|
|
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hell On Earth, July 13, 2002
"How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses that you'd find swine? The world's a hell."No, those lines are not from Clint Eastwood's 1973 masterpiece "High Plains Drifter." Actually, they were spoken by Joseph Cotten in Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 suspense movie, "Shadow of a Doubt." But no other words can better capture the essence of this darkest and bleakest of Westerns. Clint Eastwood reprises his most famous role, "The Man With No Name" that made him a household name in such Sergio Leone movies as "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Some people claim this movie as a "revisionist Western," but to me it is a little more complicated than that. "High Plains Drifter" is a harrowing admixture of elements from such disparate works as "High Noon," "Peyton Place," "The Count of Monte Cristo" and Dante's "Inferno." When the Man With No Name comes riding into the Texas hamlet of Lago, he immediately strikes fear in the hearts of the local townspeople. Hiding behind the facade of piety and the pioneer work-ethic lies a craven, dark secret which the town will keep shrouded at any cost. Peopled only by bullies and cowards, the town is immediately torn apart by Eastwood -- executing the local goon squad who try to rough him up, raping the town prostitute, setting neighbour against neighbour and exposing the town preacher as a craven, hypocritical fraud. It soon becomes evident to the town that the stranger has come to avenege the death of their marshal, who was bullwhipped to death in the town square as everyone watched, none of the men lifting a finger to help him or to stop the killers. So, when the stranger shows up, the Marshal's killers are about to be released from prison. The cowardly town Sheriff tries to hire the newcomer as a gunfighter to face down the killers, but Eastwood turns the tables on him and the town and soon has conscripted the town's spineless men in a local volunteer regiment to ambush the killers when they ride into town. This is a neat twist on "High Noon," in which Gary Cooper's Sheriff Will Kane had to face the men who swore to kill him alone, because no one in the town had the guts to help him; in "High Plains Drifter," no-one has the guts to refuse the Man With No Name, for fear _he'd_ kill them. What is so compelling about "High Plains Drifter" is Eastwood's complex portrayal of executioner and avenging angel: Unlike in "Shadow of a Doubt," Eastwood is no sociopathic murderer, as was Cotten's Charlie Oakley; Rather, the town of Lago *deserves* its violent demise, and -- as in "The Count of Monte Cristo" -- the Man With No Name icily exacts his revenge on the town ruthlessly, methodically. In ripping the facade of religiosity and respectability away from the town, he makes the only man with any courage in Lago -- the town midget, played by Bill Curtis -- the Mayor and Sheriff. The sets -- designed and built by Hitchcock set designers Henry Bumstead and George Milo -- play a key role in this movie. Like any other frontier town in any Western, the buildings are standard issue: General store, hotel, church, saloon, livery stable, etc. But, they are all constructed of bare wooden planks, without a drop of paint on them, save for the signs denoting their function. Clearly, these buildings are naked citadels of greed, earmarked for gouging every last dollar and squeezing every last penny out of their customers and parishoners. Only the mining office -- which hides the town's dark secret -- is whitewashed over to cover its sins. It's a brilliant example of Bumstead's minimalistic Expressionism. The Man With No Name takes note of this, and before the killers' return, he orders the townsfolk to paint it a shocking, scarlet red. The hotel owner protests, exclaiming "it's going to look like Hell!" Of course, all Eastwood does in response is squint and form an impish, ironic smile with his parched lips. The final scene is a brilliant deja-vu montage which recalls the Marshal's murder: On a pitch-black night, the stranger horsewhips one of the killers to death, and guns his two partners down in intensely emotionless vengeance. The stranger slowly walks away, finally cleansing Lago of its sin as the entire town burns in flames in a baptism by fire. I consider this movie to be Eastwood's greatest directorial effort, slightly above "Bird" and "The Unforgiven." Singular in purpose, relentless in its dark vision of humanity, "High Plains Drifter" is the ultimate revenge tale.
|
DVD ~ Clint Eastwood
DVD ~ Clint Eastwood
DVD ~ Clint Eastwood
DVD ~ Clint Eastwood
DVD ~ Clint Eastwood
