Found movies: Posse (the one from 1975)

The 1975 western Posse poses a fascinating set of ethical and moral dilemmas. Released just after President Nixon's resignation, it speaks in the standard western vocabulary: tough marshal (Kirk Douglas), wily outlaw (Bruce Dern), a posse on the criminal's trail, shoot outs and train chases. But its purpose is to show the stained truth behind these pure symbols, both within the story and for the audiences of its time. Thirty-five years later, those truths are, if anything, more vivid.

Marshal Howard Nightingale (Douglas) wants to be a US Senator. He has the railroad's money backing him, and plans to use the capture of train robber Jack Strawhorn (Dern) as the stepping stone he needs. Nightingale has a highly trained posse, and eventually does capture Strawhorn after a mountain gunfight. He returns to a small Texas town for a public celebration of his bravery, prior to taking Strawhorn to the state capital for trial. But Strawhorn is more clever (and perceptive) than Nightingale realizes.



Throughout the scenes of Strawhorn's pursuit and capture the film is essentially standard fare for a western of its time. Even with its widescreen cinematography, it has the same high-key lighting used on Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley and so forth. I could find nothing to corroborate this, but in retrospect it feels like a deliberate ploy to lull the audience into a sense of complacency.

And in a sense it does. Plot isn't the issue here, nor action, nor a showdown on main street. Rather it's the dissection of motivations that makes Posse so extraordinary.



Nightingale's elite posse is fully aware they'll be out of work when he goes to Washington. Further, the posse use their uniforms and notoriety to take advantage of the locals, particularly the women. The newspaper editor is played by James Stacy, an actor who lost his left arm and leg in a motorcycle accident; with those injuries now attributed to the Civil War under the command of a similarly ambitious general, he sees through Nightingale's speeches and posturing. When he asks Nightingale flat out, "How will you vote if the interests of the railroad are different than those of the people?" Nightingale avoids giving a straight answer just like all politicians from Julius Caesar to Barack Obama.

Douglas, who also directed the film, hits just the right note as Nightingale. When he makes a speech, he sounds simultaneously sincere and somehow false, so that the reactions of both the hero-worshipping townsfolk and the skeptical newsman seem valid. But the real protagonist is Strawhorn, who proves himself the most perceptive and resourceful character in the film. Not only does he outsmart Nightingale, he proves his cynical world view to be the right one. I won't give away the ending, but it's brilliant in its minimal, absolutely right sarcasm.

As another reviewer pointed out, Posse has fallen through the critical cracks, which is a shame. Like classic revisionist westerns such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Wild Bunch and Unforgiven, it uses the mythology of history to make a point about its own time. The sad fact that the films' "railroads" have become the "special interests" of today with no appreciable change in their self-interested influence (thanks, Supreme Court) means that Posse's central point is in no danger of losing its relevance.

What movies have surprised you with their contemporary relevance?

(Those with Netflix can watch a streaming version of the Posse.)

Heaven's Gate: a parable finds its time

I recently rewatched Michael Cimino's 1980 film Heaven's Gate. Yep, the notorious disaster that destroyed a studio and the career of its director. For background, check out the late Steven Bach's book Final Cut.

A quick synopsis: Harvard graduate Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson) goes west and becomes marshal of Johnson County, Wyoming, a place settled mostly by Eastern European immigrants. When these immigrants start killing cattle to feed their starving families, the cattle barons, with the approval of the governor and president, hire an army of killers to eliminate them. The immigrants, though, fight back. And just as they're about to overcome the assassins, the cavalry rides to the rescue--to save the bad guys.



In a coda we see an older Averill back east, having returned to his world of wealth and privilege but still wrestling with his conscience.

I was struck by the pessimism and cynicism at the heart of the story, and its parallels--emotionally more than narratively--with the America of today. Like the immigrants in the movie, most of us feel powerless to resist the economic and political forces arrayed against us. We know that rare good men like Jim Averill can't protect us from the sheer epic badness of the world's powerful people. Like the bankers, lawmakers and lawyers behind our current economic disaster, the film's immigrants face the rich cattle barons, Wyoming's governor and even the president (Benjamin Harrison, a Republican). These forces are untouchable, protected by wealth and distance and entitlement. "It's not me doing this to you," the Army captain tells Averill as the villains are saved, "it's the rules." Homeowners being evicted might get the same speech.

And like those immigrants in the story, our fear and frustration often come out in violence directed at the people we feel are responsible for our misery. In our case, this often turns tragically to former bosses, co-workers and family, because those truly responsible are too well protected (witness the private security employed by AIG executives to greet protesters at their palatial homes).

Averill starts with high ideals that are subsequently destroyed; the end of the film finds him on a yacht off the coast of Rhode Island, clearly wracked with guilt and regret but also as clearly not leaving this safe socioeconomic cocoon. It's the nineteenth century version of the golden parachute.

None of this excuses the excesses of Heaven's Gate, both financially and artistically. But it does reinforce the idea that sometimes things made with sincerity (and no one questions that Cimino really was trying to, and thought he had, wrought a meaningful film) can resonate far beyond their time. And truthfully I'd rather watch Heaven's Gate than an empty, entirely pointless "success" like Transformers any day.

Note: the documentary Final Cut, narrated by Willem Dafoe, can be found on YouTube here.