Scenes that Encapsulate or Epitomize the Western (spoilers)

[aox]

If there is a thread about this, I apologize. After a quick search I was unable to find anything that resembled what I am asking. I was wondering what people's thoughts on this genre were, but more importantly, what are also your favorite moments within the genre (They don't even have to come from a film you like). I am not asking for lists of people's various favorite films or anything, but general thoughts. I realize some of the elite here will take this as a .COM type thread, and it might be, but I would rather have your opinions than most considering that many of you have ventured outside of Leone and Corbucci. I am really getting into the genre lately. One moment I think that creates a more romantic myth of the western is the beginning of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. The people at the table think Robert Redford is cheating and ask him to leave. Once they realize who he is, a man asks how fast he really is. Redford draws and manages to shot the gun right out of his opponent's holster, then shoots it several times to make the gun dance across the room away from his opponent. I always think of this scene has been visually delicious. It also reminds me of Leone's For a Few Dollars More when Eastwood and Van Cleef meet in the street. Each shooting the other's hate either down the street or up in the air.

On the more brutal side, there are many of course in Altman's McCabe and Ms. Miller, but another one that sticks out to me is the flashback scenes at the end of Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. The viciousness of having him stand on his shoulders at the end is terrifying.

Or scenes that show perhaps the real life rugged nature of the west in ways that hollywood perhaps avoided. I think of the scene in Dead Man, when Depp arrives in the town. As he strolls down main street, he looks over and sees a man getting a blow job in the alley. This shocked me upon initial viewing because I had never seen a western be so frank in terms of sex, but it makes complete sense that something like this could have happened back then.

So, my point with this thread is to get some of your favorite moments within the genre and recommendations of perhaps lesser known westerns that you feel should be canonical or at least better known.

[domino harvey]

Well, you missed two of the most famous moments in westerns, both featuring John Wayne: His close-up in Stagecoach and the final doorway shot in the Searchers

[aox]

It wouldn't be much of a thread if I mentioned them all.

I actually have not seen Stagecoach.

[Murdoch]

Well, my favorite example of a John Ford western would have to be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I've never been a John Wayne fan, but I really enjoyed the pairing of him and Stewart, there needs to be a new DVD. I used to only like the Eastwood westerns since my dad would watch them a lot, but I've expanded my interest since this is the most "American" genre and I feel the need to understand it as a whole and not just by the stereotypical cowboy vs. bandits storyline.

The western seems to have been somewhat invigorated lately with the 3:10 to Yuma remake and that one with Ed Harris, but that happens every so often and I don't think it will last long. However, it saddens me that overall the genre is seen as dead and the few films that are made tend to stick within the western's basic parameters of a sheriff/man-of-the-law against a bunch of outlaws. Outside of Unforgiven and Dead Man are there any worthwhile recent westerns? The only example I could think of would be The Proposition which was a great throwback to Peckinpah. I suppose you could consider No Country for Old Men a more contemporary western, and that certainly falls into similar territory to Dead Man in how it doesn't keep to genre conventions and instead explores specific themes, which I think is the only way to make an interesting western today.

[Belmondo]

Well, you missed two of the most famous moments in westerns, both featuring John Wayne: His close-up in Stagecoach and the final doorway shot in the Searchers

And, the final scene in FORT APACHE in which John Ford explains for all time how we should view this. We need a myth and legend, not the real west.
In the excellent nonfiction "Son of the Morning Star", author Evan Connell tells of the brutality surrounding the Battle of the Little Big Horn, but goes on to show that the American west was mind numbingly boring. Very small towns, isolated settlers, gunshots only when hunting and the occasional "fake fandango" when people got together for pleasure. You worked your land and died young. In the equally excellent and recently published "Blood and Thunder", by Hampton Sides, we find that famous Indian killer Kit Carson was also a true friend to the Indians but was unable to curb their occasional and necessary raids on whites (usually for horses or livestock) and terrible sadness becomes our heritage.
So, Ford was right, as usual.
I enjoyed all the movies already mentioned, but, I prefer it when the myth is presented in a way that rings true for me even if it may not be true in reality. McCABE and Mrs. MILLER is a perfect example of this for me. BUTCH CASSIDY is not. When Redford shows off his moves with his six-gun, I know I am watching Hollywood at its' worst. Those old Colt revolvers had to be fully cocked each time before firing and you better load up only five rounds and keep the trigger on an empty chamber or you'll blow your leg off since the damn things were prone to misfiring. All of the Italian westerns seem ludicrous to me even though they do, in certain ways, capture something about the west worth saying.
I can come back with scores of scenes that capture or epitomize the western. Many of them would demonstrate all that is good about the American character and our choice of beliefs in our myth of the west.
All of them would be false.

[Mr Sheldrake]

The Searchers - Ethan, his quest at an end, lifting his long lost niece high in the air, as he had done when she was little, "let's go home, Debbie". There's so much going on in that scene about Ethan, Wayne, Ford, racism, America, family love, maybe even what it means to be a human being. Emotionally, it's a pip.

[zedz]

It seemed weird to me that all of the examples in the opening thread were 60s or later. (Not that there's anything wrong with that - just seemed a bit perverse.)

Some iconic scenes for me:
Winchester '73 - That climactic stalking / showdown amongst the rocks. The climaxes of most Mann westerns are superbly staged with great attention to the details of their space. See also The Naked Spur (up on the rocks again) and Man of the West.

The Man from Laramie - Jimmy Stewart gets shot in the hand at point-blank range. One of the most excruciating pieces of violence in any western, and in this film it consciously attains Shakespearean heights, a parallel to Gloucester's blinding (also present, in muted form).

Man of the West - So many defining sequences: the quasi-sexual humiliation of Jack Lord - a payback scene of extreme psychological cruelty; the raid on the ghost town - another instance of Mann's mastery of spatial relationships.

Pursued - The showdown in depth between Mitchum and the figure on a distant ridge: Walsh letting the landscape do the heavy symbolic lifting in this great noir western.

The Big Trail - Almost any one of its remarkable compositions in depth (even ordinary dialogue scenes can include the detailed action of hundreds of extras miles in the background), but the scene of the wagons being lowered over the cliff is one of the most spectacularly staged sequences in cinema.

My Darling Clementine - That section starting just after the credits and finishing at 'The End'.

[sidehacker]

When Randolph Scott appears over the balcony of the hotel in Frontier Marshal.

[Sloper]

This has no doubt been said before many times, but to me the appeal of the western genre is rooted in the sense that this was an era, and a place, in which American civilisation was still in a formative stage, when the rule of law was extremely fragile, and it was possible for men to shoot each other without there necessarily being any consequences. It’s no coincidence that the heyday of the western coincides with the period in American cinema when filmmakers were not allowed to show criminals (especially murderers) getting away with their crimes.

The historical context of my favourite western, The Gunfighter, allows the reformed bandit and killer (and possibly child-killer, by his own admission) played by Millard Mitchell to slip through the net. This film, along with High Noon and The Wild Bunch, are in my book the most emblematic examples of the genre because of the complex, sceptical approach they take to the period, and to the mystique surrounding these Billy the Kid figures who, for a limited time at least, enjoy the freedom to engage in what are effectively killing sprees. (Gangster films such as Bonnie and Clyde or Le Samourai spring to mind as twentieth-century equivalents to this kind of thing.)

I love the opening and closing shots of The Gunfighter: that silhouetted, anonymous figure riding about in the desert. In between, the film shows us the real, vulnerable, scared man, but those framing shots depict the Legend which survives of him, and appropriately these are the only moments when Alfred Newman’s rather good score is heard in the film.

Any of those shots of Gary Cooper stalking those empty streets – they brilliantly show the pretence of civilisation shattered, the rule of law dependent on one man’s ability to outgun his foes. And that tin star trodden into the dust may be up there with Rosebud among the All Time Great Worn Out Metaphors, but it still gives me a chill every time I see it.

I'd second Zedz's citation of the ending of Winchester '73, a great and (as far as I remember) almost wordless summation of what this genre is really about. In the same vein, there’s the ending of von Stroheim’s Greed: two men, transposed from San Francisco to Death Valley, stripped of all vestiges of civilisation, reduced to the brutish, unrestrained, selfish, violent nature that lies at their core.

[Polybius]

Some iconic scenes for me:
Winchester '73 - That climactic stalking / showdown amongst the rocks. The climaxes of most Mann westerns are superbly staged with great attention to the details of their space. See also The Naked Spur (up on the rocks again) and Man of the West.

One thing he uses on several occasions is a guy crouching down low behind some sheltering obstruction to shoot another one who is standing in the leg.

For me, the tension in The Naked Spur is really ratcheted up with the constant roaring of the rapids in the background, especially in repeat watching when you know how pivotal they'll be to the scene.

The Man from Laramie - Jimmy Stewart gets shot in the hand at point-blank range. One of the most excruciating pieces of violence in any western, and in this film it consciously attains Shakespearean heights, a parallel to Gloucester's blinding (also present, in muted form).

The sound he makes at that shot is just utterly gut wrenching to me. Then, he says so much with just two words ("You scum!!") The guy who shoots him is everything he's not: a dimwitted, cowardly, sadistic jerk with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. A guy who has to have two others hold Stewart down so he can make that shot. The way that his men kind of wander away after that, shame all over their faces...it's just a brilliantly staged scene from beginning to end.

[domino harvey]

The best part of Winchester 73 is that the first hour is so good and the audience is so delighted with how things are going, and then Mann introduces Dan Duryea's character and the whole production just goes into a giddy hyper-drive.

Yellow Sky features maybe my favorite opening to any western, a long twenty-five minute or so trek through the bleak hells of a salt flat. Being thirsty in the desert is a common trope in these films, but this is the only one that ever made me feel physical anguish over it.

[sidehacker]

Great call on Yellow Sky. I love that image of the characters stumbling upon the ghost town following their trip through the salt flat.

Another from Wellman: Henry Fonda reading Dana Andrew's letter in The Ox-Bow Incident.

[zedz]

I keep thinking of more, but I have to at least mention Jack Nicholson crawling around under the murderous sun at the end of The Shooting (and the way Hellman shoots horses in that film - with a camera, PETAphiles - is brilliant) and the first appearance of Warren Oates in Ride the High Country.

In the cavalcade of Searchers citations, has anybody mentioned the first encounter between young Debbie and Scar at the beginning: perfectly nightmarish staging that never fails to give me chills.

[Caligula]

Day Of The Outlaw (Andre De Toth, 1959) is a gem of a film. Among its many splendid moments one has to mention the scene where Robert Ryan's character, out to settle a score with the husband of his love interest, gets to the supposed final confrontation with his opponent in a saloon: a bottle is set rolling over the bar counter; when it hits the floor, the men will draw. The camera follows the bottle as rolls over the counter, and in the background, just before it hits the floor, the swinging doors open and Burl Ives and his gang of outlaws walk in.

Great stuff.

[tojoed]

Zedz mentioned "Ride the High Country" and I thought of ageing Joel McCrea sinking to the bottom of the frame to die. In fact, it's one of the great westerns period.

[Polybius]

Another from Wellman: Henry Fonda reading Dana Andrew's letter in The Ox-Bow Incident.

No one else could have done that scene better.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

[Sloper]

If we're talking parodies (and in honour of Michael Crichton), the moment in Westworld when Yul Brynner's gun turns nasty, and he puts it back in the holster and says 'Draw'... The shot of the empty street, the music, and the look on Richard Benjamin's face, make it one of my favourite western moments, and somehow quite an encapsulatory one.

The epic fistfight between Heston and Peck in The Big Country also takes the piss beautifully. Oh, and Joan Crawford snatching away the tossed coin in Johnny Guitar.

[Grand Illusion]

Leone could've just released the first 8-12 minutes of Once Upon A Time In The West, and it'd still be one of the best films ever made.

The sound design, the isolation, the tension of waiting, the location and art direction. They all encapsulate a world prior to the frantic technological machine we belong to now. Leone's West is more calm, but more terrifying. More isolated, but more prone to outbursts of violence.

[ando]

I'm not sure I can think of any moments that might encapsulate or epitomize The Western. If I could, the example would probably prove as unimaginative as the genre - at this stage of the game - has become.

But I do have favorite moments (naturally). And I believe there's something, at least, iconic about them that makes them rather unforgettable.

Sam Peckinpah, who surprisingly has not been mentioned yet, was responsible for so many great Western scenes that I'll just mention two that come to mind immediately.

The first is the final scene in The Wild Bunch, one of the greatest (and most violent) Westerns ever made, where the gang of outlaws prepare for the final confrontation with authority and William Holden remarks, "It's a good day to die." Except for the fact that no one has yet mentioned such a famous moment, I almost feel silly for mentioning it.

The second is from Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (a highly underrated film), which upon further consideration, doesn't appear to be a Western at all. But I think it fits all the necessary criteria.

At any rate, the most memorable sequence begins with Warren Oates, who plays the hero seeking revenge for the slaying of a former friend and love rival, driving to a final confrontation with his enemies with the bloody, fly drawing head of said Garcia in a cloth sack next to him in the front seat. With two groups of enemies chasing Oates in pursuit of his prize (the head), they all collide in a cross-section at a ravine on the side of a mountain. The shootout is expertly crafted by Peckinpah as almost all of Oates enemies are gunned down except for a one hundred year old relative of Garcia, who is isn't touched amidst all the gunfire and is left standing with his hands up when the smoke clears and Oates cruizes away.
Classic.


Oates in Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

[zedz]

Sam Peckinpah, who surprisingly has not been mentioned yet

Tojoed and me cry "foul!"

But you're right about those other iconic moments. An 'Alfredo Garcia: Western or Not?' discussion could be interesting. I agree that in almost every respect except for period it fits.

[Murdoch]

Would Badlands be considered a western? It certainly falls in the same area as Bonnie and Clyde which I would not consider a western except in the most liberal use of the genre, but Malick's use of large landscapes has clear John Ford connections and the journey of the characters on the run seems a display of the modern American west with Martin Sheen as a character right out of a western let loose into the post-Industrial America. I would like to see how different people define the western because I always saw it as a portrait of the vintage American Dream during the decades of manifest destiny, this area that lies outside the industrialized east that represents basic survival in an infant country and is a sort of Hobbes-like state of man versus man. But in terms of the recent revisionist western (No Country for Old Men, Unforgiven) it seems more a showcase of how there is little left to explore within the landscape of the US, and instead focuses more on the internal struggles of the dying cowboy.

Anyway, in terms of a specific example of scenes encapsulating the genre I would say High Noon in every scene leading up to the final shoot-out, where Cooper is completely alone and isolated, forced to defend a town that refuses to defend itself. It really cuts right to this vision of human nature that is brilliantly executed, Cooper portraying the aged lawman with the right amount of disillusionment and malaise.

[feihong]

Just recently saw COMANCHE STATION and there's an eponymous moment at the finale where Randolph Scott gets the drop on Claude Akins and Akins tells him he thinks he might have a chance if he whirls around and draws on Scott. Scott tells him not to do it and Akins says he's gonna do it anyway. Scott fires as Akins whips around, and as Akins slumps against a rock he murmurs to Scott and to himself, "ain't it something...what a man'll push himself to...for money." or something like that. Seems a quintessential scene in the later, more existentially-conscious westerns of the 60s and 70s. Akins knows he's a bad guy in a western story, but that realization doesn't save him. He still compels himself to extinguish his own life over money, pride, etc.--even though he sees through those things very clearly.

[Dr Amicus]

The first is the final scene in The Wild Bunch, one of the greatest (and most violent) Westerns ever made, where the gang of outlaws prepare for the final confrontation with authority and William Holden remarks, "It's a good day to die." Except for the fact that no one has yet mentioned such a famous moment, I almost feel silly for mentioning it.

Absolutely - and one of my favourite sequences in film, full stop. The theme of recovering lost honour perfectly encapsulated in just a few minutes. Although the moment of silence after the first shot - before the final bloody shootout - when they could walk away is a close runner up.

Another favourite is the crane shot from Once Upon a Time in the West - Claudia Cardinale has arrived at the train station, all alone. She goes through the gate - the camera cranes up, Morricone's music swells and we see the town behind. Cardinale is clearly visible in the middle of the bustling town - she is the future rather than the various gunfighters (Fonda, Bronson, Robards) that are the ostensible stars of the film. In some ways a repudiation of the machismo of much of the genre - and which also provides much of the pleasure of the film.

Actually, I used this sequence in my classes when discussing High Noon. There's a similar crane shot there, but this time it's to show Gary Cooper alone in the town as the rest of the townspeople are hiding in their houses. The two sequences seemed to contrast quite nicely.

[aox]

speaking of High Noon: Do you think the townspeople at the end ever put out the massive fire engulfing their town as their bid farewell to our hero?