"It’s what constitutes “best” and how we get there that births our biggest problems." This peice is a great reminder of the need to stop trying to manipulate people, especially in the current minefield of social media. I have burnt my fingers and learned the hard way through political activism. Only expereince has tamed that impulse. We can only be responsible for our own truth and allow others their sovereignty.
It's incredibly hard to resist that impulse to "try" to bring people to see what we're certain would improve them and the world, but I remind myself that it's often the case that the journey of coming to realize and accept a truth on your own is an integral part of what makes that truth transformative for us.
BTW, I'm the guy who proposed High Noon on the Silver Eye channel. I feel a little bad about it now because while it's one of my favorite movies and it certainly was meant to be an allegory for McCarthyism (making it rather timely today), there isn't really all that much to it, unlike, for example, Outlaw Josey Wales or a Sergio Leone film. The significance of John Ford movies continues to elude me. My sister and brother-in-law once gave me a DVD of The Searchers and I thought it was just an awful film. I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
And I've used this avatar in various venues for years and years.
Haha don't worry! Give me your best western recommendation and we'll go with that one. I've only seen a few and can't even remember what they were, so you're the expert on westerns here by far! I'm open to any recommendations.
And I appreciate you reading even though it made you sad!
No one has ever called me an expert on westerns before.
Until recently, I didn’t even like westerns. I’ve never been into cowboys and all that horsey stuff and I’m still not (except Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses; beautiful novel, never saw the film and never will). When I was younger I was very interested in science fiction, and at some point it occurred to me that westerns were the precursors of science fiction: both genres concern settings where the everyday rules and constraints of modern life no longer apply, which allows for exciting storytelling and outsized heroes (something Homer was well aware of, too).
Of course Star Wars, which is considered by many the ultimate science fiction movie (even though it’s not at all science fiction, but I long ago decided I would not die on that hill) is really more or less a western in space. High Noon itself was moved out to one of Jupiter’s moons when it was remade in 1981 as Outland.
Sergio Leone’s first western was based on (actually, ripped off from) Yojimbo, one of Kurosawa’s samurai movies, and no doubt Kurosawa used medieval Japan as his favorite setting for the same reason John Ford used the old west and Homer the mysterious unexplored Mediterranean: exciting storytelling and outsized heroes. You can either tell small stories about people living in modern Tokyo, or big stories about ronin in feudal Japan. In Hollywood the big stories were westerns (and later Hollywood remade another Kurosawa masterpiece, the Seven Samurai, as a big-budget all-star western, The Magnificent Seven).
High Noon occurred to me instantly partly because, well, it’s one of my top ten favorite movies; and also because of the McCarthyism angle, which makes it topical. Not much goes on in the film, though, and I thought that might be an issue, but now I see that in many of your Silver Eye discussions you don’t really spend a lot of time discussing plot points. The appeal of the main character, Marshall Will Kane, is his inviolable principles in the face of grave danger, something you already discussed at length during your chat about Full Metal Jacket. Beside that the character is increasingly and visibly terrified for his own safety as the film progresses, which is what makes such an interesting film in the context of other American westerns. And the female characters are good too (and unusual, I think, for the 1950s).
Before I saw High Noon my favorite western was The Outlaw Josie Wales. I’m not sure this rambling episodic tale of betrayal, redemption and revenge is on anyone’s lists of great westerns, except mine. At one level it’s a sort of western Exodus of misfits to a Promised Land (in Texas!) that can never be settled by the Moses who leads them there. I have the DVD and have sat through the entire film a number of times, but have probably watched the final scene maybe 20 or 30 times.
One day I mentioned Josie Wales to a friend, who countered that I needed to see Sergio Leone’s films, particularly his three Man with No Name movies (beginning with A Fistful of Dollars, the Yojimbo rip-off). The best thing these films had was style, since the plots were pretty throw-away and over the top when they weren’t stolen. But they changed the look of the western forever. And boy was I surprised when, halfway through The Good The Bad and the Ugly I found myself watching a sprawling anti-war epic.
I’m not going to say anything about John Wayne; I loathed his on-screen persona. The only time I thought he was interesting was in True Grit and The Shootist (his final film), when he wasn’t playing “John Wayne.” Still, when most people think of the greatest Hollywood western, The Searchers always gets a mention. I don't understand why. All the critics loved it. The French loved it too, but then they loved Jerry Lewis.
Finally, you might want to consider commenting on how obsessed our safe space society is with portraying graphic violence on-screen. A few years ago my ex got a copy of the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma from Netflix. While watching this movie, as the bodies piled up (something like 20 or 30 of them, I lost count), I said out loud, “This is absurd! The most famous gunfight in the old west, at the OK Corral, only resulted in three deaths! What is all this horseshit?” I really dislike gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence in films, and in fact refuse to see films if I know in advance there’s going to be a lot of such stuff. But 3:10 to Yuma wasn’t really known as a terribly violent film, was it? It was really over the top.
I’d never seen the 1957 original, but the next day I looked it up on Wikipedia, and as far as I can tell from reading the plot summary only maybe a couple of people died. So why does the 2007 version have to have some two dozen bodies? WTF is going on?
"It’s what constitutes “best” and how we get there that births our biggest problems." This peice is a great reminder of the need to stop trying to manipulate people, especially in the current minefield of social media. I have burnt my fingers and learned the hard way through political activism. Only expereince has tamed that impulse. We can only be responsible for our own truth and allow others their sovereignty.
You said it perfectly.
It's incredibly hard to resist that impulse to "try" to bring people to see what we're certain would improve them and the world, but I remind myself that it's often the case that the journey of coming to realize and accept a truth on your own is an integral part of what makes that truth transformative for us.
This is really good stuff. Even though it was all weird.
Thank you! Haha I suppose sometimes the purely weird is actually güd.
Well played.
This post made me sad.
BTW, I'm the guy who proposed High Noon on the Silver Eye channel. I feel a little bad about it now because while it's one of my favorite movies and it certainly was meant to be an allegory for McCarthyism (making it rather timely today), there isn't really all that much to it, unlike, for example, Outlaw Josey Wales or a Sergio Leone film. The significance of John Ford movies continues to elude me. My sister and brother-in-law once gave me a DVD of The Searchers and I thought it was just an awful film. I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
And I've used this avatar in various venues for years and years.
Haha don't worry! Give me your best western recommendation and we'll go with that one. I've only seen a few and can't even remember what they were, so you're the expert on westerns here by far! I'm open to any recommendations.
And I appreciate you reading even though it made you sad!
No one has ever called me an expert on westerns before.
Until recently, I didn’t even like westerns. I’ve never been into cowboys and all that horsey stuff and I’m still not (except Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses; beautiful novel, never saw the film and never will). When I was younger I was very interested in science fiction, and at some point it occurred to me that westerns were the precursors of science fiction: both genres concern settings where the everyday rules and constraints of modern life no longer apply, which allows for exciting storytelling and outsized heroes (something Homer was well aware of, too).
Of course Star Wars, which is considered by many the ultimate science fiction movie (even though it’s not at all science fiction, but I long ago decided I would not die on that hill) is really more or less a western in space. High Noon itself was moved out to one of Jupiter’s moons when it was remade in 1981 as Outland.
Sergio Leone’s first western was based on (actually, ripped off from) Yojimbo, one of Kurosawa’s samurai movies, and no doubt Kurosawa used medieval Japan as his favorite setting for the same reason John Ford used the old west and Homer the mysterious unexplored Mediterranean: exciting storytelling and outsized heroes. You can either tell small stories about people living in modern Tokyo, or big stories about ronin in feudal Japan. In Hollywood the big stories were westerns (and later Hollywood remade another Kurosawa masterpiece, the Seven Samurai, as a big-budget all-star western, The Magnificent Seven).
High Noon occurred to me instantly partly because, well, it’s one of my top ten favorite movies; and also because of the McCarthyism angle, which makes it topical. Not much goes on in the film, though, and I thought that might be an issue, but now I see that in many of your Silver Eye discussions you don’t really spend a lot of time discussing plot points. The appeal of the main character, Marshall Will Kane, is his inviolable principles in the face of grave danger, something you already discussed at length during your chat about Full Metal Jacket. Beside that the character is increasingly and visibly terrified for his own safety as the film progresses, which is what makes such an interesting film in the context of other American westerns. And the female characters are good too (and unusual, I think, for the 1950s).
Before I saw High Noon my favorite western was The Outlaw Josie Wales. I’m not sure this rambling episodic tale of betrayal, redemption and revenge is on anyone’s lists of great westerns, except mine. At one level it’s a sort of western Exodus of misfits to a Promised Land (in Texas!) that can never be settled by the Moses who leads them there. I have the DVD and have sat through the entire film a number of times, but have probably watched the final scene maybe 20 or 30 times.
One day I mentioned Josie Wales to a friend, who countered that I needed to see Sergio Leone’s films, particularly his three Man with No Name movies (beginning with A Fistful of Dollars, the Yojimbo rip-off). The best thing these films had was style, since the plots were pretty throw-away and over the top when they weren’t stolen. But they changed the look of the western forever. And boy was I surprised when, halfway through The Good The Bad and the Ugly I found myself watching a sprawling anti-war epic.
I’m not going to say anything about John Wayne; I loathed his on-screen persona. The only time I thought he was interesting was in True Grit and The Shootist (his final film), when he wasn’t playing “John Wayne.” Still, when most people think of the greatest Hollywood western, The Searchers always gets a mention. I don't understand why. All the critics loved it. The French loved it too, but then they loved Jerry Lewis.
Finally, you might want to consider commenting on how obsessed our safe space society is with portraying graphic violence on-screen. A few years ago my ex got a copy of the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma from Netflix. While watching this movie, as the bodies piled up (something like 20 or 30 of them, I lost count), I said out loud, “This is absurd! The most famous gunfight in the old west, at the OK Corral, only resulted in three deaths! What is all this horseshit?” I really dislike gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence in films, and in fact refuse to see films if I know in advance there’s going to be a lot of such stuff. But 3:10 to Yuma wasn’t really known as a terribly violent film, was it? It was really over the top.
I’d never seen the 1957 original, but the next day I looked it up on Wikipedia, and as far as I can tell from reading the plot summary only maybe a couple of people died. So why does the 2007 version have to have some two dozen bodies? WTF is going on?