The AFI has come out with it’s list of ten best films in several categories so I have to jump right in with some lists of my own. So I will be slipping them in here and there to lighten up the atmosphere. I will post them five at a time.
Best Westerns (Not the hotel douche bag)
10. She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. I don’t know it this really qualifies as a Western but the themes and the photography are great. I want to include Ford’s cavalry pictures as westerns. The theme of an old warhorse retiring to be replaced by the younger generation is a recurring one in Ford’s later work. John Wayne gives a stellar performance as Captain Nathan Brittles and his cemetery scene where he talks to his wife let me go to my dad’s grave and talk to him without feeling self conscious. The photography and costumes were influenced by the great western artist Fredrick Remington and the shots during the storm were just a lucky break that Ford just kept rolling through. Superb.
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Lee Marvin is the best villain that I ever saw. He had this fuck you attitude that was right on the money. Jimmy Stewart can get a little cloying but he had an edge here as the slightly sleazy lawyer who steals the Dukes girl. Woody Strode had another of his great almost silent performances as Pompey. “When the truth disagrees with the Legend, print the Legend.” Or the modern newsman’s motto, “Just make shit up.”
8. Johnny Guitar. Man this is a great movie. Joan Crawford is unbelievable and the dialogue is unreal. Nicholas Ray is a great underrated director.
Johnny: How many men have you forgotten?
Vienna: As many women as you've remembered.
Johnny: Don't go away.
Vienna: I haven't moved.
Johnny: Tell me something nice.
Vienna: Sure, what do you want to hear?
Johnny: Lie to me. Tell me all these years you've waited. Tell me.
Vienna: [without feeling] All those years I've waited.
Johnny: Tell me you'd a-died if I hadn't come back.
Vienna: [without feeling] I woulda died if you hadn't come back.
Johnny: Tell me you still love me like I love you.
Vienna: [without feeling] I still love you like you love me.
Johnny: [bitterly] Thanks. Thanks a lot.
What a great movie chock full with lesbian overtones and the female lead is named after a sausage.
7. The Long Riders. A great Walter Hill flick where he had a set of brothers play the members of the James Gang. The gang was actually made up of brothers who had run away to fight with Quantrill during the Civil War. The James and Younger clans were cousins and the Millers and the Fords were part of the extended kinship of intermarriage of rural America. As Cole Younger, David Carradine gave his best performance ever. One of my favorite lines of all time is in this movie.
Belle Starr: Coleman Younger! Seems like you folks are havin' a real nice party in there.
Cole Younger: I expect so, with free food and drink and all.
Belle Starr: How come I wasn't invited?
Cole Younger: 'Cause you're a whore, Belle.
Belle Starr: I might be; but at least I ain't a cheap one
"Cause you’re a whore, Belle." Love it.
6. Unforgiven. A great Clint Eastwood flic that really shows what violence is all about. The performances by Richard Haris and Gene Hackman are great as well. Morgan Freeman overdoes the saintly Negro bit but at least it can serve as a blue print for the Barack Obama campaign. This movie is a distillation of all that Eastwood learned about Westerns throughout his career. The greatest compliment I could give him is that it easily could be a work from Ford or Peckinpaugh. It is by far his best work.
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4 comments:
You know, it took me a while to realize you meant "Not the hotel, douche bag."
I was trying to figure out what a "hotel douche bag" was. You can't have a communal one o' them things, can ya?
Johnny Guitar is under-rated, no doubt.
This is a list, man. I've seen all of these; the only one I'm not sure I'd concur on is The Long Riders, but I haven't seen it in many years.
What would you say, is "Ribbon" a
"frontier movie" more than a "horse opera"?
But that sort of underscores my point. Like, Johnny Guitar belongs in the melodrama category more than the western.
Unforgiven is fairly unique. It tries to be true-to-life, I think, more than most. But I think there were other films that did tht, too, though none are coming to mind.
Here's an intriguing question: Do you put the Indian-heavy movies together? Dances With Wolves in the same category as The Searchers?
I would never but Dances With Wolves in the Best Westerns category because I think it is really overrated. It makes the Indians into child like wonderful people which was not the reality at all. John Ford had dealings with the real things. People who had actually ridden with Geronimo are extras in his films. They were still alive in the '20's and 30's.
So his portrayal of Indians and their culture is more admiring than not. Watch Cheyenne Autumn if you want to see Ford's real opinion.
The movie that does what Dances with Wolves utterly fails to do is Jeremiah Johnson. As much as I hate Robert Redford (the commie fuck) he nails it. Of course that is because of John Milius who had a hand in a lot of my favorite movies. Johnson starts off friends and a trading partner with the Crow, but circumstances change and they go at it tooth and nail. That is a lot closer to the truth than the hippie bullshit of Kevin Costner. So if we made a top ten list of movies about Americas Native American's, Dances with Wolves won't make the cut. It belongs in the stoner pipe dream list.
Well, yeah, as I said, on your next one up, I know Ford (and the greats) really did know their stuff.
It's ironic that all those old westerns are considered so un-nuanced, very sniffed at when I was growing up, and then we get "Wolves".
Milius is great. After not seeing his name on anything in the '90s--although John Goodman does an awesome impression of him in The Big Lebowskie--he turns up on the credits of "Rome". Great stuff.
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