Out of Iowa

Films: The Bridges of Madison County
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

Sometimes, a filmmaker takes an odd turn in his or her career. Wes Craven made Music of the Heart, after all, and Clint Eastwood made The Bridges of Madison County. Those have more in common than being different from their directors’ respective normal genres. Both of them feature an Oscar-nominated performance from Meryl Streep. Given just how many times Streep has been nominated, though, that’s something that apparently can be said of a definable percentage of films.

This is an unusual film in a lot of respects. Clint Eastwood has demonstrated that he is a capable director over and over again. While some of his films are not the macho cop dramas or westerns that one might think based on his filmography, a lot of his movies have a violent element to them and many play on that end of the moral scale. Mystic River, for instance, isn’t a film that has a lot of happy or satisfying endings for anyone involved. With The Bridges of Madison County, though, we’re in very new territory. This is a straight romance without a great deal else around it. It’s slow and almost meditative, even peaceful. I don’t want to imply that Eastwood’s skill set doesn’t include movies on the softer edge thematically, but his romantic moments don’t tend to be the main focus of his films.

Ten Days of Terror!: Play Misty for Me

Films: Play Misty for Me
Format: DVD from Moline Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

When the topics comes around to great directorial debuts, there are a lot of obvious places to go: Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, the Coens and Blood Simple, even Sam Raimi and Evil Dead. For whatever reason, Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, seems to be regularly forgotten. This is a film that for whatever reason doesn’t get a great deal of love when it comes to discussions of genre films, films from the 1970s, or any other specifics. It’s a damn shame, though, because it’s got a great deal going for it. Any director would be proud to claim this as his or her own.

The truth may well be that in 1971, Clint Eastwood was, well, Clint Eastwood. No one could have predicted that a couple of years later he’d be winning Oscars as a director and that people would be legitimately talking about him as one of the great working directors not merely in the States, but in the world. It’s possible that the world can be forgiven for that lack of foresight. Up to this point, Eastwood had starred in a variety of tough guy roles and would continue to do so. But the evidence is here that Eastwood took a lot of lessons while he was in front of the camera.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Film: American Sniper
Format: HBO Go on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve avoided watching American Sniper specifically because I haven’t been interested in it. I’ve said before that I grew up on war films and that’s true to a large extent; many of my formative films centered on World War II. I still have a historical interest in World War II because in many ways I think it is the last noble war in which the United States was involved. More modern wars interest me less, and our involvement in conflicts in the Middle East over the last couple of decades despite any political rhetoric have seemed to me to be more morally dubious. So, suspecting that American Sniper could well be jingoism disguised as military drama, I’ve stayed away.

I have to get to it eventually, though, and figured today when I’m alone at home for the bulk of the day would be a good opportunity. That and it’s disappearing from HBO at the end of the month, so it was a chance to take out a film that I would otherwise have to find in a library or get on disc. These considerations are important when it comes to pursuing a large list of films.

Murder Most Foul

Film: Mystic River
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I’ve seen a lot of movies. Mystic River is the 292nd movie I’ve watched this year alone, and of those movies, 233 (including this one) were new to me. This is not an anomaly. Because of this, I’m not that easy to surprise. I was pretty sure I knew where Mystic River was going to go in the first 15 minutes. Then the movies spends the next two hours showing me that I was wrong. This is a film that doesn’t go in the direction I expected. It might start like a cliché, but it certainly doesn’t follow through. That’s always a good thing.

We start with a trio of kids playing hockey on the street in a Boston neighborhood. Their ball goes down a sewer, which forces them to give up the game. They spot some drying cement, and two of the boys scratch their names into it. The third is halfway through his name when he’s accosted by what looks like a police officer. He’s the only one of the three who doesn’t live on the street where the boys are playing, so the “cop” drags him off. It turns out this wasn’t a cop, and Dave, the young boy, is sexually abused for a few days before he escapes. This drives a wedge between the three boys.

Every Parent's Nightmare

Film: Changeling
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

There’s a moment in Changeling that, through no fault of the movie, pulled me out of it completely. It happens in the first half hour and it was completely unexpected. It is one of the first moments on screen of Police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan). He tells Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) that her son has been found outside of DeKalb, Illinois. Why does this mean anything? Well, I live in DeKalb, Illinois, and my older daughter in particular is a huge fan of Jeffrey Donovan thanks to Burn Notice. So for just a moment, it was Michael Westen talking about my home town.

Changeling takes place in the early 1930s during the Depression. Christine Collins lives with her young son Walter (Gattlin Griffith). One day, picking up an extra shift at work, she comes home to find Walter gone. Eventually, the police return her son to her, but it is obviously not her boy. This replacement Walter, who insists that is who he is, has been circumcised and is three or four inches shorter. He also looks nothing like Walter. Christine is naturally insistent that the police have returned the wrong boy, but Captain Jones and doctors on the police payroll insist that he is.

It's Afrikaans, not Africaan't

Film: Invictus
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

Someone needs to talk to marketing people. There are times when you can be assured that most of a film’s audience knows the history and there are times when the film audience doesn’t. In the case of Invictus, which follows both Nelson Mandela’s early days as President of South Africa and the 1995 Rugby World Cup, it’s much more the latter than the former. I’m sure there are plenty of people who know all about rugby, but the bulk of an American audience views the game with the same quizzical expression we do Australian rules football and cricket. So putting a picture of Matt Damon on the front of the DVD case holding up the trophy? That kind of spoils the ending.

Anyway, that really is what Invictus is about. Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is released from prison and shortly thereafter, with black South Africans given the right to vote, elected to the presidency of the nation. Naturally, this is a tense situation, since organized and authorized racism had been the law of the land for so long. Mandela seeks to change all of that, first be assuring the white staff members of his government office that they are welcome to stay at their posts. This is further reinforced when, needing additional security, he brings in a team of white, military trained personnel who a few years before had been trained to repress more than half of the population. None of this sits well with his head of security, Jason Tshabalala (Tony Kgoroge).

Can't Send No Postcards

Film: Letters from Iwo Jima
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I consider myself a fan of Ken Watanabe for the same reason that I’m a fan of people like Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and David Gulpilil: they all have gravitas. There is a presence that each of them (and many others) bring to every role they undertake. When Watanabe is on screen, I want to watch him. Letters from Iwo Jima may not be my favorite of his films (I have a soft spot for Tampopo), but it might be his most impressive role.

As the name of the film implies, this is a war film. What makes it particularly unusual is that despite its being directed by Clint Eastwood, most of the film is in Japanese. This is, after all, the Japanese side of the battle for Iwo Jima. The Japanese lost this battle, with both sides taking horrific casualties. That known going in, this was never going to be a fun romp in the park.

Ringside

Film: Rocky; Million Dollar Baby
Format: DVDs from personal collection on laptop.

When you think about Rocky, it’s likely that you think about the fight at the end of the film or the fantastic training montage that leads up to the fight. That’s natural, because it’s a film about boxing and about a guy who gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance. It’s easy to forget the first hour of the film that sets up those scenes at the end. It’s easy to forget, in the career he had in stupid cop and revenge films following this breakthrough role that Stallone is a smart guy and a capable actor (he did, after all, write the screenplay). With the jingoistic and maudlin series of sequels that followed the original film (Rocky V, anyone?), it’s easy to forget just how damn good the original Rocky really is.

Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a bum of a fighter and a part-time legbreaker for a cheap loanshark named Gazzo (Joe Spinell). We start with one of his fights, which he wins. He takes a beating and a cheap headbutt, and walks away with the grand prize of about $40. The next day, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), who trains boxers at the club Rocky uses, kicks him out of his locker. Rocky and Mick have never had a good relationship because, as Mick tells him, Rocky had the makings of a contender but wasted his talent.

All Josey, No Pussycats

Film: The Outlaw Josey Wales
Format: DVD from personal collection on big ol’ television.

Clint Eastwood is almost certainly one of the top five actors associated with the Western. It doesn’t matter how many films he made as Harry Callahan, Eastwood simply looks right wearing a duster or serape and toting a couple of six guns. While Eastwood is a pretty celebrated actor, he’s a lot better (my opinion) behind the camera. He comes into his own when he does both. He’s directed a surprising number of films for a guy who most people (at least my age) still think of primarily as an actor. Of those 30+ films, five track as Westerns. Of these, Unforgiven is almost certainly his best. High Plains Drifter is the one most beholden to his past. But The Outlaw Josey Wales is perhaps the most quintessentially Eastwood.

The plot, as is the case with most Westerns, is incredibly simple. Josey Wales (Eastwood) is a Missouri farmer content to work on his land. His wife and child are killed by pro-Union guerrillas from Kansas. He signs up with pro-Confederate forces and is led by a man named Fletcher (John Vernon, immediately recognizable by his deep, resonant voice). At the end of the war, all of Fletcher’s men save Wales surrender, and are then gunned down by the Union forces, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney). Wales goes on the run, looking for something, pursued by the Union, who brand him a killer and outlaw.

As a film, or as a story, The Outlaw Josey Wales leaves a lot to be desired. It is, like it or not, riddled with clichés. For instance, shortly after the massacre of Fletcher’s men, Wales rides off with Jamie, who survived the slaughter, but is badly wounded. Jamie and Wales run into trouble a couple of times and save each other, but Jamie isn’t going to make it to the end of the film; this is obvious, since he was shot through the chest. The moment that Jamie says that he no longer fears dying, well, he’s going to die. In fact, that’s his last line. The next time we see him, he’s a corpse. This should shock no one. (Don’t worry—it’s not a spoiler. It happens in the first third or so of the film.)

So, the story itself is pretty simple, and it’s not that hard to tell five minutes ahead of time what is going to happen. You know there’s going to be a showdown between Wales and Terrill at some point, and it’s not difficult to figure how it’s going to come out. You know that Wales is always going to outdraw the men who hunt him, because you’re not going to lose your star with an hour left in the film.

Fortunately, this film is filled with joys beyond the plot. There’s plenty going on here that make this film worth the time.

First are the excellent portrayals of the characters. Eastwood is the most as-you-imagine-him Clint Eastwood probably ever. This is a role that he inhabits, and one that would not have been possible without the No-Name Trilogy directed by Leone or even his own earlier High Plains Drifter. Eastwood is able to sink himself into this role to a point of believability that never breaks or even cracks. Other roles and other films of his might well be better, but he was never better at portraying a character.

Similarly, Chief Dan George as Lone Watie is one of the great Western characters ever created. He is (and this is the sort of thing that is rare in Hollywood) a realistic native character. He doesn’t particularly have a great deal of wisdom, but he’s willing to share what he does have. He’s always interesting to watch on screen. This attempt at an accurate portrayal of both Native Americans and the treatment of the same is something really special about this film as well. From my own experience, only Dead Man does the same thing. Other films tend to depict Native Americans either as savages or as spiritual gurus capable of tapping into an inherent one-ness with the universe. Lone Watie is neither; he’s just a guy trying to get to Mexico.

Where the film bogs down for me is when Wales and Lone Watie get involved with a group of settlers moving to Texas. I understand the necessity of this for the character arc—Wales is tired of the violence and the running and would like to settle down, preferably with Laura Lee (Sondra Locke), but is still being pursued. But it feels forced, like he’s doing this for the necessity of the plot rather than the necessity of the character.

Still, despite its faults and shortcomings, The Outlaw Josey Wales is one of the true classics of the Western genre. In this film, Eastwood manages to both reference the works of John Ford, Sergio Leone, and Sam Peckinpah and also to transcend them in real ways.

Why to watch The Outlaw Josey Wales: It’s quintessential Eastwood, both acting and directing.
Why not to watch: You can tell what’s going to happen five minutes before it does.

Nihilism and Six-Guns

Films: High Plains Drifter, The Wild Bunch
Format: DVD from Wilmington Public Library through interlibrary loan (High Plains), DVD from South Beloit Public Library through interlibrary loan (Wild), both on little bitty bedroom television.

Ah, the western is very much its own thing, isn’t it? It has its own language, its own rhythm, its own feeling. And yet, there are many different types of western, and the western as a genre has gone through a number of different periods.


Westerns from the 60s and 70s, for instance, tended toward the violent and nihilistic. While there are certainly a number of excellent examples of this, High Plains Drifter stands out near the top. It seems very much like there isn’t a single person to root for in this movie—everyone is tainted in some way. Still, there is a perverse pleasure in watching the hero toy with the people who live in Lago. The joy comes from not his ability to twist and distort them into new shapes, but to force them to see themselves for what they are.

Essentially, as with many a great western, we start when a stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into town. His presence causes an immediate stir when he’s harassed at the local saloon. He leaves and heads to the barber, where he orders a shave and a hot bath. Three men come into push him further, and the stranger shoots down all three. On his way out, a woman (Marianna Hill) intentionally runs into him, and he drags her off to a barn and rapes her.

As it turns out, the three men from the day before were hired guns there to protect the town and the town’s mining interests. We see in a series of flashbacks that the town’s previous lawman, Marshall Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn) was whipped to death in the middle of town with virtually all of the townspeople watching, and doing nothing to help. The three men responsible, Stacey Bridges (the underrated Geoffrey Lewis), and the Carlin brothers, Cole (Anthony James) and Dan (Dan Vadis) are being released from prison. The people of Lago have a reason to fear the men coming back.

So, the strangers stays on in town, and asks as his price anything he wants. He kicks everyone else out of the hotel, buys himself new boots, gives away the general store’s merchandise, and has rounds of drinks bought at the saloon on the town’s dime. He also makes the local laughing stock, a midget named Mordecai (Billy Curtis) the new sheriff and mayor of Lago. The stranger also requisitions 200 gallons of red paint and has the townspeople paint the entire town red, a town that he renames “Hell.”

In the meantime, we learn that the townspeople are starting to come apart at the seams. The stranger is driving them all crazy and turning them against each other. More importantly, we learn why Marshall Duncan was killed. It seems that the Marshall discovered that the town’s mine and only real employer and source of income is located on government property. IF he’d reported this, the mine would have been closed, and the town would have died. To prevent this, the leading townspeople allow the outlaws to horsewhip the Marshall to death with the promise of a large reward when they were done. They reneged on the reward and sent the men to prison instead. And just when the three bad men are riding into town, the stranger leaves, forcing the townspeople to deal with the problem they’ve created on their own.

However much it feels like nihilism, though, there is a message here. It’s never really clear if the stranger is the revenant of Marshall Duncan or not, although that seems to be the most likely thing. What is true, though, is that the townspeople are forced to face their sins and pay for them, often pay for them at the cost of their own life. It’s no accident that the town’s name, Lago, is almost exactly the same as Iago, the name of one of Shakespeare’s greatest and most treacherous villains, and one whose particular crime is betrayal of an innocent man. In essence, the film seems to be about karma more than anything—a karmic game of Russian roulette with a six gun.

Beyond that, it’s a Clint Eastwood western, and the first one he directed. He’s not really gotten into his later great form as a director, but he’s already mature as a director in this film. He already knows what he wants to show and how to use his camera. The fact is that this film is still incredibly watchable, interesting, and exciting, and Eastwood only improved in the director’s chair after it. There’s a few great lines, some tremendous action, and lots of guys killed in a variety of ways. Really, it’s everything anyone would want in a horse and saddle picture with a nicely realized message thrown in for good measure.






















It’s impossible to discuss the idea of violence in a western without discussing the work of Sam Peckinpah, though, and of all his westerns, The Wild Bunch may well be the best. The film concerns a group of outlaws and thieves, a gang of former outlaws and layabouts turned bounty hunters, the Mexican Revolution, and a large shipment of guns for the U.S. Army. What’s interesting here is that the film takes place in 1913, much later than a typical western.

We start by being introduced to the eponymous Wild Bunch, headed by Pike Bishop (William Holden), lieutenanted by Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine) and crewed by the Gorch brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson), as well as a number of others, most notably Angel (Jaime Sanchez) and Freddie Sykes (Edmond O’Brien). Disguised as cavalry soldiers, the crew breaks into San Rafael, Texas, and robs the bank. However, also in town is a group of bounty hunters lead by Patrick Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who is a former member of the gang.

This crew has been sent to capture Pike and his crew, but except for the leaders, the gang is completely incompetent, and most of the crew gets away. Sadly, they discover that they’ve been set up. Rather than getting away with sacks of loot, they’ve made off with sacks of worthless washers. While they decide what to do next, we discover exactly why Deke Thornton is so ready to catch his old friends. He’s currently out on parole, and has 30 days to bring them back or will be sent back up the river.

Pike’s team winds up in Angel’s village in Mexico, where they discover that the people are under attack from a local Mexican general named Mapache (Emilio Fernandez). They go to visit Mapache, who hires them to steal a shipment of U.S. Army weapons and ammunition for $10,000. While Angel doesn’t want to help the people destroying his home, he agrees, because Pike secretly agrees to give him and his people a crate of weapons as well.

And so we have a set up for a lot of high powered action and violence. Nobody trusts anybody else and everyone is out to kill everyone else. Angel wants Mapache dead and his army destroyed, Deke has been charged to bring back the bodies of his former friends, Mapache wants to take out the village, and Pike and his team just want to get paid and head off.

So what’s the point? It’s entirely possible that there is an intended meaning in Peckinpah’s film. He could well be trying to present a message of the inevitability of violence, something that we saw a few days ago in Straw Dogs. Perhaps, like High Plains Drifter, this is a story about karma, and that those who live by the gun will also die by it eventually. Or perhaps it is about karma in a different sense—that there are prices to pay for everything, even trying to do the right thing or even a score.

Or it could just be a great, exciting story with a lot of opportunities for Peckinpah to show guys getting shot in slow motion with the blood spurting from their chests. While I’m almost certain that there’s something more here, the truth of the matter is that there doesn’t really need to be more than just an excuse for a great story. There is a particular joy to watching the characters in this movie grin at the start of battle and while the lead flies. The message is there, but do you really need it?

Why to watch High Plains Drifter: It’s a Clint Eastwood western. What more do you need?
Why not to watch: Your hero is a killer and a rapist.

Why to watch The Wild Bunch: A ripping western yarn, as late in the western period as you can get before it stops being wild.
Why not to watch: S-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n d-e-a-d g-u-y-s.

Westerns Then and Now

Films: Unforgiven, Destry Rides Again
Format: DVDs from personal collection on little bitty bedroom television.



















Of all styles of film working today, it is the western that is the most frowned upon. Even horror movies get more respect than a typical western. I think this stems not from the genre itself so much as the perception and conventions of that genre that people have learned.

If you look at old westerns (and we’re looking at an old one today), there are plenty of reasons to be jaded by them. They all have the same basic plot—cattle ranchers/railroad barons/greedy bar owners want to control all of the land in the area, so they plot to run out the sheep herders/farmers/honest ranchers and townsfolk, but a hero(s) rides into town to put the bad guys in their place, shoot everyone wearing a metaphorical black hat, and then ride off into the sunset. It’s a pretty tired plot.

With Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood wanted to make a more realistic western, one that didn’t necessarily follow the standard plot that many of us have come to know and be bored by. Oh sure, a stranger rides into town bent on revenge, but there’s much more to the story than that. The characters themselves are far less stock than in a traditional western, and we get to see some very different sides of them.

In this case, the main character is William Munny (Eastwood), who is confronted by a young man calling himself the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett). The Kid has heard a rumor of a woman in the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming who was cut up by a pair of cowboys. There’s a $1,000 reward for killing the two men responsible, and the Kid wants some backup. Munny, however, has given up the life of an assassin, but agrees to come because he needs the cash. He won’t come without his friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to help out.

As it turns out, the story is mostly true. A prostitute named Delilah (Anna Levine) had her face slashed by a cowboy who was angered by the fact that she laughed at the size of his…natural weapon in his pants. The other prostitutes pooled their money as a reward, but they are confronted by Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), the town’s sheriff. He won’t allow guns in Big Whiskey, and he keeps the peace by any means he can, even to the point of shooting a man just for riding into town with a gun.

The first person attracted to the reward is English Bob (Richard Harris), who comes with his biographer, an Easterner named W. W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) in tow. After Daggett trashes Bob, Beauchamp switches his allegiance, deciding that Daggett is a much more interesting subject for a book.

Things, eventually, come to a head. Ned gets captured by the law after he loses his nerve while Munny, who gave up his life of sin for the sake of his now-dead wife, slowly but surely reverts back to his old ways with the gun.

Unforgiven is an appropriately named film, as it is itself completely unforgiving. Westerns have long had a reputation of being family fare, somewhat tamer in terms of language and sexuality. Again, I think this comes not specifically from the genre or the subject matter, but from the fact that westerns were popular in a time when the code for films was much stricter than it is now. Unforgiven doesn’t fall into that particular trap. There’s not much in the way of sex, but there’s plenty of language throughout, which I find refreshing in a western.

In terms of what this story is about, there are a number of possibilities. It could be argued that the film concerns itself with crime, punishment, and the nature of revenge, and that argument wouldn’t be too difficult to make. It could just as easily be argued that Unforgiven is less about revenge and more about the nature of one man and his inability to change who he is no matter the cost or the desire to change. It could simply be a rip-roaring story. What do I think? I think Unforgiven is a big enough story that it can handle all of these and more, like also being about the fact that destruction begets destruction, and that even for the innocent, frontier justice is sometimes the best we can expect. Unforgiven was the first western in a dog’s age to win anything at the Academy Awards, and it deserved the ones it won.


Destry Rides Again is much more a western of the old school, with guys in white hats and guys in black hats. Tom Destry (James Stewart) is the son of a famous lawman. He’s called to the town of Bottleneck by his father’s old deputy, Wash (Charles Winninger). Wash has recently been appointed sheriff of the town because of the death of the old sheriff at the hands of Kent (Brian Donlevy), a crooked local businessman. Kent’s partner in crime is his showgirl, Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich). Wash was promoted to the position because in addition to being a former deputy, he’s also the town drunk.

Destry arrives, and it turns out that he’s not what anyone expected. For instance, instead of showing up with guns blazing, he shows up with little parables about folks he knows and the refusal to carry a gun. Destry is the town laughing stock for a bit, but soon settles into his role. That role is essentially keeping the letter of the law while finding out what he can about Kent and the rest of the bad guys in town.

Destry Rides Again is definitely a product of its time. It’s a clean western with clear-cut good guys and bad guys, with the possible exception of Dietrich, who may well be the prototype of the hooker with a heart of gold. There are a few painful stereotypes, in particular the Russian (Mischa Auer) who is less a Russian and more of a generic foreigner, and Frenchy’s maid, who is a baby step away from Butterfly McQueen’s role in Gone With the Wind.

It’s a fine little film, but for the life of me, I can’t work out why it’s on this list. Is it Dietrich? Stewart? The story? I’m not really sure. I can’t say that it’s a bad movie, or one that I’d refuse to watch again, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why it’s a must-see. Marlene Dietrich does a few numbers, but honestly, I think her singing is less vampy and more…well…flat.

Why to watch Unforgiven: A classic western with modern sensibilities, and some truly memorable characters.
Why not to watch: ^*$@ing language all the ^%^*%ing time.

Why to watch Destry Rides Again: A classic western with Jimmy Stewart.
Why not to watch: Marlene Dietrich can’t sing.