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| Call me crazy, but I would have gone with Grace Kelly in the cart |
10. Dead Man. Jim Jarmusch's alternative western with Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer and a brilliant Crispin Glover. (Actually isn't Crispin Glover always brilliant?)
9. Meeks Cutoff. Kelly Reichardt's minimalist, feminist western starring Michelle Williams. No one saw this and its certainly not for everyone, but I think its a hypnotically brilliant tale of a bunch of settlers lost on the Oregon trail.
8. High Noon. Carl Foreman's screenplay, Grace Kelly's close ups, the badge in the dirt, the action playing out in real time. If you don't like this film, I'm sorry, I just don't know who you are anymore.
7. The Searchers. Just about the only John Wayne film I can enjoy these days. Funny, dark, broody and beautiful. John Ford at the top of his game.
6. Paris, Texas. A guy is wandering in the desert. He has amnesia. The good news is that he was married to Nastassia Kinski. The bad news is that he tied her to a fridge and she set their trailer home on fire. His mission is to ride into town, bring mother and son together, ride out of town. BTW, there is no safety zone, apparently.
5. Unforgiven. Clint's mission is to ride into town, kill a couple of dudes, and, er, ride out of town. It all goes to hell and then it rains. David Peoples wrote the script, Richard Harris stole the show. Gene Hackman was pretty good too.
4. Blazing Saddles. Richard Pryor was the unsung hero here and with him in it this might have been the greatest comedy of all time. Still there's the beans, the Nazis, the governor, Maddy Khan. What a flick. 1974 was some kind of Wunderjahr for Mel Brooks and then, alas, zilch.
3. For a Few Dollars More. Best of the spaghetti three. They laugh, they cry, they shoot each other's hats. . .Then the wonderful Gian Maria Volontè breaks out of jail, robs the bank at El Paso and after that it's all: laaah, laaah, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, dada, dah, dah, laaah, laaah, la, la, la, la, la, la, laaah etc.
2. The Wild Bunch. Sam Peckinpah says that this is what happens when men go down to Mexico. When I went down to Mexico I did some nice snorkeling and drank margheritas but when MEN go down there, they machine gun entire armies of baddies. In slow motion. Brilliant.
1. Blood Meridian. They havent actually made this film yet but the movie of it in my head is awesome.
41 comments:
I agree about Blood Meridian (a book I've read three times, I think).
You list is missing:
Shane (This one has the line, spoken by Shane after he orders milk at a bar, "You speakin' to me?"
The Magnificent Seven
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (maybe one doesn't include this as Western).
Lonesome Dove (maybe one doesn't include this since it's a TV movie)
Red River
Speedskater
I've read Blood Meridian twice. I still think its McC's best. Its a book that gets me excited about the possibilities of literature.
I'm with you on Shane, M7, Stinkin Badges, and Dove. Red River however just never did it for me.
Ever seen They Were Expendable, Adrian? Hands-down my favourite Wayne/Ford collaboration. Most war films made with DoD support tend to be crap, but this is the exception. Patriotic without being jingoistic, and as a war film right up there with The Thin Red Line.
I would have to count Ride With the Devil among my favourite westerns.
I always remember the MST3K line for a crappy western: "Go away Shane! Go away!"
Good list. Have to substitute The Good, Bad, Ugly instead of For A Few Dollars More, and add Little Big Man, Magnificent Seven, The Professionals, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, and Hour of the Gun. And how about Carry On Cowboy instead of Blazing Saddles? Maybe not.
Blood Meridian - haunting book, but surely unfilmable.
What I liked about Unforgiven was how it so deliberately turned the Ford westerns on their head - instead of being the civilizing force it was the women who hired the killer, etc..
The symbolism of Gene Hackman building a house was a little heavy handed but, yeah, Richard Harris stole the show.
magnificent seven should be in there. I always liked whispering smith; the speech in the swamp is remarkable for its time/genre. Josey wales is the only eastwood western that stands the test of time. Mr blue lightinin'
Got to agree on Josey Wales I'm afraid, a true masterpiece in my eyes. Recently read Blood Meridian which I may wekk have been prompted to off here actually, & have his Border Trilogy in my precarious pile perched on my desk. The spaghettis, although I enjoyed, I could take & leave after a couple of watches. Wayne I could watch all day, I'm not saying he's brilliant or anything, not even sure he was good, but he was very watchable IMO. Mag 7 is a good shout. Wild Bunch should be number 1 IMO. Sorry, but Blazing Saddles just never did it for me, thought it was pap, but slapstick isnt my style
Had to wander downstairs to reacquaint myself as not watched much for a while, but have come up with Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, Last of the Mohicans I've got a soft spot for, Tombstone I've always liked but expect to be ridiculed over, & Deadwood. And The Warriors is in my warped mind the best non-western western
Great list. Rio Bravo is one of my top 5 favorite Westerns of all time.
I'd pick TGTB&TU or Once Upon A Time in the West before For a Few Dollars More, but we're splitting hairs here.
-Brian O
It's funny about westerns. I never really got into westerns as a film form, but we did watch a lot of westerns on TV. As a little kid,my sisters and I would we'd watch Roy Rogers and The Adventures of Zorro on Saturday morning, as well as another favorite, Sky King, which is arguably a western with a small plane.
Then we went on to watch Rifleman, and another Chuck Conners vehicle, Branded. I think my parents watched Gunsmoke and Bonanza, though I never really got into those.
We had a summer or so where we were quite entranced with old reruns of Wagon Train.
Later I loved Big Valley, while my sister loved High Chaparral.
After that, I think westerns pretty much dried up. Although, arguably, Breaking Bad is a western with a modern face.
Matt
Yeah Ride With The Devil is a pretty good one isnt it? I dont remember Expendable, I'll check it out though.
Cary
I'm in two minds about Ugly. Sometimes I think its better, sometimes I go for Dollars 2. In general I think I like the set pieces better in Ugly but I like the villain better in Dollars. I dont know its tough. Both have terrific soundtracks.
Robin
Might well be unfilmable. I know that Ridley Scott tried about 10 years ago but nothing came of it.
John
There's a terrific moment that I dont know if American audiences noticed when Harris changed his fake Duke accent to a real Cockney one, when they're dragging him out of town in the cage. I wonder if Eastwood even noticed.
Kikaren
I'd disagree with you on that one. I think A Fistful of Dollars, The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Unforgiven all hold pretty well. And I like that one The Beguiled where he invades the orphanage or whatever it is.
Swoop
Wild Bunch is one of those films that you watch whenever you flip to it by accident on TV and then you just keep on watching till the end. Its great.
Brian
I do like Once Upon A Time in the West too. Henry Fonda is terrific in that.
Seana
Breaking Bad is definitely a kind of a Western, just as something like Get Carter is a kind of what you might call, Northern.
Northerns. I like it.
I was on a Johnny Depp bender one time and came across DEAD MAN. I totally think it is the worst movie ever made! I did watch every minute of it; it was worse that seeing a train wreck. It was like a giant mega magnet that paralyzed me into submission. Wasn't ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO a western?
I think I said this here before, so didn't mention it, but I loved Dead Man.
Of course, you would have to be in the right mood.
JS
Dead Man bored you, eh? Its a funny old world isnt it? I think Dead Man and Ed Wood are the only two Johnny Depp movies that havent bored me. But the worst movie ever made? Really? You need to get out more. Actually you need to stay in more and watch a lot more films.
Once Upon A Time In Mexico is definitely a Western. El Mariachi might make my top 100 but Once...Mexico would definitely not.
Seana
Its a terrific film. That and Ghost Dog are my two Jarmuschian favourites. Oh and Mystery Train.
It might be the time to run a one person Jarmusch festival in my house. I like Depp more than you do, but it's a roller coaster of affection. I do think I will like his upcoming Barnabus Dark Shadows interpretation, in a campy sort of way.
Once...Mexico ought to really make some sort of list, tho. Depp killing the bad guy after his own eyes had been shot out is kind of Michael Forsythian.
I did love DON JUAN DE MARCO, BENNY AND JOON, and EDWARD
Jean
SCISSORHANDS. Oops.
I stopped doing my series of Wednesday's Western on my blog when I realized that no one, or hardly anyone, was interested in a blog that featured only intelligent westerns (or at least literary westerns).
I did bring up Jonathan Lethem's discussion of the divisions of American Literature as represented by the trinity in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. But even my poster of Wayne, Charlie Sheen, and Cormac McCarthy seems to draw no interest, to judge by blog hits.
Since then, a Canadian, Patrick DeWitt, was shortlisted for the Man Booker with his critically acclaimed western, THE SISTERS BROTHERS, but I don't run into many people who have even heard of it, much less read it.
It seems like today westerns mostly live in the fringes of crime fiction (Elmore Leonard's Kentucky based JUSTIFIED) or in sci-fi (SERENITY). When Hollywood does come out with a western these days, such as COWBOYS AND ALIENS or the remake of 3:10 TO YUMA, they botch it in such a melodramatic way as to bode ill for the entire genre.
Jean
I cant do Edward Scissorhands. I know people love it, but I just cant take that claustrophobic Tim Burton atmosphere. I feel like I cant breathe when that stuff is on. For me the only really great thing about that film is Winona at her best. Ahhh Winona.
Richard
Oh yeah the genre is definitely dead on film. Mind you it had a good run.
Personally I think sci-fi is dead too as a cinematic genre if John Carter, Transformers etc are anything to go by.
Richard, you never know when someone is going to pay attention to your blog post about any given thing, so don't let that kind of stats sort of scoring stop you from writing about what matters to you. I'm sure there is an audience, they just have to find you.
The downside of the blogosphere is that no one makes any money here. But the plus s sid of the equation is that no one gets to tell you what to write, either.
John Carter was assuming and clumsy; but it was also terrific fun and clearly a labour of love for those involved. Hope we get a sequel.
Rich
I read 'The Sisters Brothers' quite recently, & once i got over the stiltidness of the language I thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt like I was reading on acid to start with though, & I've never taken acid lol. Liberty Valance is a superb film, although I have a nasty knack of confusing it with Katie Elder due to the length of the title I presume
Colum McCann who is roughly my age explains why baseball has such resonance for immigrants to America.
Oh and yeah he's a NYY fan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/what-baseball-does-to-the-soul.html?_r=1&hp
That's a good story about baseball. I think it's interesting how this multi-generational thing has tried to invade other sports. We hear it all the time in Toronto, that it's too expensive to take your kids to a Maple Leafs game like in the old days and I always wondered where this was coming from - I went to two or three hockey games a year in the 70s and there were almost no kids. The dank, smoke-filled arena at night was where men went to drink and swear - it might as well have been a tavern.
But baseball had the bleachers and was played in the afternoon outdoors. Even at Yankee stadium, I guess...
John
Its also because there are so many games in baseball. 81 home games a year. It was ridiculously easy to turn up at a Colorado Rockies game and get tickets, even at Yankee stadium you can usually get bleachers tickets day of unless its v the Mets or Sox. Trying doing that in the English Premiere League these days.
It looks like the BBC has stolen my blog post on accents in Game of Thrones here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17554816
Its an interesting article though.
Not to start a blog war, but a few overrated writers are Red Sox fans...
My first memories of watching TV were of Westerns: Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy and The Long Ranger.
Later on, liked Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel: Richard Boone as Paladin, no one like him.
Not big on movie Westerns, but liked Silverado, Tombstone and The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (was that a Western really?)
Your list is pretty good, AD, but you totally missed it by leaving out Josie Wales - the best Eastwood and best Western (and one of the best period) in recent memory. Blog on! Love to all,
John
Hi Adrian,
Only thing I disagree with is that the list should be best twenty westerns. They were my matinee fodder. Hop palming Cassidy and The Lone Ranger used to do tours promoting their movies when I was a kid. And I met them both! (well, it could have been anyone in that mask, kemosabe)
My notable omissions are, The Left Handed Gun and because I'm a sucker for a song, Rio Bravo and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.
Also, Aussie director, Fred Schepisi made one of the best westerns I've seen, with Willie Nelson in the main role, called Barbarossa. Again, is The Proposition a western? Or a Southern?
Cheers,
Joe
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