I still thing that for the second movie a Zapata one would fit the bill perfectly in a history class. Faccia a faccia Run Man Run or, A bullet for the General etc. not a totally wasted choice in cinematographic terms (not the perfect one of course), and very good for class terms.
Faccia a Faccia is not readily available over here for a reasonable price, at least through the bookstore that the school wants the students to use, although it might be a good choice. See, I’m not too sure about using a spaghetti, as the focus is more on how Hollywood dealt with these myths. If the class was primarily about Westerns, I would certainly include a spag. I’m still not sure.
I’d pick The Man who shot Liberty Valence or High Noon
Funny, I watched High Noon last night. Don’t you think, in some ways, that High Noon is still reinforcing the myth of the rugged individual?
Scherp, if you have the time, what is it about those two films that differs from the west we see in Ford’s Stagecoach? That film is my starting point, Unforgiven is my end point… I’m trying to find a way to tie the films together in some ways, as a projection. My problem is simply that I’m not quite well versed in American westerns, at least on the deeper thematic level that I apparently now need to be. Granted, you may ask why am I teaching this class? I have time to do the analysis and study, I just have to have the films decided by the end of the week.
The key to High Noon is understanding the political context in which it was made. See this article: http://www.studythepast.com/reelhistory/readings/high%20noon.pdf
High Noon (1952) was a landmark artifact of American popular political culture of the high Cold War. Screenwriter Carl Foreman intended it as a commentary on Hollywood capitulation to HUAC. Director Fred Zinneman and star Gary Cooper saw it as a film about the nobility of the individual in the face of a failure of public morality. John Wayne, the film star and conservative archetype of the period declared the film Un-American. One scholar has characterized the film as catering to ideological extremists and challenging the “vital center.” The varied readings of the film, coupled with its critical and commercial success, spawned a sub-genre of politically self-conscious westerns, treating the nature of the American community, the role of the individual within it, and the responsibilities of citizenship and of power, all within a tale of the lone lawman defending a town from a gang of cut-throats. High Noon, in short, became a cinematic and ideological touchstone against which other directors sought to define their own position and visions of the proper role of the individual in American society.
Thanks , Cat. The disk extras touched upon the political context a bit. I’ve gleaned that you’re an academic from some of your comments. Do you know of any other sources of good analysis like the one you pointed out? Thanks.
I’m a doctoral student…actually, I think I’m called a candidate now that I’ve passed my exams…at a technical institute in upstate NY studying digital media. Honestly, the best place to start these days is Google Scholar: Google Scholar
If you run into an article for which you don’t have access, check with the college to see if they have access for their faculty/students through the library. If they don’t have access, send me a PM, and I’ll see if I have access through my school.
I have access to several libraries, I’ll look into it. Thanks! Where in upstate NY? I’m in VT.
I wrote this review of High Noon once:
[size=12pt]HIGH NOON [/size]
To many High Noon is the classic American western. Some of the film’s images are among the most enduring in film history: a worried but determined Gary Cooper looking through a broken window, Cooper walking down the main street, desperately looking for help, the three men waiting for the train, Grace Kelly shooting one of the villains threatening her husband in the back. At the same time none of the great westerns has met with more disapproval. This all tends to deviate the viewer’s attention from the film itself. Actually, it might be a good idea to abstain from the movie for a longer period, like I did, in order to watch it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind.
The script of High Noon is a fusions of two classic western themes, presented with an unusual, not-so-classic twist. The first of the classic themes, is the vengeance theme, the twist is that the film’s protagonist is not the avenger, but the person the avenger is after. Will Kane (Gary Cooper), sheriff of a small western town, once put Frank Miller in jail; on his last day as sheriff, which is also his wedding day, he is informed that Miller has been released from jail, and is on his way to get even. Three of his men are waiting on the station for him to arrive. Instead of leaving the town in a hurry, Kane decides to stay, much to the regret of his Quaker wife Amy (Grace Kelly), whose religious principles condemn any use of violence, even in self defence. The second classic western theme High Noon is dealing with, is the enforcement of law and order in the western town. Like in a classic western, the town of Hadleyville is protected by its sheriff against external forces, but the townspeople are presented as a hypocritical community, faint-hearted and evasive, and we ask ourselves why on earth Will Kane would not pack his bags and call it a day.
Such a depiction of townspeople was new within the genre, and it wasn’t exactly welcomed by all. Several critics have accused High Noon of ‘vulgar anti-populism’ and spoiling the genre with ‘social drama’. The idea behind all this, seems to be a conception of the western as a primarily mythical genre. In it, the western hero is a man who is by definition alone, so wouldn’t ever beg for help. John Wayne and Howard Hawks were particularly appalled by the image of a sheriff begging for help, and felt obliged to make an ‘answer movie’, Rio Bravo. In High Noon Gary Cooper begs for help and gets none, so in Rio Bravo John Wayne does not ask for help, and gets some. Of course Wayne despised the movie also because he interpreted it as an allegorical attack on blacklisting, which he (and some of his close friends) had always supported; in an infamous Playboy interview Wayne called the movie ‘un-American’. In the meantime some (mainly European) critics came up with a radically different allegorical reading, in which the hypocritical townspeople were described as victims of sinister communist propaganda, with Gary Cooper’s sheriff as the lone individual standing up for American values.
The film’s political subtexts probably were intentional , but I’m not sure whether they are essential. High Noon may show some anti-populist tendencies, but I guess they are not to be interpreted within a specific American context. There’s some evidence for this in the film itself: the judge who has married Will and Amy packs his belongings and quickly leaves town, warning Will for the upcoming reactions of the townspeople, by drawing parallels with two historical events in which townspeople cheered a returning tyrant who killed the represents of legal authority. One event goes back to the days of the ancient Romans, the other took place eight year ago, around the corner. High Noon is not a film about the individual, but about the community, and it’s ‘message’ seems to be that the behaviour of communities is not exemplary, and that things have always been this way. High Noon is a more realistic western than most critics were familiar with when it was first released; it’s not realistic in the sense that it tries to represent the West in a historically correct way, but in the sense that it shows people how they are, no longer (like the more mythical westerns Wayne promoted) how they should be. Cowardice is not a specific American quality, nor is heroism. High Noon is a film that tells some things about mankind, so about us, and what we’re told, isn’t always pleasing. Most of us are like the people of Hadleyville: we wouldn’t dare to side with Will Kane, most of us look the other way when things become dangerous and violent.
Even those who didn’t like it, praised High Noon for the metronomic precision it was made with. The presence of the ticking clock, emphasising the act that the film plays (more or less) in real time, is such a strong audio-visual metaphor that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t part of Zinneman’s original plans. Producer Stanley Kramer only came up with the idea after some sour critical reactions after press previews. The clock can be a bit over-emphatic, but has become part of the movie’s (and film history’s) folklore, just like Dimitri Tiomkin’s Score andTex Ritter’s ballad Do not forsake me oh my darling. Whether High Noon is the best American western ever made, is a matter of personal taste. Some have said it’s too much thriller to be totally successful as a western, and especially the ending, the opponents stalking each other in the narrow streets of Hadleyville, is too far removed from the traditional western shootout. There are a handful of westerns I personally rate a tiny bit higher, but it sure is one of the five or six Hollywood westerns everybody should watch, even if he or she despises westerns. It’s wonderfully acted, especially by Cooper, and beautifully shot in black and white (avoid computer-coloured versions), the harsh black and white of Floyd Crosby’s photography symbolising the claustrophobic atmosphere and exposing every line in Cooper’s worried face. Watching High Noon today, with fresh eyes, is to discover scenes and ideas that pop up in modern westerns, from the three men waiting for the train in Once upon a time in the West to the boys enacting a shoot-out in The Wild Bunch, and the dropping of the sheriff’s star in that wonderful contemporary western Dirty Harry, with Clint Eastwood as the modern day Will Kane standing up for justice in a weakened world. High Noon also spawned a series of westerns about the courage of the individual facing evil when others look away, like 3.10 to Yuma, Firecreek and Welcome to Hard Times, to mention only a few. Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter seems a retelling mystical style of High Noon, seasoned with some strong spaghetti western ingredients, and outdoing the original in its contempt for the community.
[size=12pt]xxx[/size]
I have also talked about High Noon (and its relation to High Plains Drifter) in this essay:
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/GHOSTS_AND_AVENGERS,_from_Shakespeare_%26_Leone,_to_Eastwood_%26_Garrone
(The notes on High Noon/High Plains Drifter can be found in Part 2, paragrah # High Noon for No Name):
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/GHOSTS_AND_AVENGERS,_from_Shakespeare_%26_Leone,_to_Eastwood_%26_Garrone_(part_2)
Unforgiven is in fact also a type 2 western.
Even if made in the 90s, Unforgiven is a typical 70s demythologizing western.
Near Albany. We take drives through Vermont quite often when the weather is nice (hopefully making one this weekend). On our last trip, we drove to Rutland, where my wife did a double-take and said, “Holy crap, that was either Jack Hanna or Crocodile Dundee.” We doubled back, and sure enough, it was Jack Hanna, who was doing a show at the local theater that night.
Speaking of local theaters, there’s a group in Schenectady that puts on genre film festivals, and I’ve been after them to do one for spaghettis. They’re eager, and would select a good line-up of films, pretty much a nice selection from the top 20 (in an exploratory message via Facebook, one of the organizers said he’d love to show “COMPANEROS, FACE TO FACE, THE GREAT SILENCE, THE BIG GUNDOWN, RUN MAN RUN, BULLET FOR A GENERAL, DEATH RIDES A HORSE”), but they fear they won’t have a substantial audience. I’ve thought about polling people here to see if there are enough close by who would drive and provide more support for such an effort.
I was reworking my review of One Silver Dollar (Un Dollaro Bucato - 1965, Ferroni) a little, and then realized that we haven’t talked about Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales. I quickly went through the comments here, and I don’t think anybody mentioned it. It us, however, a very relevant film if you look, like lordradish does for his project, at the western from a historic perspective.
I’ve even inserted these ideas in my review, which now looks like this:
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/One_Silver_Dollar_review
(There still a ‘under CONSTRUCTION’ note because I want dicfish to have a look at it)
After a lot of thinking (and reading all of your valuable expertise on here), I’m going with Stagecoach, FaFDM and Unforgiven. It occurred to me that I don’t have to teach these as three separate eras, and such. I can merely teach them as different contexts of the western in relation to history. With FaFDM, I can even get into the Italian perspective, too. Actually, as far as FaFDm, of the three films, that’s the one I can find the least analysis on, so if anyone has any ideas on that, it’d be appreciated.
Strangely, I did a 7,000 word essay/thesis on this film - when I did my masters in sculpture study. :o
(The first essay just had to show you could use the right type of theoretical bullshit lingo and not be specific to sculpture.)
I took my favorite film and did a ‘deconstruction’ of it from a Freudian perspective. Although this sounds incredibly poncy, Leone did actually say that the “flashbacks are Freudian” and my essay was well recieved - and is rev-style readable with just a jot of pisstake present. ([size=8pt]I got a distinction btw[/size]) smug :
8)
I can email you it if you’d like?
Poncy?
A few days ago I reviewed a spaghetti starring a rider from Poncy Express. It’s all in the mind’s I, Freud said, deconstructing the Rev’s post with his left hand
Great High Noon-essay.
Cooper was too desperate for help. The project came-together during teen-rebellions, bike-gangs (Hell’s Angels, etc.) overrunning small towns, and big-city apathy to street-crimes happening beyond closed-curtains… I think a certain ‘school’ of western-directors resented the Marshall’s desperation, though the film aptly deserves its top-shelf status.
That’s a good choice lordradish - it covers all three different parts of the Western genre nicely. As for thoughts on For a Few Dollars More, it might be worth noting Eastwood’s proffesion, Bounty Hunting, killing for money rather than justice, as opposed to what Wayne was doing in Stagecoach.
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:54, topic:2673”]Strangely, I did a 7,000 word essay/thesis on this film - when I did my masters in sculpture study. :o
(The first essay just had to show you could use the right type of theoretical bullshit lingo and not be specific to sculpture.)
I took my favorite film and did a ‘deconstruction’ of it from a Freudian perspective. Although this sounds incredibly poncy, Leone did actually say that the “flashbacks are Freudian” and my essay was well recieved - and is rev-style readable with just a jot of pisstake present. ([size=8pt]I got a distinction btw[/size]) smug :
8)
I can email you it if you’d like?[/quote]
Yeah, send it to me… I’d be interest in reading it. Thanks.
Well scherp, indeed. You have to realize that my deconstruction is just so damn sexy, the right hand would be likely otherwise engaged…
I’ve hopefully sent it to your Lordship’s FOP site your Radishness.
Got it. Thanks.