Damn Gringos
I got a soft spot for westerns. Mostly cause my Dad watched a lotta John Wayne movies when I was a kid (gotta love Big Jake), and cause I've always liked Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone's Man with No Name series (or at least, Fist Full of Dollars and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Never got around to watching A Few Dollars More). The appeal of the Western is similiar to the appeal of the Samurai film (which is why several Westerns used Akira Kurasawa's movies as a template...), namely, hard men in a hard envioronment living (and usually dieing) but questionable Codes of Honor.
As far as my personal collection goes, I only own two Westerns, and they're the harshest, nastiest, dirtiest Westerns I could get my grubby little mits on: Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" and Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch". I watched the Wild Bunch last night. Man, that is one Dark movie. How Dark, you ask? In the opening scene, a gang of bandits (our "heroes") disguised as US Army officers, robs the payroll of a Rail Road Depot. But, the hiest is a trap, and a railroad baron, operating under the auspices of the law, and flanked by a small army of scumbag bounty hunters, are preparing to bushwhack our heroes. But things don't go as planned, and a group of Marching Prohibitionists get caught in the crossfire. Death comes in big, fat buckets, and by the time it's done, the only moral the filmmaker seems to be clueing us into is this: "There are no good guys, there are no bad guys, the law is bullshit, and we're all gonna die sooner or later". Like I said, Dark.
Still, in the end, it's not all nihilism. Our boys ultimately confront an entire, well armed Mexican army just to rescue one of their own. Sure they're outgunned, but they do it anyway. So the real moral seems to be: "If you don't stick up for your friends, you ain't worth the shit you're printed on". Which is probably why I dig the flick so much.
That and it's violent as all hell.
As far as my personal collection goes, I only own two Westerns, and they're the harshest, nastiest, dirtiest Westerns I could get my grubby little mits on: Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" and Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch". I watched the Wild Bunch last night. Man, that is one Dark movie. How Dark, you ask? In the opening scene, a gang of bandits (our "heroes") disguised as US Army officers, robs the payroll of a Rail Road Depot. But, the hiest is a trap, and a railroad baron, operating under the auspices of the law, and flanked by a small army of scumbag bounty hunters, are preparing to bushwhack our heroes. But things don't go as planned, and a group of Marching Prohibitionists get caught in the crossfire. Death comes in big, fat buckets, and by the time it's done, the only moral the filmmaker seems to be clueing us into is this: "There are no good guys, there are no bad guys, the law is bullshit, and we're all gonna die sooner or later". Like I said, Dark.
Still, in the end, it's not all nihilism. Our boys ultimately confront an entire, well armed Mexican army just to rescue one of their own. Sure they're outgunned, but they do it anyway. So the real moral seems to be: "If you don't stick up for your friends, you ain't worth the shit you're printed on". Which is probably why I dig the flick so much.
That and it's violent as all hell.
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