An analysis of Western
films discloses the use of a number of specific types of scenic
elements that tend to recur frequently in such movies. The order in
which these scenic elements occurs may differ, and not all may be
present in a film, although, typically, many, if not all, do tend to
appear. In addition, each scenic element can be shown by itself or in
combination with another (for example, an offer of a bounty may be
accepted or rejected, earned or lost). Scenic elements that occur in
all the movies analyzed below are indicated by bold font.
In Tombstone (1993),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Despicable
deed: An action, usually criminal, that is beyond the pale, even for
outlaws
Relocation
Reunion
Health
problem
Character
flaw
Stake:
A source of income, often temporary
Murder
Arrest
Law
enforcement
Gunfight
Ambush
Retaliation
Refuge:
a place of safety
Challenge
Substitution:
the replacement of an expected or intended character or object with
an unexpected replacement
Showdown
Vendetta:
protracted revenge against several parties
Marriage
In
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
(1966), these scenic elements occur in this order:
Interrogation:
formal or informal, legal or otherwise
Murder
Surrender
to authorities: of oneself or one's prisoner
Rescue
Abandonment
Revenge
Duplicity:
often as a means of double-dealing or double-crossing
Reunion
Capture
Escape
Sabotage
Intelligence:
information gained through personal observation, primary sources, or
secondary sources
Robbery
Rescue
In
The War Wagon (1967),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Relocation
Revenge
Intelligence
Hiring
of expert(s)
Robbery
Rescue
Offer
of bounty
Drunkenness
Negotiation
Intervention
Diversion
Theft
Forced
detour
Division
of forces
Drunkenness
Ambush
Murder
Crash
In
True Grit (1969),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Murder
Robbery
Hiring
of expert(s)
Pursuit
Tracking
of fugitive(s)
Partnership
Attempted
abandonment
Discovery:
information gained through a character's own action, rather than
those of another party or from a primary or secondary source
Capture
Interrogation
Defiance
Attempted
ambush
Feint
Gunfight
Death:
loss of life due to a natural cause or a justified killing, as
opposed to murder
Escape
Pursuit
Wounding
Kidnapping
Ultimatum
Attack
Injury
Snakebite
Commandeering of
civilian vehicle
Payment
Promise
Wager
As
this partial analysis of the recurring types of scenic elements
common to Western films shows, such movies frequently use the same
scenic elements, despite the dramatic details of their plots. A
writer who is interested in writing a Western novel or screenplay can
use these same scenic elements to construct a plot based on a
structure that has stood the test of time.
As Ann Anderson points out in
Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The Anerican Medical Show, the
entertainment that these carnival-style performances provided
(between snake oil salesmen's product pitches) was “perfectly
suited to isolated rural audiences” who enjoyed simple amusements
(163). Performers included “blackface” comedians, musicians, mind
readers, ventriloquists, magicians, and others (82).
Both comedies, such as the
movie Poppy (1937), starring W. C. Fields, and a Walt Disney
production, Alice's Medicine Show (1927). starring Lois Hardwick, and
Westerns, including Little Big Man (1970), starring Dustin Hoffman
and Faye Dunaway, and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) starring Clint
Eastwood.
Some members of show
audiences were easily convinced, or duped into believing, that the
salesmen offered the elixirs of life. Others were skeptical (as were
the physicians of the day). In Western films, though, medicine shows,
as might be expected, were usually played strictly for laughs.
The very phrase “snake oil”
suggests chicanery. In Europe during the 1800s, rattlesnake “oil”
was regarded as a cure for arthritis and rheumatism. Whether or not
this is true hasn't been proved, but the question, with regard to the
“medicines” said to have been derived from vipers, including
rattlesnakes, is moot, since, as Laurence M. Klauber points out, in
volume two, of his Rattlesnakes, it's unlikely that snake oil ever
actually contained snake oil (or any parts of these vipers).
Snake oil products are also
known as “patent medicines.” The National Museum of American
History explains why:
Patent
medicines are named after the “letters patent” granted by the
English crown. The first “letters
patent” given to an inventor of a secret remedy was issued
during the late 17th century. The patent granted the medicine maker a
monopoly over his particular formula. The term “patent medicine”
came to describe all pre-packaged medicines sold “over-the-counter”
without a doctor’s prescription. In the United States very few
preparations were ever actually patented.
The label on the front of a
bottle of Seelye's Wasa-Tusa,
a medicine “For Man and Beast, Internal and External,” lists its
ingredients as “63% non-beverage alcohol, 10 minims [of] sulphuric
ether and 7 minims of chloroform per ounce [of] alcohol derivative.”
Like most patent medicines,
it's touted as effective in the treatment of a host of maladies:
“Muscular Soreness, Bruises, Strains, Sprains, Simple Headache,
Simple Neuralgias, Toothache, Simple Earaches, minor Irritations of
the Throat, and where a counter-irritant would be used.”
A few drops taken
“internally,” with water or milk, likewise remedies “Colic and
Cramps due to Gas.” The product is also “Useful for Wire Cuts,
Swellings, Etc., and on Animals” and works as effectively to
alleviate “Colic in Horses” as it does to relieve the same malady
in humans.
Wasa-Tusa cures so many
conditions and diseases that it's hard to see why anyone would ever
need to buy another medicine after purchasing The A. B. Seelye
Company's nostrum. Considering all the ailments from which the
product provides relief, if not, indeed, a cure, it is certainly
worth its $1.25 retail price.
One of the most interesting
facts about Alfred Barns Seelye (December 20, 1870 - February 14,
1948) is that he took the theatrics out of snake oil sales, treating
the production, marketing, and distribution of his patent medicines
as a business. In addition, as we shall see, he found innovative ways
to entertain his customers and potential customers. If, after the
passing of the medicine show, due to its ever-increasing extravagance
and attendant expenses, Seelye would bring the show to the
clientele--or a semblance of it, at least. As a result, he was
immensely successful for years, his customer base and profits
increasing dramatically.
Seelye studied
both medicine at one college and literature at another, without
graduating from either. In 1890, after moving from Illinois, where he'd grown
up, to the famous cowtown, Abilene, Kansas, of which Wild Bill Hickock had once been marshal, Seelye set up a laboratory and began
making Wasa-Tusa, Fro-Zona, and about a hundred other concoctions.
His success was tremendous,
his company growing to the point that, at the pinnacle of his
success, he employed over three hundred traveling salesmen, among
other workers. He had to move his operations into a larger building,
which also housed his Seelye Theater, which sat an audience of eight
hundred.
He
married Jeanette Taylor in 1893, and the couple increased Abilene's
population by two, their daughters Mary Eleanor and Helen Ruth.
Founded
in 1890, in Abilene, Kansas, Seelye's company was incorporated
nine years later. By 1905, its snake oil sales had made Seelye a
wealthy man, indeed.
It's
not hard to understand why. The company offers something for
everyone—and for every ailment.
A
three-ounce jar of its Fro-Zona
Company ointment is a superb after-shave, its menthol, camphor, and
oils (peppermint, eucalyptus, and pine), and, of course, its
petroleum, constituting a “soothing preparation” for everyday
use. It cools “prickly heat, sunburn, insect stings, chafing, frost
bites [sic], head colds, chapped skin, nasal irritation, superficial
burns, and simple headaches.”
It
can be rubbed “between the eyes,” daubed up the nostrils, or
dabbed “behind the ears,” preferably before “retiring at
night.” Apparently, it also works on toys:
the front of the product's label shows a physician making a house
call to examine a little girl's doll, as he holds a jar of the
panacea.
The
fact that Fro-Zona is a patent
medicine is indicated on the bottle by a stamped notice of the
balm's registry with the U. S. Patent Office.
In
promoting his medicines, Seelye is sure to offer his customers more
than their money's worth. A 1903 promotional “almanac” is also a
“health guide,” and the combination almanac-health guide is also
a cook book—three useful publications in one. In short, the booklet
contains, “besides the weather forecasts, some excellent Cooking
Receipts [sic] . . . and general information, as well as a history of
the Seelye Medicines and their method of cure.”
In
addition, it's chock full of advertisements for his lotions, potions,
and nostrums. The fifty-two-page publication
promotes “Ner-Vena, Wasa-Tusa, Magic Cough and Consumption Cure,
Seelye's Wintergreen Ointment, Wintergreen Soap, A. B. Seelye's Happy
Life Pills, Seelye's Universal Stock and Poultry Powder, Horse
Liniment, Seelye's Hair Tonic and Restorative, and other remedies.”
The
brochure's “Introduction” boasts of the company's success.
Business was “excellent” in 1902, and sales in 1903 promise to be
no less flourishing, as the company marks its “13th year” of
continual growth,” satisfied customers singing the medicines'
praises
as products that not only “cure folks” but also “prolong life.”
The booklet is quite a bargain for free (although, should readers
care to do so, they're more than welcome to send in their
testimonials concerning the benefits of the company's cures).
The
brochure contains many delightful, if not always informative,
illustrations
as well. One, labeled “The Human Body,” shows the figure of a
man, lines connecting the animals of the zodiac to the various organs
of the human anatomy over which these signs are said to govern:
Gemini, the arms; Leo, the heart; Taurus, the neck; and so on.
The
booklet contains all manner of trivia
and esoteric information. In addition to the astrological
associations with human anatomy, a list of religious holidays and
their respective dates appears, beneath which the year's “Morning
and Evening Stars” are identified.
As
might be expected, advertisements and testimonials
make up a substantial part of the publication, appearing either as
full-page texts or as sidebars, complete with a photograph of the
gentleman or lady who offers an endorsement of a particular product.
Mrs.
Julia
Weathers, for example, of Sedgwick, Kansas, who once suffered, it
seems, from “weak nerves,” contends that “Dr. Seelye's Ner-Vena
is the greatest medicine” for treating this condition that she has
ever seen. “Dizzy spells” had afflicted her, causing her to “stay
in bed half a day at a time,” before “three bottles” of
Seelye's “remarkable remedy” remedied her condition, curing her.
And that's not all! She adds, Ner-Vena also benefited her heart in
some way. (She doesn't say how, exactly.) Whatever the wonderful
nostrum did to help her heart, though, prompted her to declare, in no
uncertain terms, “Ner-Vena was indeed a God send to me.”
These
features weren't live acts, of course. There were no magicians and
clowns, no ventriloquists or men on stilts, but there were
interesting articles, loads of trivia, intriguing illustrations,
esoteric lore, and, of course, apparently heartfelt thanks, product
recommendations, and personal testimonials from satisfied customers.
On the frontier, especially in rural areas far from the nearest town,
the arrival of Seelye's combination almanac-health guide-cook book
must have been welcome, indeed. Its pages provided escape from
boredom and drudgery while acquainting its readers with the wonderful
nostrums that could cure nearly any ailment known to medicine, and,
best of all, it was delivered free to one's doorstep, upon request.
A
help wanted advertisement in the May 15, 1902 issue of the Abilene
Weekly Reflector
also suggests that the company was doing well. Despite having forty
employees, the company was seeking ten to twelve more salesmen and
had hired the Abilene Carriage Company to build “ten new wagons”
to carry products directly to the customers who ordered them.
Despite
the announcement's headline, “Good Chance for Hustlers,” it seems
that the newspaper found the company to be a good place to work:
“Dickinson county young men need not hesitate to engage with the A.
B. Seelye Medicine company as they are reliable and do well by their
salesmen.”
Yes,
whatever the effectiveness of its many “medicines,” The A. B.
Seelye Company was good to its founder. With the fortune he earned,
he built the fabulous 11,000-square-foot, twenty-five-room Seelye
Mansion in Abilene, Kansas.
A
beautiful home in the Georgian style, this magnificent mansion, built
in 1905 for $55,000, boasts Edison light fixtures, a Tiffany
fireplace, eleven bedrooms, a ballroom, a music room featuring “gold
French furniture and a grand Steinway piano,” and a bowling alley.
The house was also home, at one time, to Seelye's laboratory (where,
it seems likely, plenty more nostrums were concocted),Seelye was even
more extravagant in purchasing the mansion's elegant furniture. He
bought most of it at the 1904
St. Louis World's Fair, paying more for it than he paid to build
the house!
The
bowling
alley, which “was ordered at the Chicago World's Fair,” was
constructed by the American Box Ball Company, Indianapolis, Indiana.
It not only automatically returns the ball, but features an unusual
feature: the pull of a lever resets the “drop-style pins.”
As
a youngster, Dwight
D. Eisenhower delivered ice to the mansion; later, of course, the
boy would become Supreme Commander of the Allied forces during World
War II and the president of the United States, but, for the Seelye
daughters, Helen and Marion, who lived in the house following their
father's demise, Ike would remain “a man from the wrong side of the
tracks.”
Dwight
D. Eisenhower and Frank Lloyd Wright
Another
famous person associated with the Seelye Mansion is architect Frank
Lloyd Wright, who “suggested renovated the interior” of the
home in the 1920s.
Seelye's
Wasa-Tusa, his Fro-Zona Company ointment, his Magic Cough and
Consumption Cure, his Wintergreen Ointment, his Wintergreen Soap, his
Happy Life Pills, his Universal Stock and Poultry Powder, his Horse
Liniment, his Hair Tonic and Restorative, and all his other
preposterous products—and his innovative and tireless efforts in
promoting them—made the purveyor of dubious notions, lotions, and
potions a remarkably wealthy man who lived out his life in luxury,
perhaps tinkering with formulae and concocting new “medicines”
right up to the end of his days.
Western
movies tend to do well at the box office, especially when their
leading character is a star of the magnitude of John Wayne or Clint
Eastwood.
How
much do posters and lobby cards designed to promote these films help
sell tickets? The answer is anybody's guess, but, apparently, even in
the digital age, Hollywood believes that there is magic in such
advertisements. Movie posters and lobby cards have long been staples
of the promotion of movies of all genres, Westerns included. They
remain so today.
Like
movie posters that promote other genres, those that advertise Western
films can pinpoint some of the features of such fare that
screenwriters have found appeal to viewers. The same features, one
might suppose, would also appeal to readers of Western novels.
Let's
take a look at a Western movie poster, with an eye toward what,
specifically, they advertise that's central to this genre.
The
poster for Pale Rider,
featuring Clint Eastwood, shows
a
lone gunman fanning his Colt
a
lone gunman who is dressed well by the standards of his time
seven
men standing in a line
a
block of buildings typical of Western towns
a
caption, in small letters, at the heart of the sun-like circle to
the right of Eastwood's head
the
colors yellow, orange, red-orange, and reddish-brown
What
can we infer from the images, design, colors, and text?
Typically,
the Western hero is a solitary figure who's good with a gun and who
is willing to risk his life to defend himself, another person, or his
own values. He tends to be larger than life. The poster focuses on
Eastwood's character, a lone gunman who is shown as a giant among
men; the seven other figures shown in the poster are not only
literally beneath him, but they are tiny in comparison, and, while he
is shown in full color, they are little more than shadows. Next to
him, the other men are insignificant, more like pesky gnats than
worthy foes.
Not
only is the lone gunman bigger than anyone else, but he is also
central: he is shown near the center of the poster's focus. Thanks to
his size, his facial features are easily discernible; he has an
identity; he is an individual, a person with character. His weathered
appearance, leathery skin, and sharp features mark him as an
independent, hard-bitten man who's been around and knows the score.
In his eyes, we see steely determination; his bared teeth show
aggression. He is focused, intent, one with his gun. A man on a
mission, he stands and delivers. These are the qualities of
personality, the poster suggests, that are important to the audience
for this actor's films. Moviegoers (or readers) who enjoy Westerns
want a man who, even alone, will take a stand, risk his own life, and
combat forces which would defy or destroy the principles he holds
dear.
The
lone gunman dresses better than many of his day, which suggests that
he enjoys financial success. He may make his living by his gun. He
may, in other words, be a gunfighter or a mercenary. (Those familiar
with the “spaghetti Westerns” in which Eastwood starred will
know, of course, that, in Pale Rider,
he plays a bounty hunter).
The
sun behind him isn't a halo exactly, or, if it is, it doesn't fit him
precisely, but the effect is similar; the concentric circles of the
high desert sun frame him closely enough to suggest that there may be
more to him than meets the eye, even if he himself is not altogether
holy.
The
poster's colors are bright and vibrant, but the sun's brilliant
yellow, by degrees, merges with the brown of the hero's coat and the
sky, the element of air merging with the element of earth. Perhaps
the lone gunman is a demigod, the Wild West's version of Hercules.
Western fans want their heroes to be Heroes, to be writ large, to be
of nearly supernatural dimensions.
The
fact that the movie is set in the West is presented almost as an
afterthought. The stretch of low buildings with false fronts and the
line of small figures in Western garb are more like quick sketches
that suggest, rather than depict, the setting. It is clear that the
film is not so much about the West itself as it is about this one
individual, the lone gunman who stands out.
White
adds touches of sunlight to the brim of the gunman's hat (which is
not a Stetson; this man is a gunman, but he's no cowboy). White also
highlights his left cheek, the top of his shirt, the cuffs of his
shirt sleeves, and the handle and the cylinder of his second gun, the
Colt stuffed in his gun belt, a phallus not quite hidden and ready to
hand, doubling his manhood.
In
the yellow circle of the sun, the poster's caption, in small letters,
whispers part of a verse in the book of Revelations: “. . . and
hell followed with him,” suggesting the consequences of the Pale
Rider's visit and connecting him to a figure of the Biblical
apocalypse: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name
that sat on him was Death, andHellfollowedwithhim.”
If there was any doubt as to the lone gunman's identity, the caption
spells it out: the Pale Rider is, in fact, Death personified.
Without
seeing the movie itself, these suggestions are all the poster's
viewer has by which to decide whether to see the film. According to
Box
Office Mojo,
Pale
Rider
grossed over $41 million, a fourth of this amount during its opening.
Although other factors contributed to the film's success, it seems
that potential viewers liked what the poster showed them. If they
were attracted by the themes, the type of hero, and the character
traits suggested by this poster, it's likely that they would be drawn
to similar themes, heroes, and character traits in Western novels as
well.
Although it's not unusual
for Western movies (and books) to express religious themes, such
dramas and narratives rarely have supernatural elements. Two
exceptions to the “rule” are Clint Eastwood's films High
Plains Drifter (1973) and Pale
Rider (1985).
In the
former picture, certain of the protagonist's characteristics and
abilities suggest that there may be more to him than is first
apparent, and the movie provides a clue or two as to the possible
nature of the stranger.
First,
as James L. Neibaur points out in his chapter “High Plains Drifter”
in The Clint Eastwood Westerns,
the “stranger” whom Eastwood plays “is mysterious, he is
controlling, he is all-knowing, and he is powerful” (104).
Second,
Sarah Belding, the wife of hotel operator Lewis Belding, tells the
stranger that the town's previous sheriff, Jim Duncan, was buried in
an unmarked grave, adding “the dead don't rest without a marker”
(104).
Third,
in a dream it is revealed to the stranger that the town's leaders
conspired to have the sheriff beaten to death by three brothers with
whips, before allowing the murderers to be arrested. Having been
released from prison, the killers are now on their way back to the
town, Lago, to avenge themselves on the town.
Fourth,
after painting the town red and renaming Lago “Hell,” the
stranger abandons the townspeople, just as the killers return. In his
absence, many of the citizens are killed, and the town itself is
burned to the ground. It is only then that the stranger returns and
kills one of the murderers, Dan Carlin, using a whip, which he
then throws into the saloon, “alerting the two surviving brothers,”
whom he kills (104).
Fifth,
as the stranger rides out of Hell, Mordecai, a dwarf whom the
stranger had named mayor and sheriff of Lago, is in the town's
cemetery, carving a marker for a grave. “I never knew your name,”
Mordecai says. “Yes, you do,” the stranger replies. The marker
Mordecai carves bears the name Marshal Jim Duncan; it is for the
sheriff's once-unmarked grave. Presumably, now that his grave is
marked, the stranger will be able to “rest.”
As
Neibuar observes, There has been some discussion as to the identity
of the stranger”:
The script originally indicated that the stranger was
the marshal's brother . . . and the scenes alluding to this
[identity] were filmed, but Eastwood had them excised. In the film,
the stranger is more a ghostly figure, perhaps a reincarnation of
Duncan, based on the final lines between him and Mordecai and the
supernatural air of the story” (107-108).
The New York Times's
1973 review of the film also suggests that the movie is intended to
have a supernatural angle:
High
Plains Drifter, with Eastwood as
director as well as star, is part ghost story, part revenge Western .
. . . It exalts and delights in a kind of pitiless Old Testament
wrath . . . Eastwood's characterization of The Stranger [is that of a
figure] who settles God's score with Lago . . . (108).
The
fact that Eastwood, the director, cut the scenes that represents the
stranger as the sheriff's brother and the clues that the character is
a ghostly or reincarnated avenger, seem clearly to suggest that
Eastwood himself wants the movie to be understood as having a supernatural theme.
Twelve
years later, Eastwood would make another Western with a supernatural
slant, Pale Rider
(1985). Like the ghostly stranger in High Plains Drifter,
The Preacher of Pale Rider
“is mysterious, he is controlling, he is all-knowing, and he is
powerful,” or, as Neibaur describes him, “he seems to have a
mysterious, mystical quality, able to evade people in a gunfight by
seeming to disappear. He comes from nowhere; he leaves when the job
is done” (149).
The
Preacher's association with Christianity is made plain by his
arrival, just as fourteen-year-old Megan Wheeler is praying that God
will send someone to deliver her mother, herself, and the other gold
prospectors from the gunmen who just stormed through and destroyed
their camp, killing her dog.
When
she sees The Preacher riding into the ruins of the prospectors' camp,
Megan believes that he is the answer to her prayer, and, indeed, he
rides a pale horse, just like one of the four horsemen of the
apocalypse, of whom she has just read in the book of Revelation: “And
I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was
Death, and Hell followed with him.”
In
discussing The Preacher, the Chicago Tribune's
editorial writer, Stephen Chapman points out that he is not Christ
the Savior, but the Jesus “who brought not peace but a sword, the
one of Revelation who raises the righteous into heaven and casts the
wicked into the depths” (149).
The
Preacher's supernatural origin is also suggested by the feats he
accomplishes single-handedly, exploits that the men among the
prospectors are unable to accomplish collectively. He fights off
several men, defeating them with no other weapon than an axe handle;
he defeats a Goliath-size adversary with the same sledgehammer he
uses to cleave a boulder in half with a single blow; he outguns a
group of gunfighters notorious for their skills with a pistol; when
he departs, he leaves behind him a courageous and united community
who, before his arrival, were divided and afraid.
As
Neibaur suggests, Eastwood underscores the supernatural dynamics of
Pale Rider by ensuring
that it shares similarities with his other supernatural film, High
Plains Drifter:
The
setup [of Pale Rider]
has immediate similarities to High Plains Drifter
(1973) upon the Eastwood character's entrance. In that film [High
Plains Drifter], he enters a
very quiet town. In Pale Rider,
he arrives as the town has quieted down from a most recent attack.
Among the first things the stranger does in High Plains
Drifter is respond with stoicism
to men confronting him in a saloon, later shooting them down when
they physically accost him in a barber shop soon afterward. In Pale
Rider, the stranger comes to the
rescue of a man being attacked by a group of others, effectively
beating them down. . . . The man he rescues, Hull Barrett . . . the
leader of the miners, invites the stranger to his house for dinner.
He appears wearing a clerical collar and is thereafter referred to as
The Preacher. These initial scenes establish the character's
abilities as well as a mystery about his backstory (148).
The
scenes also establish a link between the two supernatural films and
their supernatural heroes. However, the older movie invokes
reincarnation to explain Sheriff Jim Duncan's return from the dead,
while the later film invokes the Bible, solidly grounding Pale
Rider's supernatural aspects in
the Christian vision of death and judgment.
In
High Plains Drifter,
the stranger creates Hell; in Pale Rider,
he is death, delivering the wicked to judgment, for, although Chapman
sees Eastwood's Preacher as Jesus, the movie itself offers several clues that suggest a different identity for The Preacher: the film's very title, which is an allusion to Revelation 6:8, the Bible verse that equates
the “pale rider” to Death, the apocalyptic horseman who ushers in
hell, and the nature of The Preacher as a supernatural figure
delivered by God in answer to Megan's prayer clearly indicate that he
is Death personified, not Jesus.
Whereas
the stranger in High Plains Drifter
abandons “sinners” to hell, The Preacher in Pale Rider
kills the wicked and appears to leave their eternal fate to the
judgment of God.
Supernatural
Westerns are so unusual that their existence—and their raison
d'être—seem
to beg explanation. Despite the mystical undertones of High
Plains Drifter
and the Christian overtones of Pale
Rider, it's
likely that neither film is an expression of religious faith on the
part of Eastwood himself, who told movie critic Gene
Siskel that he is an atheist. However, Eastwood also admitted
that he does “feel spiritual
things,” declaring that “if I stand on the side of the Grand
Canyon and look down, it moves me in some way.” He's also a devoted
practitioner
of Transcendental Meditation.
Eastwood's
own take on his supernatural Westerns is that both are allegories.
High Plains Drifter,
he says, is “just an allegory . . . a speculation on what happens
when they go ahead and kill the sheriff and somebody comes back and
calls the town's conscience to bear.There's
always retribution for your deeds” (The
Clint Eastwood Westerns,
105). Likewise, Eastwood explains, “Pale
Rider is
kind of allegorical, more in the High
Plains Drifter
mode: like that, though he isn't a reincarnation or anything, but he
does ride a pale horse like the four horsemen of the apocalypse . . .
It's a classic story of the big guys against the little guys . . .
(The Clint Eastwood Westerns,
149).
For
Eastwood, perhaps each of his supernatural movies is “just an
allegory,” but, of course, the creator of a work of art doesn't
determine its meaning, except for himself. Any interpretation that is
supported by the details of the story itself is both reasonable and
possible, and there seems more internal evidence in Pale
Rider for a Christian
interpretation than for an atheistic or a secular one.
After
all, the movie deliberately alludes to Christian beliefs, to a
specific Biblical account of apocalypse and judgment, and to a
supernatural order of existence that transcends the ordinary world of
the Wild West in which the movie is set.
Western
culture is suffused with the traditions of the Christian faith;
allegories which include supernatural characters and events,
especially when they are informed by specifically Christian doctrine
and tradition, can certainly be reckoned to possess and to
communicate Christian themes.
Bane
Messenger, the protagonist of my own series, An Adventure of the Old
West, has a name of religious significance as well. Bane (the
nickname by which Banan goes) derives from the Old English word bana,
meaning “killer, slayer, murderer, a worker of death”; the Late
Latin word angelus means
“messenger.” Putting them
together, Bane Messenger can be read as meaning Angel of Death,
which, the books of the series, Good With a Gun,
The Valley of the Shadow,
and Blood Mountain,
suggest, as does the short story “Bane Messenger, Bounty Hunter,”
a prequel that introduces the series, is how Bane regards himself.
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His
skill with a gun, like his indomitable will, his steely nerve, and
his love for justice, equip him as an instrument of divine
righteousness and wrath. It's his mission, he believes, to use the
“gifts” he's received to ensure that justice triumphs and the
innocent are protected from “the worst sort of men,” those, as a
bounty hunter, he tracks down to kill or, as a lawman, risks his life
to stop. Believing himself on a mission sanctioned by his Creator,
Bane puts his own fate in the hands of God every time he draws his
gun, putting his life in mortal danger in order to bring desperate
killers to justice, dead or alive.
In
Part 1 of this series, I explained how I strip the particular
incidents of a plots to the bone, transforming them into generic
expressions of action similar to the narrative motifs, or functions
or dramatic personae, identified by Vladimir Propp in Morphology
of the Folktale.
By
doing so, I have developed a good size list of the types of incidents
(and, indeed, their relationships to one another) that typically
occur in Western movies (or novels).
The
same technique, of course, can be applied to any other genre as well,
providing similar indices of motifs for any type of fiction from
action-adventure thrillers to science fiction or young adult novels.
In
addition to the generic incidents I compiled on the basis of James L.
Neibaur's summary of A Fistful of Dollars,
I added additional generic incidents his summaries of other plots of
Clint Eastwood's Westerns.
Neibaur's
summary of A Fistful of Dollars
(1964) disclose these generic incidents:
The
hero proves his worth.
The
hero is hired to join a gang.
The
hero plays two rival gangs against one another.
While
the gangs fight each other, the hero seeks to benefit himself at
their expense.
The
hero commits an act that makes him somewhat sympathetic but does not
make him less mysterious.
To
avenge and protect his injured friends or supporters, the hero
tricks the villain and kills him.
These
generic incidents are based on Neibaur's summary of A Few
Dollars More.
A
hero's rival acts.
A
hero acts.
A
hero's rival acts again.
A
hero's rival and a hero exhibit their respective skills, trying to
intimidate one another, but, instead, impress each other and join
forces against a common enemy.
To
carry out their plan, a hero's rival and a hero split up.
The
plan of a hero's rival and a hero's unites them after they earlier
separated.
A
hero's rival and a hero attempt to double cross a villain, but they
are discovered and captured.
A
hero's rival and a hero are released by a member of a villain's gang
so the gang can hunt them down and kill them.
A
villain plans to double cross his gang, but a member of the gang
figures out the villain's plan and partners with the villain.
A
hero's rival and a hero kill off a gang, one by one.
A
villain gains the upper hand against a hero's rival.
A
hero intervenes, restoring the balance of power between a hero's
rival and a villain.
A
hero's rival kills a villain.
A
hero's rival reveals a secret, telling a hero what motivated the
rival to hunt down and kill a villain.
A
hero's rival rewards a hero.
A
hero eliminates a final threat.
These
generic incidents are derived from Neibaur's summary of Hang 'Em
High.
An
innocent man runs afoul of the law.
An
innocent man is punished.
A
lawman rescues an innocent man, but takes him into custody and
presents him to a judge.
An
innocent man is found to be innocent.
An
innocent man receives the means to avenge himself.
An
innocent man kills one of the men who unfairly punished him.
An
innocent man receives information about his other persecutors'
whereabouts.
An
innocent man arrests a second persecutor.
An
innocent man teams up with a sheriff.
An
innocent man and a sheriff arrest three more of the innocent man's
persecutors.
An
innocent man defends two of his persecutors in court, because they
had no part in punishing him, but to no avail; they are sentenced to
be executed.
An
innocent man is paid money that is due to him.
Two
of the innocent man's persecutors flee, but three others conspire to
kill the innocent man who now also hunts them.
Three
men ambush and attack an innocent man.
Injured,
an innocent man survives; he is nursed back to health by a woman for
whom he develops feelings.
An
innocent man shoots it out with two men who attacked him earlier,
killing them; the third attacker kills himself.
An
innocent man rides out of town, seeking the two remaining men who
persecuted him.
These
generic incidents are extracted from Neibaur's plot summary of Two
Mules for Sister Sara (1970):
A
villain is violent toward an innocent woman.
In
an unexpected way, a hero responds to a violent act against an
innocent woman.
A
villain flees; a hero shoots him.
Both
a female victim of violence and a hero support a revolutionary force
or cause.
A
female victim of violence poses as a person different from herself,
a pose which alters a hero's behavior.
A
hero is attracted to a female victim of violence posing as someone
other than herself.
A
hero acts in such a way as to protect and impress a female victim of
violence posing as someone else.
A
hero is wounded as he supports a revolutionary cause.
A
female victim of violence follows a hero's instructions, removing a
bullet from the wounded hero.
A
female victim of violence posing as someone else discloses her true
identity.
A
hero fights alongside a revolutionary force.
A
hero is rewarded.
A
hero and female a victim of violence ride off together.
These
generic incidents make up the plot structure of Joe Kidd
(1972):
A
young man is in jail with two older Mexican men who disparage him.
A
jailed young man assaults one of the two heckling Mexican men who
share his jail cell.
A
judge fines a young man for poaching; when the young man is unable
to pay the fine, he is jailed for several days.
Several
Mexican men storm a courtroom, holding the judge at gunpoint while
they complain that their land has been stolen, but their proof has
been destroyed.
A
young man helps a judge to escape from men who hold him hostage in
his own courtroom.
A
wealthy landowner forms a posse to capture the leader of a group of
Mexican men.
A
Mexican leader bails a young man out of jail and invites him to join
his band, but the young man declines.
After
a Mexican leader raids a young man's ranch, he joins a wealthy
landowner's posse.
When
a wealthy landowner holds Mexican villagers hostage until a Mexican
leader surrenders himself, a young man who just joined the
landowner's posse saves the hostages and leaves the posse to capture
the Mexican leader by himself.
A
young man returns to town with a captured Mexican fugitive, only to
find a wealthy landowner and his posse waiting to kill his captive.
A
young man kills the members of a corrupt posse.
In
a one-on-one duel, a young man kills a wealthy landowner who led a
corrupt posse.
These
generic incidents are extracted from Neibaur's summary of The
Outlaw Josie Wales (1976):
A
man's family is murdered.
A
man seeks revenge.
A
man joins a group of other men.
A
man kills to protect a group of which he is a member.
A
man teams up with one of the survivors of a group of which he was a
member.
A
man seeks vengeance by himself.
A
reward is put on a man's head; bounty hunters pursue him.
A
man gathers a diverse group of people.
A
group overpowers an adversarial group.
A
man attacks another man.
A
man attacking another man is himself killed with his own weapon.
A
man rescues a woman from a gang of would-be rapists.
A
man rescues women from a physical attack by a group.
A
man passes on the chance to fight his chief adversary after the
adversary has been seriously wounded.
In
listing these generic incidents, I separated them by movie to show
how such incidents have been structured to generate plots for
complete stories (i. e., films). However, there's no reason generic
incidents cannot be mixed and matched, as long as doing so doesn't
disrupt or destroy the narrative continuity of the selected
incidents.
These
generic incidents are derived from Neibaur's summary of Unforgiven
(1992):
Men
commit a despicable act against a woman.
A
sheriff is lenient in dealing with men who commit a despicable act
against a woman.
A
reward is offered for killing men who commit a despicable act
against a woman.
A
young man plans to collect a reward offered for killing two men who
committed a despicable act against a woman.
A
young man seeks to recruit an older man to help him to kill two men
for whom a reward is offered.
An
old man, having no interest in helping a young man kill two wanted
men for half the reward offered for their deaths, refuses to partner
with the young man.
An
old man who'd refused to partner with a younger man changes his mind
and agrees to help him track and kill two wanted men in exchange for
half the reward for their deaths.
A
sheriff and his deputies beat an old man and throw him out of a
business establishment.
A
young man and an old man's former partner nurse the old man back to
health after he has been brutally beaten.
A
group of men find one of the wanted men they are hunting.
A
group of men ambush another group of men, killing one of the
latter's members.
A
young man finds the second of two wanted men whom he and his partner
are hunting, and he kills their quarry.
A
young man and his older partner escape the wrath of a group of men,
one of whose members he young man earlier killed.
Distraught
over having killed a man, a young man dissolves his partnership with
an older man and leaves.
An
old man learns that his former partner was killed and that his
former partner's corpse is on display in a coffin on a town street.
An
old man instructs his former partner, a young man, to deliver his
original (past) partner's share of a reward to his widow and to
deliver the old man's own share to his children.
An
old man avenges his murdered former partner.
As
a sheriff forms a posse, an old man kills the sheriff's recruits.
An
old man kills a sheriff.
An
old man returns to his children.
Having
been paid his share of a reward, an old man relocates to a new part
of the country, where better opportunities await him.
In
listing these generic incidents, I separated them by movie to show
how such incidents have been structured to generate plots for
complete stories (i. e., films). However, there's no reason generic
incidents cannot be mixed and matched, as long as doing so doesn't
disrupt or destroy the narrative continuity of the selected
incidents.
