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As befits the Möbius strip of macho bluff and violence, the trigger is a woman's giggle at a shrunken pecker. The frontier hero, in majestic silhouette at dusk and face down in hog shit, Clint Eastwood in a portrait of magnificent corrosion. The man "of notoriously vicious and temperate disposition" is now a widowed farmer, "whores' gold" is the lure out of retirement, a vengeful reward pooled by bordello workers for the deaths of the cowpokes who slashed a colleague (Anna Thomson). From Kansas to Wyoming with former partner (Morgan Freeman) and short-sighted punk (Jaimz Woolvett), the tyrannical sheriff at the end of the line (Gene Hackman) is one of the nation's builders, a lousy carpenter. "The forbearance of reptiles" is not for the English bounty hunter (Richard Harris), who exits like D.H. Lawrence railing against the New World's soul, "hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer." Eastwood on genre, country and iconography, a stark, gnarled composition. Getting back on the saddle is a mighty struggle for the fearsome gunslinger gone gray, redemption is a lie he keeps repeating to himself. (In a fever dream he envisions the beloved wife who reformed him covered with worms.) Monsters see themselves as homesteaders, dictating their own myths or trying to escape them, the penny-dreadful tagalong (Saul Rubinek) is there with pencil at the ready. "Was that what it was like in the old days?" Legend is a history of drunks shooting drunks, the job of killing is an outhouse execution and a perforated stomach crying for water. The Gunfighter, The Ox-Bow Incident, One-Eyed Jacks, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Ride the High Country are some of the works woven into a pall and pulled over the Western's coffin. The scarred angel, the Stars and Stripes under the downpour, the last sunset. "Dedicated to Sergio and Don," cf. Godard's Made in U.S.A ("À Nick et Samuel..."). Cinematography by Jack N. Green. With Frances Fisher, David Mucci, Anthony James, and Rob Campbell.
--- Fernando F. Croce |