In Contention

Tag: Open Range

  • 1976: the last hurrah of the American western

    Jack Nicholson in The Missouri BreaksThe western was not yet dead in 1976 when  four high-profile installments were released to varying degrees of success. Four years later, of course, Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate” would kill the genre for several years (and United Artists for longer), and though it has seen ups and downs in the years since, for the most part, the western remains one of the least popular genres with studios.

    In my opinion, Cimino’s film was never as bad as the critics said it was at the time.  Many of them were lying in wait for a Cimino failure, hoping to ambush him for the lies told during the press interviews for ‘The Deer Hunter,” which won the man an Oscar and was the Academy’s choice for Best Picture. He was not a Vietnam veteran, he had never seen Russian Roulette used as torture, in fact he had never been out of America until he made the “The Deer Hunter.”  This all but ruined Cimino’s reputation, which is somewhat sad because the man had a hell of an eye for detail.

    That of course was the issue with “Heaven’s Gate”; though stunning in its detail, the film is insufferably slow and ponderous, with perhaps two truly stunning sequences, the best among them the community roller skating sequence, which pulsates with energy driven by a young man, the film’s composer David Mansfield and his fiddle, as they skate around the rink, veering in and out of surrounding bodies.

    There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when 20% of the films coming out of Hollywood were westerns. There were 26 prime time western programs on television, all popular, and John Wayne ruled as the top box office star. By the 1970s, westerns were made less frequently, and Wayne’s box office throne had been usurped by another star of the genre: Clint Eastwood.

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  • Robert Duvall: the screen’s greatest, ignored too often

    Robert Duvall“There are two greats in America right now.  The first is Brando, whose best work is behind him, and the other is Robert Duvall.”

    Legendary acting guru Sanford Meisner said those words in the 1960s.  He trained Robert Duvall at the Nieghborhood Playhouse in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the actor’s screen debut in “To Kill a Mockingbird” as the children’s boogey man and savior Boo Radley. In the years since, Duvall has given some of the greatest performances captured on film, yet stands in his seventies now with just a single Oscar to his credit, a Best Actor trophy for his country and western singer in 1980’s “Tender Mercies.”

    There are many, myself included, who consider Duvall the most purely gifted actor in American cinema.  He’s always lacked the leading looks to harness the roles often awarded to other players. Instead he has toiled quietly yet effectively as a character actor, often playing second fiddle to bigger stars and stealing the film more often than not.

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  • The western keeps on truckin’

    It’s no real secret that yours truly is in the tank for the western genre.  Being brought up on the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood tends to make an impact in a young man’s life.  I watch Charles Bronson square off with Henry Fonda on a daily basis.  I’m knee-deep in research on the genre for a grad school thesis.

    I dig it, okay?

    The resurgence of saddles and spurs on the big screen has been moving steadily through the industry.  I don’t think anyone expects a return to the 1950s, with pistol-toting heroes plastered on every television screen and nearly every silver screen across America, but I see these efforts taking on more introspective subject matter, perhaps giving way soon enough to the neo-western.  And it is, after all, time.

    Today I see that screen tests may have been revealed of Thomas Jane in the upcoming DC Comics adaptation “Jonah Hex”  The film is set to be directed by the team behind “Crank,” Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  This might be real, might not, since the duo is filming “Crank 2” in Los Angeles at the moment.  But I can’t say I’m loving it…seems quite amateurish.  Regardless, “Hex” is a hell of a property with some storylines that just sing, and seeing it on the big screen will do this western fanatic a lot of good.

    Meanwhile, of course, Ed Harris is set to release “Appaloosa” later this year, formerly under the New Line Cinema banner and now, presumably, as another in a long tradition of genre entries from Warner Bros. Pictures.  Harris stars along with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger.

    These efforts are coming on the heels of a tweak in the genre as of late, with the more abstract works of Cormac McCarthy making their way to the screen (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Road” and, soon, “Blood Meridian”) and David Milch showing in the sadly cancelled HBO series “Deadwood” that the genre could be taken to levels almost Shakespearean.  Meanwhile, a revamp of “The Lone Ranger” is looking like a go, with the team behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films hoping to bring an element of sensationalism into the mix.

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