Best Western Of All Time ?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by alexpop, Aug 13, 2020.

  1. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    You're asking the film to be something it's not - it's not told from the Comanche POV. Yeah, they could have told the story of Cynthia Parker, but that's not whjat it's about. You're intelligent enough to know that. Birth of a Nation ISN'T a Ford film. That's a cheap shot and unbelievably petty.

    Good grief, does it have to stare you in the face? The village is destroyed by the soldiers. Scar is avenging the death of his daughter - can't remember offhand, but he says something like that when he meets Ethan and the square up to each other like a mirror image. Watch the attack on the village and the shot lingers on the men taking on the soldiers while the women and children are shielded. There are parallel shots of the Rangers and Comanches riding over the landscape. Like several Ford films, it goes for the legend at the end - or does it, because there's no place for Wayne in that society any longer? But it plays on prejudices - of the time it's set and the time it's made and of that grand old literary tradition, the captivity narrative. Either way, it gives the intelligent audience enough to think about which is why, I suspect, that it's held in high regard by critics.

    "There is a truth about our Native American genocide of peaceful tribes that has hardly been touched on in film despite hundreds of Westerns." No kidding. The missing space in any Western, whenever it's set, is the Native American. Where are they? What's happened to them?

    You seem to be wound up by its politics, made obvious by your pop at Wayne. Listen, I can't stand the guy, but there are some good films in there (almost all with Hawks and Ford).

    By the genocide of peaceful tribes, I'm assuming you're referring back to the comments you made about the peoples in California who had already been traduced by years of dealing with Spanish/Mexican colonists (or Portuguese, if you want to go back earlier). No, I haven't seen a film about that either and there's probably even less chance of it being made today. But... do I need to see a film about it when I've already read the books?
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2022
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  2. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    very underrated. unclear how much of it was Leone directed. The combination of crude humor and more refined emotions is a bit jarring sometimes, but it all leads to that, a you said, poignant conclusion. About as good as Fonda has ever been.
     
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  3. aroney

    aroney Who really gives a...?

    5.5? I've seen reports of 8.5, still small for a man that size, but not 5.5 small (which seems near impossible)...;)
     
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  4. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    'Wild Bunch" and Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" ongoing tussle for #1 spot for me. I have no problem suggesting either of those are the best western. Both of course ruminations about the 'end' of the west as free range country. I can't imagine what it was like to go to see the 'Wild Bunch' early in its 1969 run thinking it was going to just be a 'western' . Audiences were probably sitting bolt upright after those opening credits.

    Runner up: John Hancock's 2004 "The Alamo". As serious, complex, stirring as any Ford movie imo

    I did see the 'MGM' version of Pat Garett (now restored to closer to Peckinpah's intentions) in its opening run. Even in that compromised version it was seriously great.

     
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  5. bem

    bem Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis
    That moment with Slim Pickens dying, his wife looking on, and Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door is one of the great moments. Always brings a tear. People who think Peckinpah is all blood and guts forget he could do tender and quiet as well as anyone.
     
  6. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Maybe the brilliance of the film is pissing people off and creating discussion, or having the briefest moments (maybe) implying stuff that the audience can then fill in. However, to some it will be "too little" or "not at all." That has nothing to do with intelligence, simply a weighing of the themes and how much attention they are given. And it isn't just POV as in we follow the white people on screen, but pandering to the POV from the audience, but I already talked about how the movie relieved the audiences racist fears/prejudices with that ending of forgiving the white girl for sleeping with a non-white.

    I've visited nearly every California mission and know the stories behind that period pretty well, No, I was talking about what happened in California for only 20 years starting in 1846 when 10,000 to 16,000 Native Americans were killed by white/European man. In 1856 the CA government offered 25 cents per "Indian" scalping, and in 1860 paid an $11,000 bill to William Jarboe and his gang for killing at least 283 warrior Native Americans, capturing 292 and killing countless women/children. In that time only 5 members of his gang were killed, 2 were concluded to be in self-defense. If you look at those Civil War era massacres in California, these were mostly massacres (hundreds of them with many also killing hundreds) of peaceful Native Americans for reasons like the killing of a cow. The first big massacre in 1846 (in my hometown of Redding) possibly resulting in 1000 dead Wintu and absolutely no casualties on the other side. Kit Carson called it "perfect butchery."

    My big issue is the Western's focus on only the warring tribes in film. I suppose they offer more drama and action. I guess I am waiting on a Django Unchained about that moment in time, but I doubt it will be a big thing. At one time there were pretty much an equal amount of estimated Native Americans and enslaved black people in the United States. Currently there are 10 times more Black people than Native American. We simply killed too many of them to cause a fuss over what happened and send out the social workers, make new Native days and fund revisionist films. Plus if the idea is to sell tickets, you'd have a tougher time selling to Native Americans since they are the single poorest ethnic group in the US.

    PS: I said (as actor.)
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2022
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  7. Frangelico

    Frangelico Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    You’re correct. I was talking about WB, but Robards isn’t in it. Borgnine is. I like Borgnine, but not in that role. Robards is in OUATITW. I do like that film, but not crazy about his performance. Fonda is great.
     
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  8. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Clint Driftwood....:-plnktn-:

    [​IMG]
     
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  9. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits.... Thread Starter

    Straw Dogs is essentially a modern western.
     
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  10. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    The fact you actually called it a "John Ford film" is enough. Save your PS. Please don't lecture me on Native Americans - my academic subject of study for the last 30 years. I'm well aware of what happened. On the other hand, if someone is reading this and has no idea, then well done, because what happened in California is too often overlooked. As for The Searchers: you don't like it; others do. Your reading is different - and as I said, it plays on the audience perception at the time, but there's enough in it for me and others to show it raises questions about the orthodoxy. Have a good day.
     
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  11. steelinYaThighs

    steelinYaThighs "I'll be dancin' on Diamonds..."

    Location:
    U.S.A.
    "Be careful. You're a man who makes people afraid, and that's dangerous."

    "It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid."-- The Stranger & Sarah Belding in High Plains Drifter.

    Very unique in how supernatural elements were added to this dark morality play set in Lago, a.k.a., Mono Lake. Is The Stranger the same man as Marshal Duncan? Is he a ghost? Eastwood took the best characteristics of Spaghetti and American Westerns and mated them in this early 70s classic.

    - siyt
     
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  12. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Being a horror buff I admit to enjoying those horror/western hybrids like Eyes of Fire (1983), Ghost Town (1988), Ravenous, Westworld and I would even file High Plains Drifter there too. I find it positively shocking no one has created a horror movie out of the Ghost Dance movement.

    Not to prolong this, but you obviously have more knowledge in Westerns than me, and an academic focus I wasn't aware of. I have tracked down some Westerns I thought would show that other side, but unfortunately Broken Arrow didn't do much for me. Everything overt is documentaries, or epic later dramas like Bury My Heart and Dances With Wolves. Have you seen Devil's Doorway or Cheyenne Autumn? What do you think? The latter just in plot sounds sounds like what I expected The Searchers to be.

    PS: I added (as actor) as an edit, debated taking out John Ford film, but I couldn't say "another film John Ford acted in" because he didn't act in The Searchers, I could have said "another film John Ford was involved in" but that would have implied involvement behind the camera which IMO is more damning, so I left (as actor), but really as an extra. I guess I could have provided no John Ford link at all, but the comparison would have been made anyway, I was after the omission point, not cutting down John Ford. Otherwise, I'll drop it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2022
  13. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Sorry, didn't mean to cut a chunk out your post. I'm not sure how well a Ghost Dance movie would go down with a Native American audience. I've just read a several books on it, including Louis Warren's God's Red Son and I'm not sure simplifying what happened - even with good intent - would work; there's another book about the political machinations at the time which are vital to an understanding but would either be watered down or would take up so much of the movie, the Native American part would be really diminished. Personally, I don't like series based on Bury My Heart. I think it tries to be too balanced. I enjoyed Dances when it came out, but it is a white saviour film, like A Man Called Horse and others. It looks good, though, and at least the longer version depcits some aspects of Lakota life that Dunbar doesn't appreciate. I thnk the problem is, for me, whether I like the film(s) or not, they are films and not history. Having been brought up in the 60s and 70s and having watched all kinds of westerns on TV (and we're talking about older films here - late 30s to mid 60s, I suppose), I find it kind of funny now that people whine about the current sympathetic interpetation of Native Americans and the portrayal of white people as bad guys (yet they all love Deadwood, full of the most venal characters outside of I, Claudius) when there was precious little of that in the stuff I've grown up with.
     
  14. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Speaking of supernatural Clint, there's some of that in Pale Rider. Speaking of supernatural westerns, anyone seen Grim Prairie Tales?
     
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  15. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Films today always try to be respectful to such hot-button issues, so most Native American stuff is given clinical respect it is boring and lacks allegory. Then you have Avatar which is sorta too allegorical, but maybe necessarily so. I'd like to see a film go out on a limb and do to the Ghost Dance what Get Out did to race relations. It almost writes itself, some tribes believed it was a pacifist movement and others truly believed that if they danced for 5 days then spirits of the dead would come back and get rid of the white people. It in effect killed Sitting Bull and led to Wounded Knee. Maybe not respectful (depends on how its done) but a Ghost Dance zombie/ghost film would in effect be to the US/California Genocide what all those Chinese ghost girl movies are to that area's 80's solution to the one-child rule. A nation's past coming back to haunt. But I digress.

    Devil's Doorway?
    Cheyenne Autumn?

    I had the VHS back in the day. The best part was what's his face from Superman literally getting swallowed up by a hot strange lady, but not through the mouth. LOL.
     
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  16. Have you seen Bone Tomahawk?
     
  17. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Cheyenne Autumn is a long, lingering attempt to look at things from the other side with a strange interlude involving Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp. It's late period Ford and there are some process shots with Edward G. because I believe he wasn't well enough to travel. They barely lave the mythic landscape of Monument Valley, of course. There's probably too much focus on Widmark, but he's used as the audience's way in. It's gut wrenching but a story of triumph soured. The real story, of course, is what happened after that. I can't imagine we'll get too many films about an abusive edustaion system, but I'd like to see more films about the modern period, but we still get white saviour stuff like Wind River or (half-white saviour stuff) like Thunderheart - both of which I enjoyed and at least we get Native American actors in main speaking roles instead of Sal Mineo or Anthony Quinn or Ricardo Montalbano or...
     
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  18. MichaelH

    MichaelH Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bakersfield
    I'm not really a western fan but I do really love the three burials of Melquiades Estrada and An Unfinished Life.
     
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  19. MrSka57

    MrSka57 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse, New York
    Gonna add The Mandalorian - Have Gun Will Travel in outer space.
     
  20. freddog

    freddog Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I met Slim Pickens in 1979 when he was going to be interviewed on a TV show that I was a PA on. I had to get his signature on a release form, and as I did this I told him I was a fan, and how great I thought he was in that scene.

    He looked up at me for a moment, nodded, and then slowly said, "You know, when we shot that ....we knew we really had something....because when it was over... the script girl had tears in her eyes."

    When he said it he sounded just like Slim Pickens--that guy you see in the movies. He was the real deal.


    I relive that moment every time I watch that film and see that scene.
     
  21. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    That's an incredible scene. Everything works: Dylan's song, Pickens looking at the water and then looking at Katy Jurado. the beautiful cinematography. Peckinpah is one of the finest directors that America produced. His talent shown through, even when he was compromised creatively or by his own demons.
     
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  22. drumzNspace

    drumzNspace Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Yuck City
    Three Amigos
     
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  23. Doghouse Riley

    Doghouse Riley Forum Resident

    Location:
    North West England
    It's got to be this.
    OK a "Modern Day Western" but still my favourite.

     
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  24. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits.... Thread Starter

    Robards?
    Would have preferred James Stewart.
     
  25. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits.... Thread Starter

    Straw Dogs is effectively a western.
     

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