3 posts categorized "Neo-Western"

November 17, 2014

THE HOMESMAN

 

Neo-Western
Tommy Lee Jones Breaks Some Eggs

The HomesmanOf the handful of directors ready, willing, and able to make a Western that’s worth a damn, Tommy Lee Jones runs neck and neck with Clint Eastwood. Anyone who has seen Jones’s impressive 2005 neo-WesternThe Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” has some idea of what not to expect from Jones’s no-frills approach to the genre. Forget about stereotyped characters, epic vistas, or action-filled gunfights. Hardscrabble people living in difficult conditions with rough-hewn tools of the physical and intellectual varieties are what Tommy Lee Jones is interested in. Any displays of humor will be as droll as the desert is dry. The allegories and subtexts that Jones explores here appear as ancient cultural artifacts that require the viewer to delve deeper into the narrative substance and form being presented. Nothing is spoon-fed.

“The Homesman” is the seventh of Glendon Swarthout’s novels to be made into a film. His most popular adapted Western, up to now, was John Waynes’s last, remarkable film “The Shootist” (1976).

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The “Homesman’s” title is confusing. At first blush, you might presume it reads, “The Horseman.” So while the film’s poster features Hillary Swank’s character (Mary Bee “Cuddy”) in the foreground, it is Jones’s steely-eyed roustabout George Briggs peering out from behind her, who comes to own the unconventional narrative.

In Briggs’s case, “Homesman” is doublespeak for “claim-jumper” since the house that he briefly occupies early in the story belongs to another man who may or may not return to live in it. Somehow “The Squatter” wouldn’t have had the same ring to it. Locals don’t take kindly to Briggs’s personalized adaptation of “manifest destiny,” which they subscribe to as a justification for killing off the American Indians and stealing their land. Still, this particular bunch of gun-crazy cowboy that run Briggs out of the house he occupies doesn’t have the stomach to kill him outright. They’d rather put a noose around his neck and leave him sitting under a lone tree on a restless horse for nature to impose its lethal sentence.

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Swank’s Mary Bee Cuddy lives on the outskirts of a small desert town in Nebraska in 1854. At 31-years-old, this admittedly “plain” looking “bossy” woman owns a few acres of land with a house. She has a plan for her future that includes teaming up with a man who shares her vision of economic sturdiness. Cuddy knows how to play piano and has a good singing voice. By now she has polished the businesslike marriage proposal, which she issues to an ill-mannered cowboy she invites over for dinner. He angrily rejects her offer as an open insult after enjoying her hospitality. There isn’t much room in the culture of the day for a woman as direct and strong-willed as Mary Bee Cuddy.

A strange phenomenon grips Cuddy’s community. Inexplicably, there has been a recent spate of insanity spreading among the local women. Diphtheria has claimed the lives of three infants belonging to the inconsolable Arabella Sours (Grace Gummer). Theoline Belknap (Miranda Otto) throws her newborn infant down the outhouse hole, and Gro Svendsen (Sonja Richter) must be kept tied down lest she kill whomever she gets her hands on since the death of her mother. The local clergyman (John Lithgow) decrees that the women be transported east to Iowa to be cared for by the compassionate wife of a Methodist minister.

“People talk about death and taxes, but no one talks about crazy.” There is no room on the prairie for the mentally disabled. That America remains woefully unable to care for the mentally ill segment of its population, more than a 150 years later, speaks to a deep-seated problem in our culture.

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When the time comes for someone to step up to transport the women across several weeks’ worth of dangerous terrain, only Cuddy volunteers. To the local women, Cuddy’s thorny place in their society aligns her with the mentally fragile cargo she agrees to shepherd. Equipped with a custom-built horse drawn paddy wagon Cuddy comes across Mr. Briggs in his darkest hour. She agrees to free the roughneck from his death sentence if he will accompany her to Iowa to help deliver the heretics to safety. No sooner has she freed him does Briggs make a mockery of their arrangement, stating that he is will do as he pleases toward their destination. Cuddy wisely baits the hook by “mailing” his payment ahead to him in Iowa.

The episodic road story that follows takes on a Homeric quality. The female prisoners wail constantly, referencing the sirens of The Odyssey. They beckon Cuddy to join them. She can’t take it. While Briggs (clearly not his real name) remains aloof to their cries, Cuddy finds temptation in death. When they come across an unkempt grave, she insists on staying behind to repair it while Briggs goes ahead with the women. This split signifies not only a break between Cuddy and Briggs, but also a dramatic occurrence of disorientation for Cuddy that takes an unseen toll on her.

Homesman

Much has been made about “The Homesman” being a feminist film. Inasmuch as it features dilemmas endured by women in the Old West, the movie is really about differences between the way men and women deal with expectation and loss.
George Briggs is a ruthless survivor. He never wavers from his priority of looking out for himself. He has a sense of justice that he will deliver without so much as a second thought. If he has something to share, he is likely to give it to a member of the fairer sex.

Cuddy is a negotiator. Her attempts to live up to society’s expectations make her vulnerable in ways that never come up in George Briggs’s experience. Each is susceptible to similar and different dangers, many of which they bring upon themselves. Here is a neo-Western you’ll have to watch a few times in order to decide which is which.

Rated R. 122 mins.

4 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

October 30, 2012

KILLING THEM SOFTLY — CANNES 2012

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ColeSmithey.comBankers’ Penalty Andrew Dominik’s One-Movie Revolution Comes Calling 

One of the ten best films of 2012, Andrew Dominik’s cold-blooded satire of American corporate-political-capitalism cuts through its subject like a freshly sharpened guillotine blade.

Fortunately someone still wants retribution for the $7.77 trillion that Bush and Obama handed out to criminal banksters while ordinary Americans sank into poverty. Justice, however, has to wait. Until then: allegory.

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The New Zealand auteur responsible for the magnificent neo-western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” manipulates the crime drama genre with an irrefutable cinematic panache. Economic metaphors big and small fill the narrative about gangster vengeance set in 2008. Dominik based the script on a George V. Higgins novel — see Peter Yates’s “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.”

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Every greasy hoodlum character here represents a stratum of economic influence. Lowlife Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) brings home the nothing-to-lose emigrant faction. When Russell’s fellow immoral pal Frankie (Scoot McNairy) tries to land a card-game hold-up job from a slimy small-time kingpin named Johnny Amato — a.k.a. Squirrel — Russell is quick to set his would-be boss man straight as to just who is doing whom a favor.

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Speaking truth to power comes with a thick dose of irreverent irony. The fact that Russell is a junkie with not much more on his mind than where his next fix or lay is coming from is beside the point. Russell is on the lowest rung of society’s ladder but that doesn’t prevent him from maintaining self-respect along with his hedonistic priorities.

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The successful heist that follows requires a visit from a corporate-minded honcho known only as the Driver (Richard Jenkins). From his mobile office the Driver hires professional hit man Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to settle the score. The men who orchestrated and executed the heist have to pay. No crime goes unpaid. If you’ve ever wondered about what it would look like for the banker bastards who ruined America’s economy to have to make penance with their own flesh, the filmmakers deliver a beautifully brutal vision of such a comeuppance.

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The film’s evocative title stretches across the narrative like a transparent satin sheet. Brad Pitt’s character is methodical and cynical, yet he’s fully aware of the emotional burden of his deadly occupation. He says of his profession that he likes to kill from a distance; predator drones come to mind.

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Jackie goes so far as to ask for the assistance of a hit man he worked with several years earlier. James Gandolfini’s Mickey isn’t as together as he used to be. He’s turned into a raging alcoholic with an addiction to prostitutes. If Jackie represents a self-protective mercenary, Mickey is a cautionary vision of where Jackie could be headed if he isn’t careful. Everyone gets corrupted. It’s just a matter of time and opportunity.

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“Killing Them Softly” is a stylish crime drama made up of piercing monologues and canny dialogue that reverberates with social implications. Nothing is wasted. People and places are appropriately ugly.

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Every performance is spot-on. That the film so effectively lashes out at economic hypocrisy in America is truly rewarding. Here is a one-movie revolution against all of the corporate-controlled two-party bullshit that has turned America into a third-world dictatorship. Brilliant is too soft a word to describe it.

Rated R. 97 mins.

5 Stars

LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) ColeSmithey.com

New York City cinephile Martin Keller returns for a follow-up to our Andrew Dominic's companion-piece film duo "THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD" and "KILLING THEM SOFLTY." 

We went with Tired Hands Brewing's SEVERE HEAD WOUND — their "pink, goopy, double IPA."

Poor Ray Liotta. 

Bon appétit!ColeSmithey.com

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Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

October 01, 2007

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.ColeSmithey.comThis ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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ColeSmithey.comThe Coen Brothers Go West
Cormac McCarthy’s Novel Gets A Noir Bath
By Cole Smithey

After a string of disappointing projects ("The Man Who Wasn’t There" 2001, "Intolerable Cruelty" 2003, and "The Ladykillers" 2004) Joel and Ethan Coen hit cinematic pay dirt with Cormac McCarthy’s 2003 western crime novel "No Country for Old Men."

Adapted, directed, and edited by the Coens, "No Country" was widely accepted among critics at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as worthy of the Palme d’ Or, even if Cristian Mungiu’s Romanian abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" deservedly took home the coveted prize.

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Vapors of Hitchcock ("North by Northwest"), Cronenberg ("A History of Violence") and Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction") permeate a dusky ‘80s era Texas-Mexico borderland where retiring hardscrabble Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) hunts bizzarro serial killer Anton "Chigurh" (Javier Bardem), who is busy chasing married Army vet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).

The three characters form a cross-generational chain of variously disaffected men spiraling down a whirlpool of blood and cash. Painful laughs accompany gut-twisting suspense as McCarthy’s side-winding story swings out of control in increasing arcs of succinct violence. There's plenty of tension and laughs for the audience to sink their teeth in.

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Chigurh, in an unflattering Dutch Boy haircut, is temporarily arrested before he strangles the doomed officer with his handcuffs. More will die. The archetypal human killing machine embodies a black heart of the borderlands’ drug trade that has infected large swaths of Texas and New Mexico.

Javier Bardem thoughtfully creates the most daunting illegal immigrant any U.S. politician ever dreamed about. His haunting portrayal straddles a line between primordial evil and modern insanity. The Coen brothers treat the threat Chigurh poses with deadpan irony. The closest Chigurh comes to exhibiting humor is when he asks a victim to flip a coin to determine whether they will live or die. His intimidating tenacity is the stuff of nightmares. 

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While out hunting, Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) has the apparent good fortune of coming upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong in a remote desert area. Amid bloodied bodies, spent rifles, and five shot-up trucks, Llewelyn finds 2.4 million dollars in cash along with a motherlode of heroin. Hiding the suitcase of cash at home momentarily brightens Llewelyn’s dream of providing a good life for his loving wife Carla Jean Moss (Kelly Macdonald), but his decision to take water back to a dying man at the scene proves a step too far. No good deed goes unpunished.

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Chigurh waits at the scene. Llewelyn becomes a running target for Chigurh to chase, as well as a person of interest for Sheriff Bell. The wizened Sheriff correctly reads the tea leaves of the crime scene the next day.

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Josh Brolin’s recent career comeback, with solid performances in "Grindhouse," "In The Valley of Elah," and "American Gangster" is more than validated here. Of his recent roles, Llewelyn Moss is the leading man part that allows Brolin to trust his instincts toward creating a conflicted character living on his wits alone. To say that Brolin’s acting comes as a revelation in "No Country" is an understatement. He's stunningly good.

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There’s an impression here that, just as they achieved with "Fargo," the Coen brothers have perfected a dry-witted version of their self-blended modern noir cocktail. The Coen’s first movie "Blood Simple" was set in Austin, Texas. Their ear for regional dialects and indigenous thought patterns plays strongly in the pacing of a West Texas story where silence means as much as the dialogue, maybe more. Whole stretches of sequences go by with hardly a word spoken or a note of music. Still, the pacing hits you at a breakneck speed. 

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The title, "No Country for Old Men," is an opinion pulled from the philosophical mind of Sheriff Bell, an honest Texan broken-hearted over the drug and border crossing violence that has consumed his home--an area once treated with a code of honor. Bell dreams of spending his remaining days with his patient wife Loretta (played by an exquisitely cast Tess Harper).

But too much has changed in the region. The new American West is fueled by greed and a thirst for retribution, if not preemptive slaughter. It’s not a place that Bell can abide. No man worth his salt could put up with such a soiled place.

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The Coen Brothers are masters at condensing metaphors into visually identifiable tools of practical purpose. Chigurh uses a hydraulic tank to blast holes in people's heads and to knock out door locks. His undisputed reputation as a fiercely effective killer puts him on the elevated status of a paramilitary agent racking up points toward a fat retirement. Even though the story is set in 1980, the tonal pitch reverberates between twinges of the Old West and of contemporary America, consumed with illegal immigration, drugs, and guns. Go figure.

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The Rio Grande River, which Llewelyn temporarily escapes across, becomes a barbed wire filter for his cash. Cormac McCarthy’s source material insinuates symbolic ideas about an American society where western life has turned far more violent than the blood-soaked days of the Old West. Justice and honor are foreign words unrelated to modern survival and accumulation of wealth. Suspicion is the coin of trade that must necessarily gravitate toward bitter death. And yet, there is a sense of hope, in the face of such brutal truths, that back-cycles across the movie when its deceptively ethereal ending resolves the motivations of everyone involved.

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You can’t always get what you want, and you can’t always keep what you have. The Coen Brothers have gotten their mojo back, with some considerable help from Cormac McCarthy.

Rated R. 122 mins.

5 large

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

 

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