The Big Country
by William Wyler
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Burl Ives, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Jean SimmonsDirector: William Wyler
Brand: PECK,GREGORY
Producer: Gregory Peck
Writer: Donald Hamilton
Writer: James R. Webb
Writer: Jessamyn West
Writer: Robert Wilder
Writer: Robert Wyler
Writer: Sy Bartlett
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 165 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-03-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Big Country
Movie Review: a lovely liberal fantasy
Summary: 5 Stars
A very well acted enjoyable movie that is not what you think it is when you first see it. Upon first viewing, its maturity and reason are impressive. I saw it first as a teenager and loved McKay (Peck), the educated cool easterner among hot headed, seemingly thick headed, westerners. McKay is relaxed, non aggressive, eschews violence, values reason. Yet he is very masculine and very handsome (and Peck is unbelievably good looking). Leech the overtly macho man, strong and powerfully built (Heston), every motion and gesture brimming over with testosterone, calls him a liar, but McKay refuses to be goaded into a fight. His fianc? (Carroll Baker) is ashamed and disgusted by this seeming cowardice. Later, without anyone knowing, when all are asleep, McKay goes to Leech and offers to fight him. They fight to a draw. Leech for the first time gets some respect for Mckay. He sees that he is not a coward, that he has honor, and manhood.
McKay also refuses to ride a wild mustang in front of everyone. He refuses to prove himself. Later he goes out and breaks the horse by himself.
He can fight as good as the most masculine man. He is a real man. Yet at the same time he questions the values of those who are more conventionally masculine. This is how the movie is set up. By having McKay verbally refuse to do these things, the movie makes it seem as if a genuine inquiry is being presented to us by the Peck character. That is how it seemed to my teenage mind. The movie seems to say Violence is bad. A real man does not have to be aggressive or violent. But now I question the way these values are presented in the movie. In the end it gives you the same old Hollywood ending, which because of the issues raised make it seem even more false than usual.
Peck is the soft man who rejects violence, yet who can fight as well as the tough guy, who if he does fight, will win because he is as strong, maybe stronger, than the more masculine seeming man. It is the old iron hand in the velvet glove. He appears soft but is not. He can take on a wild horse and win. This is more false than the fantasy of the strong John Wayne or Heston type who wins the battle. In the old fantasy, the man who cares about fighting and winning does that. The man who appears like he can't fight can't. Yet the new fantasy tells us this is not so. So in the new fantasy, you get to look down on violence and at the same time employ it. Our hero does not like violence, but he can fight and win with the best of them. This is the lie. In the end, our soft spoken guy, who is a bit intellectual like, can whip anyone.
A movie maker that really wanted to address cowardice and what makes a man a man would make the character not so tall and handsome. It would have been more brave to have him lose the fight with Leech. It would have been still braver to have him not fight at all and to see how that went down. He should not have ridden the horse. Maybe we should have had a scene where the horse threw him and he gave up trying to tame it. That would have been a challenge to the audience and the characters in the movie. Could we still respect him after losing the fight. If he could not win the fight or would not fight, what then would his manhood consist of? What if we had a scene with him getting beat up by Leech and we see how the Jean Simmons character (the one who really loves him) reacts to that.
As it plays out, his actions are childish and immature. But admirable ultimately. He must sneak away in the dead of night to reclaim his manhood. In the end, his values are not that different from that of the overtly manly macho guy. He values his honor. He cannot bear to be called a coward. On the one hand, he is not happy that his fianc? expects him to prove himself by fighting. He wants her to love him despite his seeming cowardice because he needs her to realize that he is not really afraid to fight. He wants her to realize that inside he is a macho man. So although seeming to reject her values, he actually respects them. He still must go and fight.
So the woman loves the man who acts like he won't fight who deep down inside knows he must fight and who will fight and who will be victorious.
On top of everything else, he is rich. He buys a coveted piece of land. So he is the perfect hero out of a book, soft spoken, modest, quiet, sensitive, but at the same time very self confident, totally secure in himself, physically strong, able to use violence as well as any macho man, and wealthy to boot.
We are told that McKay's attitude towards violence came about because his father died in a duel and no one can remember what it was about. We are supposed to think that dueling is nonsense, which it is to us. But dueling for many centuries in many cultures was taken very seriously. It involved honor and insults to honor, just as in the inner city today, we hear of violence provoked over a "dis." The violence resulting from the "dis" is often attributed to the supposed weakness of the inner city dwellers. Yet for a long time, dueling for what seems like nonsensical reasons was the prerogative of aristocrats, the wealthy and powerful.
I am not arguing we should act like this, only that such behavior has deep roots in human culture and that we should not always say everything in the past is due to inexplicable stupidity.
And in the end, he rescues his love like any hero should. The romance with Jean Simmons, the growth of their affection is very affecting. Just the way they look at each other is really great. You see love, although I don't think they touch each other once in the movie. We can see that they are made for each other. She understands him, his strength and also his weakness. She sees beneath the educated exterior to the real man. His fianc? can't do that. She belongs with Leech, the overtly masculine man. It is a lovely tale on many different levels, a lovely fantasy.
Summary of The Big Country
One of Hollywood's greatest directors teams with a cast of incredible screen legends for this bold,sweeping tale of a ship's captain who ventures west to find a hotbed of jealousy, hatred and dangerous rivalries. As the reluctant hero is thrust into the maelstrom, he must summon all of his resolveto save not only his own life, but also the life of the woman he loves. Four-time Academy Award?(r) winner* William Wyler directs this action-packed adventure that triumphs as "a work of art" (Motion Picture Herald). Starring Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, Chuck Connors and Burl Ives (in an Oscar?(r)-winning** performance), this magnificently entertaining epic will take your breath away with unbridled suspense, exhilarating excitement and explosive drama on a grand scale.William Wyler directed this epic Western, about the clash of East and West, intellect and action. Gregory Peck stars as a sea captain who moves way out West to marry Carroll Baker and become part of the ranch owned by her father (Charles Bickford). But he discovers that daddy's top hand (Charlton Heston) carries a torch for Baker and doesn't particularly like Peck stepping into his place. Peck also finds himself caught in the midst of a power struggle between Bickford and his surly neighbor, Burl Ives (and his reprehensibly bullying son, Chuck Connors). This long, sprawling tale works because its characters are played by movie stars who know how to command the big screen in a big story. --Marshall Fine
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