"Silent Tongue," (1993). Starring Alan Bates, Richard Harris, and River Phoenix. Directed and written by Sam Shepard. This film fits quite nicely into the Western/Horror genre. The setting is in the West during the 1880s, and while the plot is fairly straight forward and easy to follow, the subtext is a bit more subtle and uses horror scenes to exemptlify the theme. And it is the subtext which reveals the writer's voice and his theme, which is voyeurism. Shepard uses the freak show setting as a backdrop against which to display the theme, for obvious reasons. Scandalizing the viewer and satiating his perverse appetites is the Voyeur/exhibitionist paradigm. The scene in which the Freak Show character who is shaving lays bare the enlacement of "the burning fever of the prairie" and "the burning fever of yearning, "while several youngsters standing nearby are scandalized. The counterpart scene is the scene in which the young Mulroney character is forced to watch his father rape a Native American woman, Silent Tongue. Both scenes result in a horrific experience that mirrors the impact of voyeurism on the viewer. The viewer's burning fever of voyeurism is implied as well as "the burning yearning" of one addicted to films. The ghost of the Native American symbolizes the effect of perpetuating a reliance on an insatiable voyeuristic addiction.
I wonder when in his career Shepard became aware that he was a party to pimping the audience... as an actor or other film industry worker. It obviously affected him. I wonder if his inspiration was a Diana Ross song, Baby Love. He was old enough to have remembered it.
This is a wonderful film. I give it 5 of 5 stars. Enjoy!
Review of Silent Tongue
