The Western List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[cysiam]

Has anybody seen Fuller's Run of the Arrow? If so, is it worth trying to track down a copy of?

[Yojimbo]

Has anybody seen Fuller's Run of the Arrow? If so, is it worth trying to track down a copy of?

Yep.
I'm not a huge fan of it, though; I much prefer his noirs and war films (not to mention 'Shock Corridor' and 'The Naked Kiss')
If you're a Fuller fan you'll probably want to track it down, anyhow

[Cold Bishop]

Has anybody seen Fuller's Run of the Arrow? If so, is it worth trying to track down a copy of?

It's minor Sam Fuller in my opinion, but I wouldn't turn down any chance to (re)watch it. Steiger's methodology clashes badly with Fuller's tabloid filmmaking (they were at each other's throats during production) and the whole thing felt rather abrupt: I was shocked when the credits started to roll, which speaks both to Fuller's ability to move the story along as it does the film's sense of incompleteness. And much like The Crimson Kimono, I feel he choose to focus the film on the wrong topic (that film's less about racism than Joe's reverse-racism; this film isn't so much about Native Americans as it is about O'Meara's cultural confusion). But there's more than enough passages that are quintessentially Fuller to make it an essential film, if not in the Western genre, at least in his filmography.

[domino harvey]

True Grit (Henry Hathaway 1969) / Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar 1975) Well, I figured I might as well get the original out of the way before I head to the theatre to see the remake. I reckon all that needs to be said about the film has already been said, but I liked it a great deal and it will be making my list. I gather that people don't like Kim Darby in the film, but I thought she did a fine job and was a good foil to the other actors. Plus there's something innately enjoyable about watching a little proto-Chan Marshall circa What Would the Community Think running around in the world of this film. It's harder to find praise for the sequel in name mostly, though. In the interim between the two films, Wayne's marshall has grown younger, gotten a more ridic hairpiece, de-craggled his voice, and turned into a chatty Cathy. Seriously, who is this guy? Too much of the film's entertainment depends on an audience reacting to Katharine Hepburn's New Englandy matron foisted into the world of the western and, well, if you think the image of Hepburn operating a Gatling gun is just a laff riot, then here's the film for you. This sequel's existence is exactly as necessary as They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!

[knives]

So I finally got to Zedz's favorite The Hired Hand and I really am not sure what to think. I believe I get what caused Zedz to be so excited in the last act, but the first two thirds while beautiful to look at never held a spark for me. I'm going to try to watch it again later in the week and if my opinion changes any I'll bring it up, but for now I'm blind to the film's supposed greatness. It does look gorgeous and has one of the best soundtracks out there and of course Warren Oates automatically makes any film at least of interest, but the plotlessness here didn't fully work. The characters were too blank for me to fully get into that sort of groove. That said maybe I was expecting something more Eastwood considering Zedz's comments and if I go in again with a better understanding I might like it though I doubt even then it will make my list.

[Yojimbo]

So I finally got to Zedz's favorite The Hired Hand and I really am not sure what to think. I believe I get what caused Zedz to be so excited in the last act, but the first two thirds while beautiful to look at never held a spark for me. I'm going to try to watch it again later in the week and if my opinion changes any I'll bring it up, but for now I'm blind to the film's supposed greatness. It does look gorgeous and has one of the best soundtracks out there and of course Warren Oates automatically makes any film at least of interest, but the plotlessness here didn't fully work. The characters were too blank for me to fully get into that sort of groove. That said maybe I was expecting something more Eastwood considering Zedz's comments and if I go in again with a better understanding I might like it though I doubt even then it will make my list.

I'll try and make your mind up for you.
In those early scenes, and liberally sprinkled throughout the film, there are too many 'arty' touches which betray an inexperienced director, whereas in the second half of the film, The Great Warren Oates, and, to a lesser extent, Verna Bloom, help to salvage the film somewhat.
In that respect it might be said to be a great feminist Western.

Its a bit more than a 'curate's egg', perhaps more the quintessential 'game of two halves', if I am to use a sporting analogy, but its certainly not an indisputable Masterpiece, in my book.

It will probably make my 50, though, but probably as part of my 'curio quota'

[knives]

That's about what I'm thinking though if I can change my opinion in a more positive direction I'll be all the happier. On the other hand I'm about thirty minutes into Django and if just for that theme song it is guaranteed on my list. I never could have expected the fantastic half baked stuff on race though. It doesn't make the film smarter as it's done in this uber stylized way, but it definitely makes it all the more odd.

[Cold Bishop]

Perhaps an odd question coming from such a Walter Hill fan, but any defenses of The Long Riders. I always felt confused by Hill's "(de)mythologizing" of the gang, even as the stand-alone segment concerning the Minnesota-Northfield raid is bravura enough filmmaking to make consider putting it on my list. It's simply a film where I can't get a handle on what he wants to say.

[Yojimbo]

Perhaps an odd question coming from such a Walter Hill fan, but any defenses of The Long Riders. I always felt confused by Hill's "(de)mythologizing" of the gang, even as the stand-alone segment concerning the Minnesota-Northfield raid is bravura enough filmmaking to make consider putting it on my list. It's simply a film where I can't get a handle on what I wants to say.

I haven't seen it in years, although I'll probably watch it as part of a 'Jesse James bloc', but I think the gimmick of having sets of brothers play sets of brothers perhaps handicapped it from the get-go

[backstreetsbackalright]

My viewing in this field is far from thorough enough to submit a ballot here, but I'm really enjoying the conversation here, and I'm eager to see how the poll shakes out. For now, I've got ten films to add to the top of the rental queue....

[Dr Amicus]

As with Yojimbo, it's years since I watched this, but I think it's a hugely impressive film - part of Hill's glorious early run.

The last time I watched it was at the NFT - mid 90s I guess - taking a good friend to see it. Now this was after my MA thesis on Hill (I say thesis - more a longish essay!) and she'd had several years of me telling me what a great director he was. She hated the film, and nothing I could say could change that. What surprised me was, after seeing it several times on a pan & scan video, just what a completely different film it was seeing it on 35mm - the lighting is much more naturalistic, much darker than the brightened vhs. The result was less of a 'movie' and seemed much more sombre as a result.

There's an interesting essay from the early 80s about this, The Warriors and Southern Comfort arguing that they become an increasingly sophisticated study of 'home'. If anyone's interested, I'll try and dig out the reference - or even the essay itself.

By the way, it's cut slightly in the UK - IIRC for horsefalls (not uncommon for Westerns).

[domino harvey]

I really hope you all appreciate my Christlike sacrificial devotion to justly forgotten Westerns in this thread.

5 Card Stud (Henry Hathaway 1968) There are certain actors that rarely if ever show up in westerns, usually for good reason. Roddy McDowall is not a name I'd associate with the genre-- though, browsing IMDB to confirm my suspicions, this wasn't his only western. Regardless, while his sniveling adult screen persona lends itself well to playing the heavy, he is hopelessly miscast here. But at least the film he's miscast within is so terrible that no one will ever know. How can Dino palling around with Robert Mitchum's gun-toting preacher go wrong? Because everything in this movie goes wrong. Hathaway is a decent hired hand with no authorial touches, but even he's better than whatever is supposed to be happening here. Westerns can't really sustain mysteries and this one gives up the answer long before it thinks it does. The only thing separating this from some cut-rate western TV show from the same era is (insert covert mumbling)

And I know women rarely fare well in westerns anyway, but hadn't they suffered enough without pinning on their sex a black hole of talent like Katherine Justice?

[Yojimbo]

I really hope you all appreciate my Christlike sacrificial devotion to justly forgotten Westerns in this thread.

not especially,......"just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water!,........"

[zedz]

Re. The Hired Hand: I don't consider it plotless so much as much more interested in aspects of plot that most westerns wilfully neglect, and this is most clearly expressed in the Verna Bloom side of the film. I see these elements as absolutely central to the film's project and I think Bloom gives a sensational performance in a role that would be rare in a modern-day film of the time (and, sad to say, even rarer nowadays), let alone a western.

Oates is, as noted, great, but he's great in support. It's not his film, and I think Fonda delivers his best performance (or at least the best of those I've seen), really using his reticence as a performer intelligently. With his persona (and the shadow of his father's) he's doing the same thing in miniature that he's doing with the film as director, making smart use of the baggage of the genre, and the associations that come with his setting and actors, to explore the negative imprint of the western: probing the gaps in the genre's history, questioning the default settings of its look and feel, but simultaneously delivering on and defending its core values (e.g. celebrating the landscape, albeit in different ways; privileging the central male relationship, but paying much closer attention to its cost on heterosocial bonds). In this regard I think it's a much more astute and nuanced kind of 'revisionism' than much of what appeared during the period, and I see it as a close relative - though completely different in tone - to Peckinpah's best films.

Plus, I don't consider the fact that it looks and sounds so utterly gorgeous a negative!

Actually, thinking about it again, it seems to me that this film could almost be seen to define itself in opposition to Leone's westerns. They're both revisionist, but they're pulling the genre in different directions and valuing completely different things in doing so. Leone wants to blow the genre wide open; Fonda wants to coax it deeper inside itself.

[Yojimbo]

Re. The Hired Hand: I don't consider it plotless so much as much more interested in aspects of plot that most westerns wilfully neglect, and this is most clearly expressed in the Verna Bloom side of the film. I see these elements as absolutely central to the film's project and I think Bloom gives a sensational performance in a role that would be rare in a modern-day film of the time (and, sad to say, even rarer nowadays), let alone a western.

Yep, thats my whole point about 'feminist Western'; which is why I thought it a pity that too much of the first half of the film was a neophyte director's self-indulgence

Re. The Hired HandI think Fonda delivers his best performance (or at least the best of those I've seen), really using his reticence as a performer intelligently. With his persona (and the shadow of his father's) he's doing the same thing in miniature that he's doing with the film as director, making smart use of the baggage of the genre, and the associations that come with his setting and actors, to explore the negative imprint of the western

I've never cared for Fonda as an actor; or his wanna-be doppelganger, Michael Sarrazin, come to that. I don't know whether he came to believe in himself as his 'Jesus of Cool' persona of 'Easy Rider' but far too often he seems to be re-playing it. Oates, is, of course, flawless, but the beauty of Oates is that he never imposes himself on anybody, yet still manages to draw attention to himself, even when he's being completely natural

Plus, I don't consider the fact that it looks and sounds so utterly gorgeous a negative!

Actually, thinking about it again, it seems to me that this film could almost be seen to define itself in opposition to Leone's westerns. They're both revisionist, but they're pulling the genre in different directions and valuing completely different things in doing so. Leone wants to blow the genre wide open; Fonda wants to coax it deeper inside itself.

by and large agree about the directions they're pulling the Western in, but I think Fonda needed a 'hired hand' to oversee his directorial hand.

[knives]

Like Yojimbo I basically agree with everything you said, but I don't think Fonda does it well. He's too inexperienced to handle what he is trying to do. Everything not directly involved with him like the music and performances are great, but the editing is amateurish and comes across as too 'I'm trying to be experimental'. In a way my complaints are the very ones you brought up with Easy Rider.

[Nothing]

Far from obscure, but my spotlight would be A Bullet for the General - although it's probably too lefty for most of the folks here.

And let me once again cheerlead for The Hired Hand, which will be vying with The Shooting as my top post-classic western.

Oh come ON, how can anyone seriously in good faith recommend Peter Fonda's amateurish drugged out noodling over Peckinpah or Leone? As for the 'trippy' faux-experimental cinematography...

I do sometimes wonder if The Wild Bunch... really is a better film than Fort Apache, or The Far Country, or Comanche Station, or Colorado Territory, or some other film by the aforementioned masters that I'm not going to be able to accommodate... while it's nice to see westerns with a political edge... I'm not exactly sure what purpose it serves

So a true master of the western must indulge in historical whitewashing, Christian moralism and racist stereotyping? And a left wing (ie. more authentic) depiction of the west serves no purpose, but Republican myth-making does? I would argue, instead, that the only true western is a 'revisionist' western and that The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the first real masterpiece of the genre...

Too bad [Leone] couldn't resist that scene of Cardinale whoring it up with Fonda, but it could have gone worse

That she could and would give herself to Fonda to save her life, and pick herself up and get on with things after, this is absolutely true to Jill's character - making this a great character-based scene, and far more honest than anything in Ford or Hawks or Walsh.

So does Deadwood qualify, or at least the first series, before it turned into an unsubtle riff on McCabe & Mrs. Miller? Television it may be, but I certainly prefer it to any of Walter Hill's theatrical features.

And another tricky one - is The New World a western? It's set on the American frontier, with white pioneers and Indians, yet it really doesn't feel right to call it a western (unlike, say, Days of Heaven). Might one therefore say that the a western has to depict the period 1800 - 1939?

[matrixschmatrix]

I do sometimes wonder if The Wild Bunch... really is a better film than Fort Apache, or The Far Country, or Comanche Station, or Colorado Territory, or some other film by the aforementioned masters that I'm not going to be able to accommodate... while it's nice to see westerns with a political edge... I'm not exactly sure what purpose it serves

So a true master of the western must indulge in historical whitewashing, Christian moralism and racist stereotyping? And a left wing (ie. more authentic) depiction of the west serves no purpose, but Republican myth-making does?

Your elisions are pretty significant- you're combining two different posts, for one thing. The rhetorical question about the Wild Bunch has nothing to do with the comment about politics.

Moreover, zedz doesn't refer to political/revisionist Westerns generally in the second post, but "the colour-by-numbers Marxism in the films [of Leone]", which "couldn't be much more obvious". It's a totally different meaning, an argument that politics of those specific films are uninteresting, not that politics don't belong in Westerns at all. I really don't see how you could have achieved that post without recognizing that, and it's hard to credit you with good faith.

I would argue, instead, that the only true western is a 'revisionist' western and that The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the first real masterpiece of the genre...

When you say 'true', do you mean 'genuine' or 'accurate'? If the latter, your statement is banal but accurate, since the whole idea of the revisionist Western is the bathetic mixing of reality with an enormously mythological genre. If the former, it's meaningless- the only genuine example of the genre is one which is a deliberate revision of it? That makes no sense.

[Nothing]

The rhetorical question about the Wild Bunch has nothing to do with the comment about politics.

Oh but it does. Zedz is demeaning the significance of Peckinpah and Leone because their work isn't 'classical' (ie. dishonest / right-wing.) He derides Leone's politics for being 'obvious', yet they are no less obvious than the politics of Ford or Hawks. At least his choice of Ride the High Country as his favourite Peckinpah western is consistent (the Peckinpah westerns for people who don't like Peckinpah westerns).

By real I mean pertaining to the true spirit of the American west - this being unchecked capitalism, violent individualism, lawlessness and genocide. I also propose TSM as the first real western because it owes little to nothing to the cowboys and indians films that came before it - and I put 'revisonist' in paranthesis because one can trace a direct line from TSM to The Wild Bunch, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Heaven's Gate without the need to dip into so-called 'classical' (ie. fascist) westerns along the way.

[matrixschmatrix]

By real I mean pertaining to the true spirit of the American west - this being unchecked capitalism, violent individualism, lawlessness and genocide.

And yet you lump an Anthony Mann movie in with the others!

I propose TSM as the first real western because it owes little to nothing to the cowboys and indians films that came before it - and I put 'revisonist' in paranthesis because one can trace a direct line from TSM to The Wild Bunch without the need to dip into so-called 'classical' (ie. fascist) westerns along the way.

One could, but it would be silly, since Peckinpah himself didn't. I mean, honestly, my preference is much more for revisionist Westerns too (I loved Leone before I ever saw a Ford film, and Dead Man would easily make my top 10 Westerns overall) but a kneejerk critique of the foundations of the entire genre, with no specifics and no recognition of what an enormous number of classical Westerns were themselves somewhat revisionist and often critical of American expansionism, racism, capitalism, etc (have you seen The Searchers? The Furies? Stagecoach?) serves only to start shit, not foster discussion.

I will say, though, that I really can't stomach a lot of the backlash-to-revisionism Westerns- here I am thinking of the Milius Judge Roy Bean, which could almost serve as a criticism of the fascism sometimes hiding classical Westerns by pulling it out, foregrounding it, and rubbing it in the viewer's face- but Milius expects you to enjoy it.

[knives]

As already mentioned you do know that Mann and Ford were stringent left wingers, correct? While the western definitely has a very right wing face many of the most successful of the genre are lift wingers. That said all of this is rather void because a film being 'right' doesn't make it good and there are many blatantly false films that are very entertaining which should be a major criteria.

[Nothing]

Well, fwiw, my top ten would look something like this:

1/ Once Upon a Time in the West
2/ Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
3/ The Wild Bunch
4/ Days of Heaven
5/ The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
6/ The Searchers
7/ Heaven's Gate
8/ A Bullet for the General
9/ McCabe & Mrs. Miller
10/ Man of the West

Rio Bravo might've made it in there if they'd added a couple more songs

Mann westerns are always enjoyable, although I find that he's very much a half-way house on the path to the greater moral complexity of Peckinpah. In which regard, Man of the West is the best thing Mann ever did (next to Men in War) imho, whereas the essentially classical Hollywood moralism of something like The Naked Spur really turns me off. As for Ford, I don't think anyone who voted for Richard Nixon or supported the American Genocide in Indochina can be considered left wing... Also, whilst I love The Searchers, one has to wonder how much of the moral complexity was really intentional, as the film is so different from anything else in Ford's oeuvre, even the supposedly revisionist Cheyenne Autumn. I mean honestly, in terms of simplistic Hollywood moralism and heroics, there's little difference between Stagecoach and Transformers is there... Sure, I can respect much of Ford's work on a technical level, but I then become troubled the moment zedz dismisses Leone for "Style with a capital S" - for what else is there to recommend My Darling Clementine or Fort Apache? Good performances & entertaining characters? Sure - but Leone has those too, along with far more studied production design, better music and the greater moral complexity already mentioned... What zedz then seems to fall back on is the idea - which I honestly can't fathom - that depicting the amoral capitalist individualism behind the expansion of the West is too "obvious", as if playing cowboys and indians, heroes and villians, the good Christian vs. the red infidel, is somehow an improvement. I also find it highly ironic the way domino bristles at a scene in a Leone film in which a prostitute (wait for it)... prostitutes herself (gasp!), yet seemingly has no problem with Henry Brandon blacked up to play Scar or, say, the idea that you shouldn't give liquor to an Indian... If you're going to be a PC sabre-rattler at least be consistent about it.

Incidentally, OUATITW's triumph on my list goes beyond the political (eg. A Bullet for the General is a more outspokenly Marxist film). Like zedz, I fell in love with the film aged 13 or 14, to the extent that it became a huge part of my conception of what cinema could be. Then, as I grew up, I became more aware of the it's flaws and limitations - that sagging, poorly structured middle section, so hastily re-written mid-shoot, and the emotional and intellectual simplicity of the film in comparison to... oh I don't know [insert name of canonical arthouse filmmaker here]. Perhaps I'd also just seen the thing far too many times (at least ten screenings in the theatre alone). And yet now, becoming older still, I feel I can genuinly appreciate the film once more - realising that I can still think of nothing more transcendent than Fonda's entrance, or the Flagstone craneshot, or the final duel, with Fonda and Bronson circling like Gods - BECOMING Gods - "make your loving brother happy"... Even Dreyer, Bresson, Ozu and Tarkovsky can't exceed the power of these moments. Perhaps even more to the point, I can think of no other filmmaker who so successfully combines accessible pop culture and high art - making Leone perhaps the ultimate ideal of what cinema can be (although of course, having said that, the film was panned and bombed on initial release \:D/ )

[knives]

Well to Zedz benefit I believe he said he didn't find anything special in My Darling Clementine. Beyond that though I actually agree with you mostly on the Zedz stuff(it seems like you were putting words in Domino's mouth on that section of your post). Also it's nice to see you go into why you like a film beyond it's politics. As for The Searchers(and much of ford from the '50s)I see it as a reaction to his earlier work specifically Stagecoach. There's this sense of needing to repent for treating Indians at best as a plot device and at worst something sub-human. This can be seen beyond The Searchers as most blatantly in Fort Apache(which I think is the weakest of these acts of repentance) where ford seems to do everything in his power to prop the Indians as great people. I actually think Wagon Master manages to best hit a balance that Ford typically misses out on with it's single Shimizu like scene which gives dignity to the Indians without making them out to be anything unique or important. They're just humans like anyone else who have the misfortune of oppression.

[matrixschmatrix]

Incidentally, OUATITW's triumph on my list goes beyond the political (eg. A Bullet for the General is a more outspokenly Marxist film). Like zedz, I fell in love with the film aged 13 or 14, to the extent that it became a huge part of my conception of what cinema could be. Then, as I grew up, I became more aware of the it's flaws and limitations - that sagging, poorly structured middle section, so hastily re-written mid-shoot, and the emotional and intellectual simplicity of the film in comparison to... oh I don't know [insert name of canonical arthouse filmmaker here]. Perhaps I'd also just seen the thing far too many times (at least ten screenings in the theatre alone). And yet now, becoming older still, I feel I can genuinly appreciate the film once more - realising that I can still think of nothing more transcendent than Fonda's entrance, or the Flagstone craneshot, or the final duel, with Fonda and Bronson circling like Gods - BECOMING Gods - "make your loving brother happy"... Even Dreyer, Bresson, Ozu and Tarkovsky can't exceed the power of these moments. Perhaps even more to the point, I can think of no other filmmaker who so successfully combines accessible pop culture and high art - making Leone perhaps the ultimate ideal of what cinema can be (although of course, having said that, the film was panned and bombed on initial release \:D/ )

I think Leone's image-making, both in the sense of individual moments in film and in building an image based character, is phenomenal, to the degree that I really don't give a damn what else he was up to. Of course, I hated El Topo, so maybe I'm kidding myself.

[zedz]

Your elisions are pretty significant- you're combining two different posts, for one thing. The rhetorical question about the Wild Bunch has nothing to do with the comment about politics.

Moreover, zedz doesn't refer to political/revisionist Westerns generally in the second post, but "the colour-by-numbers Marxism in the films [of Leone]", which "couldn't be much more obvious". It's a totally different meaning, an argument that politics of those specific films are uninteresting, not that politics don't belong in Westerns at all. I really don't see how you could have achieved that post without recognizing that, and it's hard to credit you with good faith.

If you're looking for good faith argument or rhetorical coherence, you're looking in the wrong place!

On the other hand, Nothing's virulent response to The Hired Hand reassures me that I must be right about the film!

For the record, I adore Peckinpah and have no issues with his particular take on the western genre, it's just that The Wild Bunch is my least favourite of his westerns and I think it's his most overrated film (which isn't hard considering it's probably more highly esteemed than the rest of his films combined). Actually, I consider the conservative 'myth-making' element of the film one of its weakest aspects.

As for Leone, I like the films well enough, but the political ideas in them are jejune and obvious, and many of those ideas were much more sharply articulated in a lot of the so-called 'classic' westerns Nothing evidently doesn't understand. The Far Country, for a start.