Forgive and Let Die
Bend of the River (1952)
directed by Anthony Mann
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Bill Munny's ascension to feverish Ares is a reaction to the death of his black partner. The descent of Unforgiven from the mountaintop of my estimation - or at least the retreat of my sense of awe - is only the beach revealed by the outgoing tide. A western like Bend of the River shows how varied the genre got, long before 1992. Maybe what remains to Unforgiven is race - and specifically slaves - as the impetus behind so much western violence. It's separate in theme from crimes against Indians, and cannot find its excuse in nation-building or expansion.
One thing's sure, though. Gentleman Jim's got the market cornered on Bleeding Kansas mercenaries starting over on behalf of a good woman's love. For every mixed metaphor in my first paragraph, Stewart slips a threat soft into the beds where bad men sleep. Mann accommodates him with great Wild West sets (young Portland on the Columbia River) and much-higher-percentage-than-studio-average location shooting. A covered wagon never looked so heavy as when a team of horses and a bang-up stuntman try to drag the whole Oregon Trail across snowfields above the timberline. Whatever the Eskimos might say about the white stuff, this was something new.
directed by Anthony Mann
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Bill Munny's ascension to feverish Ares is a reaction to the death of his black partner. The descent of Unforgiven from the mountaintop of my estimation - or at least the retreat of my sense of awe - is only the beach revealed by the outgoing tide. A western like Bend of the River shows how varied the genre got, long before 1992. Maybe what remains to Unforgiven is race - and specifically slaves - as the impetus behind so much western violence. It's separate in theme from crimes against Indians, and cannot find its excuse in nation-building or expansion.
One thing's sure, though. Gentleman Jim's got the market cornered on Bleeding Kansas mercenaries starting over on behalf of a good woman's love. For every mixed metaphor in my first paragraph, Stewart slips a threat soft into the beds where bad men sleep. Mann accommodates him with great Wild West sets (young Portland on the Columbia River) and much-higher-percentage-than-studio-average location shooting. A covered wagon never looked so heavy as when a team of horses and a bang-up stuntman try to drag the whole Oregon Trail across snowfields above the timberline. Whatever the Eskimos might say about the white stuff, this was something new.
posted by NPK at 7:19 AM
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