Travis Simpkins: Western

Showing posts with label Western. Show all posts

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Django Unchained (2012): Quentin Tarantino, Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (2012) captured the minds of both audiences and critics with it's sweeping Western tale of revenge. Set in the antebellum South, the story focuses on a freed slave who teams up with a cold bounty hunter to rescue his enslaved wife from a cruel plantation owner. The film took home some Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz). Bloody and violent, the film does not push the limits of gore as far as Tarantino's previous work, and is admirable in it's restraint. Django Unchained is a visual marvel, and benefits from repeat viewings. The cast is fantastic, including Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Michael Parks, Jonah Hill and Don Johnson.

Django Unchained. 2012

Django Unchained. 2012: Leonardo DiCaprio

Django Unchained. 2012

Django Unchained. 2012: Leonardo DiCaprio

"Django Unchained"- movie trailer

Unforgiven (1992): Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman and Richard Harris

Designed to be Clint Eastwood's farewell to the Western genre, Unforgiven (1992) became a new benchmark for the category. Full of grit, violence, honesty and redemption, the film is undeniably powerful. Honored by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest American films ever made, Unforgiven was a tour-de-force in directing for Eastwood, who won the Best Director Academy Award that year for his work. The film also snagged the Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Editing awards as well. The entire cast is spellbindingly good, including Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman and Richard Harris.

After a prostitute is cut up by two drunken, rowdy cowboys, the other ladies pool their cash to offer a reward for vigilante justice...

Miles away, The Schofield Kid recruits the aging former gunslinger and killer-turned farmer, William Munny (Clint Eastwood)...

Unforgiven. 1992: Clint Eastwood

and his friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) to join him in collecting the reward, by dispatching the two cowboys...

Unforgiven. 1992: Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman

Meanwhile, others have come to collect the bounty, including English Bob (Richard Harris)...

Unforgiven. 1992: Richard Harris and Gene Hackman

but all comers must face Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman)...

Unforgiven. 1992: Gene Hackman

whose harsh, vicious ways prove a formidable deterrent...

Unforgiven. 1992: Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman

but after tense tragedy strikes, William Munny vows that he will not go down easily...

Unforgiven. 1992: Clint Eastwood

Shane (1953): Alan Ladd, Jack Palance and George Stevens

Placed at #3 on the American Film Institute's list of the Best Western Films, Shane (1953) also goes beyond it's genre and ranks up amongst the best films ever made. Directed by George Stevens, the film is a technical marvel to watch, with Oscar-winning cinematography and creative camera use. Despite being shot in the standard aspect ratio, Shane was chosen as the first film to be projected using the new flat widescreen format... it's vistas and sets consistently compelling throughout. Although they were not the director's first choices, the cast delivers all-around stellar, and now-classic performances, including Alan Ladd, Jack Palance, Van Heflin, Ben Johnson and Jean Arthur.

A stranger, skilled with a gun, and calling himself Shane (Alan Ladd) rides into an area of Wyoming...

Shane. 1953: Alan Ladd

He meets Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) and his family...

Shane. 1953: Alan Ladd

Shane finds work with Joe...

Shane. 1953: Alan Ladd

but gets in the middle of an ongoing conflict between Joe and the mean, powerful rancher Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer)...

Shane. 1953: Alan Ladd

Not beaten, Ryker hires a master gunslinger named Wilson (Jack Palance) to finish the job...

Shane. 1953: Jack Palance

Now Shane has a difficult fight and an equally hard choice to make...

Shane. 1953: Alan Ladd

Pale Rider (1985): Clint Eastwood

Both directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, Pale Rider (1985) was the most acclaimed Western of the 1980's. The film alluded to Eastwood's previous "Man with No Name" Westerns from the 1960's and 70's, but also added a new dimension to his Iconic Old West, no-nonsense vigilante hero character. Adding a spiritual sense, the film contains many Biblical references, and the title itself refers to The Book of Revelations 6:8, "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." The locales in Pale Rider are breathtakingly beautiful, shot mostly in Idaho's Boulder Mountains. The supporting cast is excellent as well, including Chris Penn, Richard Kiel, Michael Moriarty and Sydney Penny.

Independent gold prospectors near the town of Lahood, California in the 1880's are being forced off their land and terrorized by the neighboring big-shot Coy Lahood (Richard Dysart) and his son, Josh (Christopher Penn)...