1956) movie poster

(1956) dir. John Ford
viewed: 05/10/09 at the Stanford Theater, Palo Alto, CA

One of the greatest Westerns ever made (my personal favorite) and perhaps one of the greatest movies ever made, John Ford’s awesome film, The Searchers was totally awesome to see on the big screen.  Playing as a double feature at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto with Fort Apache (1948), I actually got myself down to the peninsula for only the third time to this terrific theater to catch one of their awesome shows.  Incredibly well worth it, too.

I’d initially seen The Searchers when I was living in England, a time that I hearken back to with some frequency.  Being 1995, the BBC and Channel 4 were doing great retrospectives of world cinema and The Guardian newspaper offered insightful descriptions of the films, leading me into a number of terrific discoveries.  The Western had not been a favorite of mine growing up, and though I was getting to like watching many Westerns while there in England, it was The Searchers that totally sold me on the genre and on John Wayne.

I, like many, always think of Wayne as the symbol of American manliness that so many came to perceive him: upright, strong, tougher than hell, the savvy one in the bunch, the ass-kicker among shit-kickers, and noble, forthright and true.  Whether he is or was or even represented any of this stuff isn’t so much the point, as much as he symbolized and embodied that for not just a generation, but enough to be as iconic as any Hollywood star ever will be.  But with that, there is the oppositional aspect, the part that rebels against such authoritative figures, symbols that belie themselves, hide the ugly beneath the veneer of good, and lack the complex nature of reality.  Of course, in true experience, Wayne is startlingly more deep and powerful than any one single image can stand.  And The Searchers is his personal masterpiece.

The film is the story of a pair of men, Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter, a young mixed-race adopted member of the family, who set out on a five year long trail of an abducted girl, kidnapped as a child and raised by the Comanches that stole her.  Vengeance is the driving factor, for the murdered family, and for the ruination, as Wayne’s character Ethan Edwards sees it, of the child.

Edwards is a ruthless tracker, seething with hatred for Native Americans, namely the Comanches, whose blood boils at the quietest of times and whose vitriol is demonstrated in his disfiguring the corpse of one of the fallen Comanches, shooting out his eyes, because Edwards knows that the Comanches believe that without their eyes, they will not be able to enter the spirit world.  He hates them beyond this world, he hates them into the next.  And while at first he hopes to rescue to abducted, his mission evolves into one of killing.  The audience is shown the madness to which abducted “white women” fall into after long captivity in this alien culture, no doubt coupled with rape and other suggested horrors.  Debbie, the stunning Natalie Wood, the abducted niece, is no longer human in his eyes, but a creature below contempt, like the Comanches themselves.

The racism in Edwards is the complication of the hero.  His nobility and know-how, returning to the family after years in the Civil War and other mysterious campaigns, has tainted him.  It is Hunter, the adoptive nephew, who stays doggedly by Edwards’ side, knowing what Edwards intends to do, and hoping that he can save Debbie from her rescuer.  It’s a complex portrait of Edwards, who knows more about the Native Americans than does Hunter’s Martin Pawley, despite the fact that Pauley has Native American blood in his veins.

The film is stunningly beautiful, filmed in Utah’s Monument Valley, among the incredible rock formations and hills and desert, against the vast, open skies.  It’s an epic landscape, Ford’s West, a dramatic background for this haunting, gripping drama.  The film is almost blunt about the implied rape and tortures that signify the ruin of the female characters at the hands of the “savage” villains.

This film is amazing.  If you have never seen it, it is well-worth the time.  It’s a true masterpiece, an iconic, tremendous film, still standing high, fifty years since it was released, and a total, absolute pleasure to see on the big screen in a wonderful theater.

Filed under John Ford, Theatrical, Westerns

Django

December 7, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Django (1966) movie poster

(1966) dir. Sergio Corbucci
viewed: 12/05/08

Like many of the topics upon which I write here, I hardly consider myself an expert.  The Spaghetti Western is a definant interest of mine, but not something that I have delved into in great depth in my years of film watching.  Django, however, is one exception.  I happened to catch it on video in 1995, the year I was living in England, and while having whetted my appetite with the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood trilogy, I was duly impressed by the film of which I had never heard.  And so it’s sat in my mind all these years to revisit.

Django is nearly as iconic as A Fistful of Dollars (1964), the film that heavily influenced it.  It’s just that Django was not released in the United States.  In Europe, it’s probably as well known as the Eastwood films.  Stylistically, it borrows heavily from Leone, but it has a lot of its own that it brings to the table.

Django, as played by Franco Nero, is a good stand-in for Eastwood’s “Man with No Name”, but he has more of a story, he has his name of course, and he drags a coffin behind him through the would-be Texas desert.  The surprises inside the coffin, I leave for the uninitiated, though it’s easy enough through web research to have the surprises foiled.  The film involves a scene with mudwrestling prosititutes, a bloody severing of an ear (which is then “fed” to the victim), and a graveyard showdown as surprising and iconic as you can imagine.

Django is one of the biggies of the genre, and on second viewing, definitely stands up.  The shots are framed in clever and aesthetically atuned ways, playing up the action and the narrative with the kind of grit and ingenuity one might hope for.  The wet, muddy town which is the center of much of the story really stands out in contrast to the dry, arid heat of most Westerns, Spaghetti or otherwise.  And it didn’t fail to remind me, or reckon of Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), the awful Takashi Miike re-take on the genre.

It is interesting the way that the Spaghetti Western adapted the Samurai film, much as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) so notably adapted Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), which had adapted itself further from Dashiell Hammett and questionably the Western in general as well.  Perhaps, in a way, it’s one of the earliest instances of Post-Modernism, some mixing and remixing of styles, techniques, tropes, character, narrative, everything and evoking something new.  I’ll have to look into that.

But for the uninitiated, Django is certainly (badly dubbed) but brilliant.  If you like or even think you like the Spaghetti Western and have not yet seen Django, you really, truly should.  It is the shit.  And I do mean that in a good way.

Filed under DVD, Westerns

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