Western Movies

luka said:

uh oh, it's all gone 'film studies'

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"You think I'm here to amuse you, to entertain you?" [Pesci, Goodfellas]

Yeh, Padraig, I think you should tone down your intelligent, thoughtful and interesting posts and get into the spirt of things round here.

Great to see the Spaghetti flicks mentioned on here, always amazed at the lack of intelligent writing and cult fanaticism surrounding this genre as opposed to say Hong Kong flicks. For starters there totaly bonkers, easily as nuts the average Hong Kong ghost movie, and almost as creative in thier sharpshooting and dynamite tossing as the Hong Kong flicks are in thier wirework and fistfights. Then there is the casts, you have Terrence Hill and Van Cleef sharing the screen with Peter Fonda and fucking Rod Steiger! Obv dont even need to mention the soundtracks.
If ur into both the Spaghetti flicks and martial art, deffo check out the Babycart movies (and the synth soundtracked Western composite Shogun Assasin) wich are like superviolent re-imports of Kurosawa via Leone.
A great tragedy is that just before his death Leone had started making a Leningrad movie, that would have had everything, Stalingrad meets For a Few Dollars More!
Christopher Fraylings new biog is in a bookshop near u and ITV4 is showing a season of Alex Cox introduced Spaghetti flicks. Next 1, Monday the 6th 1am - Dajngo Kill.

Glad I just noticed this thread after a bit of a Dissensus hiatus on my part (new job) while looking for Deadwood reviews (I'll get it).

Padraig said:

Henry S: and movies like The Wild Bunch and The Unforgiven are great precisely because they critique the western narrative...

Eastwood's Unforgiven ostensibly critiques it only to viscerally, sadistically reinforce it in its violently revenge-deadlocked denouement.

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I think this is true. I recently watched Mystic River and I have to say it's probably one of the most pretentious films I've ever seen. The music is a bit corny and often inappropriate - and lo Music composed and conducted by Eastwood (I think he wanted the royalties) - and the ending was really dubious... very much a cheap "revenge-deadlocked denouement".

And not dubious in the way another "relocated" western which I also recently weatched is, namely Straw Dogs, which was dubious/pulpy but also funny and more importantly perhaps thought provoking.

As I've said before, I'm a Leone nut: he has the craft down pat, as well as Morricone and some great dialogue and ideas. I never knew about that Leningrad movie: what a great loss; I hope Speilberg never considers "completing" it...

"A Fistful of Dynamite" is my fave along with "The Good the Bad and the Ugly".

Does anyone else think "Blazing Saddles" is a take off of "Once Upon a Time in the West"?

And if we're talking about humorous westerns how can you go past "The Three Amigos"? Classic genius movie imo.

Yeah I prefer the 7 Samurai over the Magnificent 7.

A friend of mine recommended "A Man Called Horse". What does the Dissensus Brains Trust think of that? Any good?

D84 said:

"A Fistful of Dynamite" is my fave along with "The Good the Bad and the Ugly".

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i've always had a soft spot for "A Fistful of Dynamite"- even though Rod Steiger might just be the worst fake mexican in a western movie- which makes him the best in a way...

A friend of mine recommended "A Man Called Horse". What does the Dissensus Brains Trust think of that? Any good?

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i haven't seen it in a long time- i always remember liking it though...

Man In The Wilderness is another good Richard Harris movie set in the early 1800s (pre-Western...?) so more of a pioneer/explorer saga than a regular post-civil war western. pretty grim survival/revenge yarn about a man left to die in the middle of nowhere. john huston acting (not directing) as the heavy- dominates every scene he's in.

D84 said:

A friend of mine recommended "A Man Called Horse". What does the Dissensus Brains Trust think of that? Any good?

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Good for the gore. Bit dated otherwise perhaps.

Was on TV a couple of weeks ago... 'Little Big Man' explores the same themes and is probably better - been years since Ive seen it though...

does "Westworld" count?

Padraig said:

The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1914), a two-reel pre-cursor to his most (in)famous landmark film, Birth of a Nation (1915).

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I've not seen The Battle of Elderbush Gulch, but it sounds like an opportunity to whip up some fear & hatred toward indians, whereas Birth of a Nation focuses on fear and hatred toward blacks. Is there any other relationship between them which allows Birth of a Nation to be seen as a western?

(Also imdb classifies Birth of a Nation as "War / Drama" so I think it's proven by science that it's not a western!)

Padraig said:

Ironically, the first "real movie" or commercial narrative film that gave birth to the Western genre, Edwin S. Porter's pioneering western The Great Train Robbery (1903), was a one-reel, 10-minute long film, that was shot on the East Coast (New Jersey and Delaware) rather than the Western setting of Wyoming.

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I guess it's kinda ironic, but the setting was still the west right? I can't see anyone who thinks spaghetti westerns aren't westerns becuase they weren't shot in the US!

Padraig said:

Hilarious

... but not women who drive cars, oh no! God forbid!

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Yes, god forbid that I should think to define a genre in the most obvious way possible! Or a film in the most obvious genre - like thinking Thelma & Louise as a road-movie / buddy-film! (one that incorporates many thematic elements from westerns)

If I'm reading you correctly you're casting a wide net with the term western, and it's frankly too large for me. It's true that the first american narrative film was a western, and that the genre is a peculiarly american one, but you seem to be heading toward the idea that nearly all american films are westerns!

I see some very simple features that would define a western - in the time, place and characters - and I think it's a working definition. Call them cowboy films if you like.

Johanek: Yes, god forbid that I should think to define a genre in the most obvious way possible! Or a film in the most obvious genre - like thinking Thelma & Louise as a road-movie / buddy-film! (one that incorporates many thematic elements from westerns)

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So ... if they'd been'a ridin' horseys and dressed up like'a cowboys ...



... a horsey, feel-goody musical love story, not a cowboy flick, oh-no, that would be a calamity -

- too anti-feminist in its reassertion of patriarchy to possibly be that.

Anyone seen any Soviet westerns? I think they were made jointly by Russians and Yugoslavians. Pretty popular in Russia but I've only seen one as a child and don't remember it.

Edit: oops, it wasn't a Russian production but East German. Here's one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202832/

that Gojko Mitic was in a bunch of them playing the leading (Indian) role. If I understand correctly they flip the whole thing around and make Indians the good guys.

Surprised there isn't more westerns that simply reverse the roles like that, the first one that springs to mind surprisingly is Michael Winner's 'Chato's Land'. Speaking of Michael Winner, what people have said abt The Unforgiven and the Wild Bunch critiquing the Western narrative made me think of another of his films, The Mechanic, has anyone else seen this? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068931/
This film is so chilling, Im sure it must be some kind of answer to Winner's critics regarding ultraviolent, macho movies in general. This is the most narcissisticly, homoerotic (Jan-Michael Vincent was perfect for this role) and annihilation fixated movie I've ever seen. Like gangster no1 meets Downfall.

burt lancaster, burt reynolds, chuck connors, paul newman, steve mcqueen have all played indian (or half breed) heroes- lancaster and connors (as geronimo!) looking particularly odd as blue-eyed apaches...

COWBOY REVISIONISM

Lucio Fulci Four of the Apocalypse

Im a big Fulci fan - but for his horror work...

Whats this all about then?

it's a bit strange, not really like a 'normal' spag. western, or any of his other stuff that i;ve seen... although he does manage to get a rape scene and a bit of cannibalism in there

the soundtrack is a right ear worm

mooooooooovin onnn

Fulci made a couple of westerns. Why move on? I like Four of the Apocalypse, although it's brutal.

He also made a giallo called Don't Torture a Duckling and that's an amazing film. Very creepy. Fine Riz Ortolani soundtrack.

I prefer these films to the 80s horror. It's like Sergio Martino's gialli (All the Colours of the Dark, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) and spaghetti western (Manaja - A Man Called Blade) - better than those ridiculous cannibal/gore/sex movies.

Gialli and spaghetti westerns have the best titles in movie history.

I like The Great Silence most of all (the film, not the title). "Say hello to Silence!"

sorry i was singing the song, not saying we should move on. i quite liked it too. it's a bit odd though innit, the quite mushy bit with the baby in particular...

gialli and spag westerns do have the best titles! i watched The House with the Laughing Windows last night, pupi avati.