by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – Furiosa and Hud

I already reviewed Furiosa – go read that! I also watched another movie on Monday, Hud. Starring Paul Newman as the title character, this is another masterful ‘post-western’ of the 1960s, an examination of how the world just isn’t any place for that old cowboy romanticism anymore. We see this in the plight of Homer Bannon, a hard-working rancher whose lifetime of effort is destroyed in an instant when an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in his herd throws his livelihood into chaos. An honest and law-abiding man, all he can do is stand firm and hope that things will turn out in the end. This puts him at odds with his son, Hud, who isn’t happy about his inheritance slipping away, and does everything in his power to usurp control from his father before the herd is condemned and put down. Hud is a perfect cinematic sociopath, a man who isn’t bad because of some deep-seated trauma or overwrought excuse, but because he’s cynical enough to know that the world he lives in rewards bad people. He drinks and womanises and takes every shortcut available to him because, unlike his father, he doesn’t care about things like legacy or reputation. If his father is the ideal of the older generation, then Hud is the emblem of the modern man – self-serving and ambitious, valuing success over everything, charismatic enough to be broadly popular but to hateful to ever be loved. Add in Hud’s naively adoring nephew and the family’s jaded live-in maid, and the stage is set for a gripping, at times utterly heartbreaking family drama about the death of traditional values and the gaping amoral vacuum that is left behind. 9/10.

Tuesday – McLintock! and Django

There’s not much to say about McLintock!. It’s quite funny when it devolves into slapstick, and the cast of characters are colourful enough to make an impression despite the bare-bones story. It’s also notably respectful of Native Americans, in a condescendingly patriarchal way of course, but it’s better than nothing. The film coasts on John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara’s well-established screen chemistry by never really bothering to establish a love connection between them. Instead their every scene is increasingly snippy and hostile, culminating in the romantic climax of the film where Wayne chases his humiliated wife through the streets and spanks her in front of the whole town. It’s not Shakespeare, but it just about works as intended. 5/10.

Django is a classic film that has suffered from it’s own success – it’s influence has seeped so heavily into subsequent films that the original article feels quaint in comparison. It’s a classically compelling set-up – a tight-lipped gunslinger comes to a small town in the grip of warring factions, plays them against each other to line his own pockets, and eventually saves the town. As rip-offs of Yojimbo go, this is slightly less blatant than A Fistful of Dollars, and puts an even more cynical spin on things than usual. Django is an especially rough-edged hero – aside from his torrid romance with a local outcast, he remains entirely selfish from start to finish. Any good his killings do for the village are a complete coincidence, and he’ll just as quickly turn around and buddy up with the oppressors once he’s had his fun. Even more than Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, where the gruff hero always has a heart of gold, Django is deliciously nihilistic, a world where heroism is something accidentally done by villains killing each other for profit. Visually it’s exactly as dynamic as you want from an Italian production, though in a very messy, unpolished way. The traditional overdubbing is also comically bad, so whether or not that adds to the charm is up to personal taste. 7/10.

Wednesday – Coogan’s Bluff

In case you guys haven’t noticed yet, I’ve been watching a hell of a lot of Westerns. Of all the transitional 60s Westerns I’ve seen recently, Coogan’s Bluff might be the most difficult to place neatly within the genre. It’s more of a police procedural than anything, a gritty New York cop thriller with Clint Eastwood as a fish-out-of-water Arizona deputy collecting a prisoner. Much fun is made of Eastwood’s cowboy persona, but the film is very firmly on his side – it’s the free-loving hippies and jaded urbanites of New York who are in the wrong, and Eastwood humbles them over and over with his no-nonsense sturdiness. It would be condescending to call this unintentionally funny – there are many scenes that are clearly played for awkward laughs, and Eastwood himself mugs his way through the ridiculous romantic scenes. It’s politically nonsensical, gesturing vaguely at a culture clash but playing both sides so over the top it can’t honestly mean anything at all by it. I found it more enjoyable than most. 7/10.

Thursday – Once Upon a Time in the West

Now here’s a ‘big’ movie. Sergio Leone’s epitaph for the Western, more grounded in historical reality than his Dollars Trilogy but no less mythic for it. It also encompasses a broad range of tones and moods – rather than being weepy or nostalgic for the end of an era, Leone celebrates it. Instead of the usual song and dance of bemoaning the loss of tradition and the tragedy of the cowboy losing his place in the world, this is a film about how the cowboy never had a place. The West portrayed in this film is an aberration, an obstacle to what the human spirit really craves – community. It’s not just the greedy baron with his endless railroad civilising the land – the ordinary men and women of the frontier build and grow and change. The cowboy’s tragedy is that he is static – Henry Fonda’s villainous character entertains the lure of capitalism but can’t let go of his violent ways, while Jason Robards’ cheeky outlaw is self-aware enough to know he doesn’t belong with the common man, preferring to take his chances on the fringe of society until his luck runs out. Charles Bronson as the mysterious, nameless wanderer is an enigma. He has no reason to wander away at the end, but also no reason to stay. While we may come to know his motives by the end, his heart remains unknowable, in large part thanks to Bronson’s measured performance – he’s as still and intimidating as Eastwood at his best, but there’s always the ghost of a smile on his face, adding a strangely benevolent air to the character. The mood is enhanced by the balance of pace and the beauty of the visuals, as well as Ennio Morricone’s superlative score, which flits effortlessly between operatic grandeur, playful whimsy, spine-tingling tension and everything in between. This is a genre-defining 10/10, and it’s not even a Top 3 Leone film.

Friday – True Grit

1969’s True Grit is an excellent story let down by perfunctory presentation. It’s a very standard film all around, maybe in an attempt to evoke classical Westerns, but more likely out of a lack of imagination. What’s most notable about this otherwise unexceptional film is that John Wayne won best actor for his performance here, a decision that even he was baffled by. Wayne as an actor is generally only as good as the film he’s in. In the hands of a master like John Ford or Howard Hawks, Wayne is magnificent. In a film like this with a second-rate director and lame supporting cast, he stands out but doesn’t excel, his weaknesses as obvious as his strengths. Rooster Cogburn is a somewhat unique performance from him, but he never fully sheds the “John Wayne” persona. There’s slightly too much charisma in his gruffness, a likability that shouldn’t be fully apparent until the climax of the story. As far as legacy awards go, this film handed the Academy their chance on a silver platter, but would it really have really been so bad if Wayne never won an Oscar? It’s more a footnote to his legacy than anything – with or without it, he’s still probably the most iconic cowboy star of all time. This is a film worth watching once for the novelty and then never again. 6/10.

Saturday – True Grit (Good Version)

The 2010 Coen Bothers version of True Grit manages to feel entirely different from the original while still telling the exact same story, with a little nip or tuck here and there. Presentation plays a huge part – Roger Deakins’ cinematography is excellent as ever, the costuming and set design creates a more lived-in world than the theatrical trappings of 1969 film, and there’s more visual variety to the locations we pass through on the hunt for Tom Chaney. Then there’s the performances – Hailee Steinfeld nails the peculiarities of Mattie Ross, wise beyond her years but not to the point of parody and startlingly vulnerable when needed, while Matt Damon’s ability to sell mundane buffoonishness works wonders for the character of Labeouf, a good man who has the misfortune of seeming plain and dull next to the eccentricities of Rooster Cogburn. And of course, Jeff Bridges himself, drawling and grunting his way expertly through the film. Unlike Wayne, Bridges dials back his own charm, and plays up all the negative traits of the character. He’s still admirable in a way, with is quick wit and rugged toughness, but he actually becomes more and more unlikeable as the journey drags on, the image of the traditional cowboy hero that first enraptured Mattie falling away and revealing an angry, drunken, lonely old man. He’s more beaten down and pathetic than Wayne would have ever allowed himself to appear, and it makes it even more triumphant and uplifting when he does come good in the end, backing up his big talk and bringing the legend to life one last time. The beauty of the ending captures the biggest difference between the two versions of this film, that being the tone. The original is very straight and uncritical, a by-the-numbers Western where the good guys always win and the hero rides off into the sunset as the orchestra swells. The Coen Brothers tap into the sadness of the story, the obsession with punishment and justice causing Mattie to scar herself for life – both literally and metaphorically. They also tinge it with a spiritual air, as religious platitudes are recited with a comforting sincerity and the score repurposes traditional hymn music into something ethereal and deeply moving. And the hero doesn’t ride off into the sunset – the sky is grey and overcast as a lonely woman slowly disappears from our sight over the horizon. Probably the greatest modern Western. 10/10.

Sunday – Zatoichi the Outlaw and The Wild Bunch

Zatoichi the Outlaw opens with the proud declaration that this is ‘the first film from Katsu Productions’, the company set up by series star Shintaro Katsu to increase his influence over the direction of his signature character. Fittingly, this feels like a rebirth for Zatoichi, a new starting point for future entries to build on. Conceptually similar to early instalments, with Zatoichi caught up in a Yakuza feud and pressured to take sides, it could almost be a prequel to the rest of the series. We meet Zatoichi arriving in town and immediately throwing in with the local gang, something he only ever does begrudgingly under normal circumstances. This time he begins as an active Yakuza enforcer, with no illusions about wanting a peaceful life or helping others. It’s only when he inadvertently kills an innocent man and watches the gang boss he backed turn around and oppress the people that he begins to reckon with the consequences of his actions. It’s as if we’re seeing the origin of the Zatoichi who we first met fifteen films ago, the untold tale of how he gave up the Yakuza lifestyle and began to yearn for peace. He’s also influenced by a Christ-like pacifist samurai who is persecuted for collectivising the farmers, a crippled young man consumed by the need for revenge, and a stint as a working masseur where he’s treated like a clown by a demented rich man. If all this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is – almost too much even, with subplots getting lost in the shuffle and distracting from the earned catharsis of the main narrative. The new guiding hand of Katsu Productions also seems to have turned up the dial on the level of violence – some previous entries had dabbled in bright red blood and light mutilation, but here Zatoichi is chopping limbs with wild abandon and painting the town red. There’s even an onscreen decapitation, setting in stone that Zatoichi’s not messing around anymore – when he kills you, he really kills you. Despite being overstuffed with plotlines and ideas, this is a remarkably fresh way to kick off the next era of the series, at once immediately familiar and brand-new. 8/10.

It occurs to me only know that almost every American Western I’ve watched recently is about the good guys. While the Westerns of the 40s and 50s could be cynical in their own way, they still had to abide by the strict morality laws of that Hollywood operated under, and so the heroes were always heroes and the villains always villains. Aside from the introduction of bloody violence to the genre, Italian Westerns outdid their American inspirations by having their heroes be criminals and outlaws. The Wild Bunch is the first American Western in my current run of watching that feels like a response to the Spaghetti Western. Made right on the cusp of the New Hollywood era, as films like Bonnie and Clyde smashed up the censors and saw American audiences clamour for more violence in their pictures, director Sam Peckinpah took the opportunity to create a Western the likes of which Hollywood had barely conceived before. Grim, bloody, raunchy, nihilistic, but ultimately beautiful. The opening scene spells it all out, foreshadowing the ending in the most obvious way possible – thousands of ants swarming a handful of more dangerous scorpions until they are all burned away for the entertainment of sadistic children. There’s no room for subtlety here. The titular outlaws first appear disguised as U.S. soldiers, while the ostensibly heroic bounty hunters look and act like a shambolic pack of bandits. None of that matters when the bullets start flying anyway, with both sides mindlessly gunning down innocent bystanders in the crossfire of their battle. Fleeing to Mexico and finding themselves caught in the orbit of a fascist general, the Bunch are forced to examine the choices that brought them to this point and where their loyalties really lie – to themselves, to the people, to their wallets, or to each other. This is where sentimentality worms its way into the otherwise bleak world of the film, as the bonds of friendship keep our unlikely heroes soldiering on, even after they should have long since cut their losses and run. The violence of the film is magnificent to behold, bodies gleefully blasted apart in slow-motion as rapid cuts pound every image into your skull. The secret is that it doesn’t revel in its violence any more than your average John Wayne film – the difference is that the violence here looks real, more than real even, and the viscerality makes us confront our own enjoyment of the bloody spectacle. Even more important is the way the film lingers on the aftermath – bodies strewn across the frame, face-down in the dust, survivors crawling through the wreckage, silence punctuated by cries of grief and pain. There are no winners in the wars fought throughout this film, except for us, the audience, sadistic children watching lesser creatures burn for our own amusement. 9/10.