The post-modern Western, as a kind of parasitic sub-genre of the Western, began as self-conscious parody of the Western. The precursors were films like The Marx Brothers Go West and Bob Hope's Paleface - films set in the 19th century but including references to events of the 194os. But the post-modern really began to come out on its own as afterthought to the Spaghetti Western, the formula for which included larger-than-life caricatures of the traditional Hollywood Western. The best known of these early Post-Mod Westerns were the Trinity films, but there was actually a more successful American variant from about the same time (early 1970s), Support Your Local Sheriff.
Notice that all the films mentioned so far have been comedies. For some reason, the makers of Post-Mod Westerns soon began taking themselves seriously, as heavily ironic commentary on the politics of the day - think El Topo, Dirty Little Billy, Doc. Most of these were failures - El Topo once considered a cult film, is virtually unwatchable now.
But the serious Post-Mods did leave a legacy. Since the mid-1980s, a number of films have deployed the same heavy irony, although politics is no longer a major concern. Among the first noticeable of these revised Post-Mods was the 'Brat Pack'version of the Billy the Kid story, Young Guns. This film sold very well, but largely due to the all-star cast involved; most critics did recognize a deeper problem with it, that it was difficult to determine what of it was serious, what comedic, and what just pure self-indulgence, as in the infamous peyote sequence (which, already bad, nonetheless left such an impression it got redone in Tony Scott's abysmal Domino).
This problem now really defines the Post-Mod Western. Watching these films, are we indulging in a fantasy, the plot and themes to be taken seriously despite the irony? Or is the irony simply a cheap and easy form of over-intellectualized comedy? The lack of any clear answer is the real lasting impression any of these films leave with us.
Sam Raimi is one of the more interesting of our truly independent directors, all the more so because he has remained largely with the B-movie genres and knows them all pretty well. So, especially given such a remarkable cast to work with, has he given us a Post Mod Western that avoids the unsatisfying lack of resolution we find in most of these? Although there are interesting moments in The Quick and the Dead, I'm afraid the answer is a solid negative.
It is notable - even annoyingly so - that the best moments of this film are precisely those that easily fit the traditional Western, or even Spaghetti Western, grooves, without pandering to anything Post-Mod - the real pain Stone's character evidences, the beautiful exterior photography of a desolated cemetery, the dramatic confrontations between Hackman and Crowe and between Hackman and Stone.
Why didn't Raime realize what he had with these actors? But he doesn't; he is so intent on turning in a stylistic tour-de-force that the great cast here is largely wasted. Ultimately he asks less of them than they have to offer. The drama is drowned out by visual excess, and the absurdities of the plot are pushed to the envelope rather than carefully restrained.
It's an okay action film, worth a view. But this has proved not to be the next big thing people touted it as 13 years ago, and for a very real reason - it is pure Post-Mod Western, and frankly, I think we've all grown tired of it.
I don't know that the Western genre can ever get resurrected; but it's now clear that it never passed the torch to the Post-Mod western genre as its 'logical inheritor.' Frankly I think we will see Western themes continue to appear in gangster films - The Road to Perdition, Four Brothers, American Gangsters - these have been the real cowboy movies of the past decade or so.
The Quick and the Dead doesn't cut it, sorry.
(Thanks to johnno for salvaging these mutterings from the wastebasket at work. And I agree about Brothers in Arms, same problem.)
Notice that all the films mentioned so far have been comedies. For some reason, the makers of Post-Mod Westerns soon began taking themselves seriously, as heavily ironic commentary on the politics of the day - think El Topo, Dirty Little Billy, Doc. Most of these were failures - El Topo once considered a cult film, is virtually unwatchable now.
But the serious Post-Mods did leave a legacy. Since the mid-1980s, a number of films have deployed the same heavy irony, although politics is no longer a major concern. Among the first noticeable of these revised Post-Mods was the 'Brat Pack'version of the Billy the Kid story, Young Guns. This film sold very well, but largely due to the all-star cast involved; most critics did recognize a deeper problem with it, that it was difficult to determine what of it was serious, what comedic, and what just pure self-indulgence, as in the infamous peyote sequence (which, already bad, nonetheless left such an impression it got redone in Tony Scott's abysmal Domino).
This problem now really defines the Post-Mod Western. Watching these films, are we indulging in a fantasy, the plot and themes to be taken seriously despite the irony? Or is the irony simply a cheap and easy form of over-intellectualized comedy? The lack of any clear answer is the real lasting impression any of these films leave with us.
Sam Raimi is one of the more interesting of our truly independent directors, all the more so because he has remained largely with the B-movie genres and knows them all pretty well. So, especially given such a remarkable cast to work with, has he given us a Post Mod Western that avoids the unsatisfying lack of resolution we find in most of these? Although there are interesting moments in The Quick and the Dead, I'm afraid the answer is a solid negative.
It is notable - even annoyingly so - that the best moments of this film are precisely those that easily fit the traditional Western, or even Spaghetti Western, grooves, without pandering to anything Post-Mod - the real pain Stone's character evidences, the beautiful exterior photography of a desolated cemetery, the dramatic confrontations between Hackman and Crowe and between Hackman and Stone.
Why didn't Raime realize what he had with these actors? But he doesn't; he is so intent on turning in a stylistic tour-de-force that the great cast here is largely wasted. Ultimately he asks less of them than they have to offer. The drama is drowned out by visual excess, and the absurdities of the plot are pushed to the envelope rather than carefully restrained.
It's an okay action film, worth a view. But this has proved not to be the next big thing people touted it as 13 years ago, and for a very real reason - it is pure Post-Mod Western, and frankly, I think we've all grown tired of it.
I don't know that the Western genre can ever get resurrected; but it's now clear that it never passed the torch to the Post-Mod western genre as its 'logical inheritor.' Frankly I think we will see Western themes continue to appear in gangster films - The Road to Perdition, Four Brothers, American Gangsters - these have been the real cowboy movies of the past decade or so.
The Quick and the Dead doesn't cut it, sorry.
(Thanks to johnno for salvaging these mutterings from the wastebasket at work. And I agree about Brothers in Arms, same problem.)