John Wayne (in his final film)
Lauren Bacall
Ron Howard
James Stewart
Harry Morgan
Hugh O'Brian
A character study, actually. John Wayne plays an aging gunfighter (a term, you learn in a special feature, which was actually not used in "the day;" hence, The Shootist) who learns he is terminally ill and seeks a quiet place to live out his days. Trouble follows him there, of course.
Anyway, some really good performances and a nice twist on the classic Western. I rented the movie thinking it would be one Sharon wouldn't particularly care to see and which I could watch after she went to bed. She was in & out of the room and taking care of some things before hitting the sack, but slowly got kind of sucked in. Though she knows who John Wayne is, she didn't really understand his status in the pantheon of American cinema. I was sort of trying to explain that; and also trying to explain how the genre of Western, which on the surface is essentially different variations of the same movie, warrants its own status as a uniquely American art form. Then it struck me-The Aristocrats. That movie, if you know or recall, is about two hours of every comedian under the sun telling the same vulgar joke, but with each one doing it in their own style, adding their own art and just going with it. I have not seen that movie but I defniitely plan to. It's all about admiration of the craft. and is very analagous to the craft of The Western (that of the directors such as George Siegel & John Ford, and the delivery of actors such as Wayne, Gary Cooper, or Randolph Scott).
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I haven't seen The Shootist since I was a child. I remember liking it far less than the 'normal' John Wayne movie because of it's slowness and general lack of action. I'm sure the very concept was against my interests as well.
Also interested in watching The Aristocrats, though I'm not quite seeing the same parallel you are. I get the 'variations on a theme' comcept, but the admiration of craft sends the two in different directions. 2 hours of dissection of the same joke is not the same as 500 (or more) movies built around the same concept.
I think the themes of the western are themes that recur in a number of different cultures, the setting just changes. The Seven Samurai, an obvious example, is as much a western as anything, but it certainly lacks the wide-open spaces and hardscrabble landscape of the American west.
And that's not to take anything away from westerns. I grew up watching them and they hold a special place in my heart.
This isn't really thought out here, just kind of going off the top of my head...I would disagree about the 7 Samurai. I've heard that before, and I don't think it gives either genre nearly enough credit. The Western is a lot more than about solving problems with guns and revenge.
You can't say the only difference between the two is the wide-open spaces and hardscrabble landscape. Wide-open spaces and hardscrabble landscape IS the Western. The cowboys in those movies, as idealistic and unrealistic as they may have been, are defined by a very American-sort of individualism. It's all about characters that won't be fenced in and couldn't exist in any compartmentalized, civilized society. That's where some of the most powerful themes-whether tragic or wistful or heroic or whatever in the movies come in. The contrast to this freedom & openness in things like jail, "settling down," or even sickness and being infirm (as in The Shootist). And, of course, being gunned down.
I many ways that's crap.
The western is more often than not about anti-heroes, people who you might not otherwise support but who have been pushed to their limits by people they would otherwise avoid, to stand up against people who are truly bad. It's often about redemption, a last chance for someone who has done wrong most of their lives to get it right. It's often about the little guy standing up to the big guy.
I'll grant that the American west is an excellent choice for this concept, with its barren landscape and people struggling to survive with what they've managed to eke from the earth with their own two hands, but that's as much a matter of historical convenience as it is about anything particularly unique.
It's just a possible to imagine a far earlier era, where Mesopotamian farmers are in a similar set of circumstances, and the results would be much the same. Scraping the most meager of livings from the ground, defending yourself from those that would cheat you of your hard work; it's been going on for millenia. (thank god not always with Kris Kristopherson)
We romanticize The West as Americans as some sort of idyllic time of simplicity and justice, man triumphing against a harsh and unforgiving nature, and god knows what other poppycock, and we think it was a unique event in human history that sets us apart. But that's mostly historical myopia.
Movies that portray this are using a familiar and convenient backdrop, but they are not uniquely American situations. It is a uniquely American art form, the movie, and almost always made on our terms.
Sounds like someone is hanker'in for a hang'in. You better step down from that eastcoast ivry tower and strap on a six shooter, because talk like that will get a piece of lead put in a man's ass.
With yer kind of cowboy, a man's likely to get a piece of man up his ass.
Well, Mixxy, we'll just disagree. Obviously, the real old West was not all that much like the West depicted in these movies. But I think there was a perfect storm of circumstances (manifest destiny, enormous tracts of untamed land even as our government became more established, major cultural divides-or perceptions of such-between East and West, pioneers & cowboys being descendents of explorers, etc.) that made the frontier unique both in reality and the cinema.
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