Acid Westerns

[IdleRich]

OK, I love the aesthetic of westerns and I love it when something lovingly subverts a genre without ruining it. Also, I love weird films so basically the genre that is called acid western should be right up my street - silent blackclad gunmen, hallucinations, vivid colours in the deserts, the hopeful american frontier dream gone wrong etc all good fun.
As I understand it the first acid western is generally considered to be The Shooting directed by Monte Hellman and staring Warren Oates and Jack Nicholson (did I mention I like this film?). Not as weird or hallucinatory as all that but the mysterious plot leaving so many unexplained questions combined with the fact that you don't really know who anyone is or what they want leaves viewing this as a thoroughly odd experience.
After that the genre goes totally nuts with El Topo and Django Kill I suppose and more recently there was Blueberry or whatever it was called. Maybe the Thai film Tears of The Black Tiger fits into this category, it's certainly got the colours and it subverts the genre by setting it in the wild east and being a musical and generally being ridiculous.
What else should I look out for? Has anyone seen this The Good The Bad and The Weird thing or Miike's recent take on a Django film - I'm kinda intrigued by both of these. Also there is a French one called A Girl Is A Gun or something which I'd like to see.
Any more tips.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Dead Man - the film that inspired the term "Acid Western"
The Proposition - written by Nick Cave who also did the soundtrack
Jeremiah Johnson
High Plains Drifter - a lot of classic Eastwood stuff is pretty tripped out actually but especially this one

 

[IdleRich]

Dead Man - the film that inspired the term "Acid Western"

Oh aye, I read about this one actually. Any good?

"The Proposition - written by Nick Cave who also did the soundtrack"

Is this an acid western? I guess it's dark which is supposed to be one characteristic but other than that I can't see the link. Either way it was very disappointing I thought.

Never seen High Plains Drifter.

I reckon that Blood Meridian may fit into this category if/when it comes out.

 

[empty mirror]

Westworld

 

[IdleRich]

Oh yeah, that's a really cool film. I suppose it fits the bill. Such a chilling image, the inexorable robot on their trail.

 

[nochexxx]

does el topo count?

 

[empty mirror]

the porno industry did their take on it in the 1970s---SexWorld
the trajectory was the same, iirc. more humor and... fluids.

 

[IdleRich]

does el topo count?

Yeah definitely, that's why I mentioned it in the first post. It's definitely "acid" and it's western enough in my books. Why aren't there more films like this?

 

[carlos]

haven't seen Zachariah (1971) in a long time- but it might fit the bill:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068011/

Gunfights and electric guitars in the Old West? You bet! Zachariah gets a mail order gun, practices a little, and kills a man in the local saloon. He and his friend Matthew set out to become gunfighters, joining with the Crackers, a rock band who are also (pitifully inept) stage robbers. Having quickly outgrown that gang, Zachariah and Matthew set out to become bigtime gunslingers. Before long, they part company and a rivalry grows between them

also, not exactly "acid"- but Dirty Little Billy is an odd one about Billy The Kid

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068487/

and i would nominate The Missouri Breaks, mostly for Brando's unhinged performance

also, a lot of big-budget westerns in the late 60s and early 70s were a little strange- like Little Big Man for example. maybe not acid-damaged but still weird.

 

[empty mirror]

[ok, not acid, but maybe herbal westerns:
the three amigos
blazing saddles
butch cassidy & the sundance kid]

 

[IdleRich]

Dirty Little Billy is a new one on me. Sounds cool.

 

[nochexxx]

Yeah definitely, that's why I mentioned it in the first post. It's definitely "acid" and it's western enough in my books. Why aren't there more films like this?

sorry I was speed reading posts under the nose of my manager again.

the other day she caught me reading k-punks nuum piece .

 

[IdleRich]

"the other day she caught me reading k-punks nuum piece"

It's only a matter time until that happens to me.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Oh aye, I read about this one actually. Any good?

hell yeah it is, a total mindf**k of movie unlike some of Jarmusch's stuff which aims for that & misses (though I'm generally a fan of his work). Johnny Depp at his weirdest, Gary Farmer, gay cannibal bounty hunters. if ever there was a film that took all the tradiitonal signposts of the "West" & flipped them inside out this is it.

Is this an acid western? I guess it's dark which is supposed to be one characteristic but other than that I can't see the link. Either way it was very disappointing I thought.

well not in the traditional sense of an "acid western" though that's kinda why I mentioned it. more revisionist than acid I guess but I seem to remember some psychedelic elements. maybe it's just the soundtrack. and yeah, I dunno, I can't really defend it, I liked it but can see how you might it find to be awful.

Never seen High Plains Drifter.

well like I said a lot of his classic Westerns are kind of (and unintentionally I suspect) pyschedelic. HPD specifically b/c of certain aspects of the film which I don't want to give away if you haven't seen it.

I reckon that Blood Meridian may fit into this category if/when it comes out.

omg is someone actually making a film version? I can see being either absolutely amazing or terrible, perhaps both at once. I'm thinking of like Apocalypse Now, Dune (Lynch's version), Man of La Mancha stuff here. I can't imagine a major studio financing it though perhaps there's a chance now w/both The Road & No Country For Old Men achieving mainstream success.

 

[IdleRich]

"hell yeah it is, a total mindf**k of movie unlike some of Jarmusch's stuff which aims for that & misses (though I'm generally a fan of his work). Johnny Depp at his weirdest, Gary Farmer, gay cannibal bounty hunters. if ever there was a film that took all the tradiitonal signposts of the "West" & flipped them inside out this is it."

That sounds great.

well like I said a lot of his classic Westerns are kind of (and unintentionally I suspect) pyschedelic. HPD specifically b/c of certain aspects of the film which I don't want to give away if you haven't seen it.

Having said that I like westerns (which I do) there are an awful number of the classics that I haven't seen. Think I came to the genre late.

"omg is someone actually making a film version? I can see being either absolutely amazing or terrible, perhaps both at once. I'm thinking of like Apocalypse Now, Dune (Lynch's version), Man of La Mancha stuff here. I can't imagine a major studio financing it though perhaps there's a chance now w/both The Road & No Country For Old Men achieving mainstream success."

It's supposedly been in the works for a while now I think. I'm like you though, I think it would be a brave studio that actually dared produce something that was true to the book. I'm waiting with crossed fingers and I agree that NCFOM makes it more possible. This is what it says at the end of the wikipedia article (for the book)

"A film adaptation to be written and directed by Todd Field and produced by Scott Rudin is in the works.[19] Ridley Scott was previously attached to the film before Field took over."

I didn't know that the director had been changed.

 

[mister matthew]

Four of the Apocalypse by Fulci
The Hired Hand
Deadlock by Roland Klick (soundtrack by Can!)

 

[IdleRich]

"Four of the Apocalypse by Fulci"

Had a disagreement with Craner about that one somewhere on this page.

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=8324&page=2

 

[mister matthew]

Yeah I didn't really like it much either as it goes. Thought it warranted a mention though.

Kinda maybe another one... 'Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia'... contemporary setting (contemporary to 1974 anyway), but very odd and hard not to read in relation to Peckinpah's other 'proper' Westerns.....

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Having said that I like westerns (which I do) there are an awful number of the classics that I haven't seen. Think I came to the genre late.

yeh me too actually. I've seen way more weird/acid westerns than I have traditional ones. being American tho it's kinda different, obv. Westerns are a pretty big piece of American pop culture like Clint Eastwood for example probably nearly every American over a certain age has seen at least a couple of his spaghetti flicks.

I'm waiting with crossed fingers and I agree that NCFOM makes it more possible.

also The Road which I guess has already been shot & everything & is due for a release later this yr. though I dunno, both The Road & NCFOM have something for people to connect to, The Road despite its grim setting is actually an "uplifting" story about a father & his son, NCFOM has the sheriff, also it deals with a lot of contemporary stuff, drugs & the border & so on. Blood Meridian is just a lot more...ah uncompromising you know? no sympathetic characters, chock full of humanity at its most brutal & callous. also it's so sweeping in scope, Biblical like, and so dense & full of allusions, the way he uses language. I guess the more I think about I can't imagine any film really doing it justice.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Kinda maybe another one... 'Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia'... contemporary setting (contemporary to 1974 anyway), but very odd and hard not to read in relation to Peckinpah's other 'proper' Westerns.....

though Straw Dogs is kind of well not acid but also not what I would call a "proper" Western.