The Outlaw Josey Wales
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Movie Reviews of The Outlaw Josey Wales
Movie Review: Greatest Western of All Time!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Outlaw Josey Wales is considered by some to be the greatest western. I agree.
A great western should have a collection of strong key elements, and Josey Wales has them all. The setting is the savage Civil War in Missouri and Kansas where atrocities and outrages were perpetrated by irregulars of both sides. Folks at the time called these criminals and guerrillas "bushwackers". The fighting in this theater of the Civil War is not commonly known and was particularly ugly and violent. Most actions were small unit affairs, with people who were well known to one another before the war fighting under opposing flags. Violence and crimes against civilians was common as both legitimate armies used irregulars to terrorize the civilian population. The massacre at Centralia, Missouri, September 27, 1864 was perpetrated by Bloody Bill Anderson and his men. There is no mention of this event in the film, of course, as there could be no sympathy for anyone who had had a part in that abomination.
Josey Wales captures the ugliness and horror of those times and provides a motivator to the title character when his family is murdered by Kansas Union irregulars. Wales is enraged and joins Bloody Bill Anderson's Confederate guerrilla outfit. When the War ends, they are one of the last organized Confederate units to surrender (at least according to the film). Wales' comrades surrender themselves at a Union camp, but Josey refuses. But everything is not as it seems and as the men surrender their arms and take the Oath of Allegiance to the Union, they are viciously murdered in cold blood. It turns out that the same unit that has just killed his fellow Confederates is the very same that had killed his family several years before. And so the chase begins... Wales is now the "Outlaw Josey Wales" running from bounty hunters and every male in the territory with a gun not to mention the Union army.
Josey Wales is played by Clint Eastwood in one his best performances. The character is very much like the "Man with no name" from his Spaghetti Western days. Closer to "Blondie" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly than the silent gunslinger of "Pale Rider", Wales is essentially a good man driven to revenge and violence by circumstances. He is the everyman of the Civil War dragged into the maelstrom of events. As he runs from his pursuers he picks up a ragtag crew of fascinating characters who ride with him, eventually heading for southern Texas. Along the way there are gunfights, suspense, and lots of action.
A great western should have certain components including:
* beautiful desert scenery
* a good story line
* small ramshackle frontier towns
* a hero or anti-hero with strong and understandable motivations
* guns, ideally pistols
* cool hats
* indians
* lots of horses
* rotten villains
Outlaw Josey Wales was directed by Eastwood, too. Sandra Locke, Chief Dan George, and John Vernon co-star.
Wales is an avenger as he rides across deserts and through broken down frontier towns. He has no options, but to find a place to hide, or just keep on riding forever. Every shooting that involve him is self-defense or in the defense of others who cannot defend themselves. He is a hero, an unsurrendered Confederate partisan, haunted by the senseless murder of his family.
Josey Wales has beautiful scenery, lots of horses and pistols, rotten villains who deserve to get shot (and generally do), suffering innocents who need protection, and one of the coolest hats in American cinema history.
Josey Wales' hat is stained with sweat, it's a deep Confederate Gray with a wide and slightly upturned brim. Eastwood hides his eyes under the brim of this hat, and when he slightly lifts his head to look at someone - they know quickly that Wales is not a man to be trifled with. He has a sense of honor and obligation to others, but has no compunction in shooting those who are hunting him or are fixin' to hurt his friends.
There is a touching moment after Eastwood and his friends have arrived at their Texas destination. Sondra Locke, dressed in a fine white dress, talks about how beautiful the clouds look. She represents the stability, and happiness of his pre-war life and the look of sadness and dissociation that Eastwood delivers is a fine and sad one. After all of his war-fighting, his losses, and the personal toll that the War has taken, Josey Wales must try very hard to find a place for himself in a peaceful and stable post-war environment. Killing is easy now for him; it's living without violence that will be so challenging. One of the more powerful aspects of his character is that he so wants to try.
Movie Review: Clint Eastwood's best movie: an American Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Although Clint Eastwood gained his greatest critical acclaim as a director for 1992's "Unforgiven" and 2003's "Mystic River" -- both of which are incredible pieces of American cinema -- his best film remains this perennially popular Western from 1976. Here's Eastwood's own take on it: "I do believe that if I'd made that picture in 1992, in place of `Unforgiven,' it might have received the same amount of attention, because I think it's equally as good a film. I think the subject matter of `Josey Wales' is timeless." Orson Welles himself named it one of his favorite movies!Yet critics at the time completely dismissed it as just another Clint Eastwood Western-Revenge flick. On the surface, the plot might give you that illusion: Missouri farmer Josey Wales loses his family to marauding Union cutthroats during the civil war. In retaliation, he joins Qunatrill's raiders in the guerrilla warfare that flames across Missouri. When the war ends, Wales refuses to surrender. He flies west across the country, chased by his former leader Fletcher (John Vernon in a great, sympathetic performance) and Terrill, the Union captain who murdered his family (Eastwood regular Bill McKinney). It seems Wales has no future except to stay alive long enough to get his revenge.
But...that's not at all what movie ends up being about. Gradually, Wales finds himself at the center of a growing community of outcasts from many different backgrounds: an old Cherokee named Lone Watie (Chief Dan George, in the film's most unforgettable performance), a band of Northern settlers (including Sondra Locke in her first role with Clint), a girl from another Native American tribe, the residents of a dying Texas town, and a red bone hound. Gradually, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" turns into a story about forgetting revenge and a fixation on death, and instead about embracing life and rebuilding a community. "Dying is easy for men like you and me," Wales says to a Comanche chief (Will Sampson) in one scene. "It's living that's hard." It's one of the most unexpectedly uplifting and moving films ever made. And, let's make no mistake about it, it's also an action-packed, tough, and exciting film.
Strangely, the film came out of extremely difficult circumstances and rough beginnings. Eastwood purchased the rights to Forrest Carter's novel "Gone to Texas," only to discover that the author was actually Asa (Ace) Carter, who had worked as a speech writer for George Wallace supporting racial segregation and had once created a subgroup of the Ku Klux Klan. Upon meeting Carter, Eastwood and his producer Robert Daley found the man to be a borderline sociopath (he drew a knife on one of Daley's secretaries at a restaurant). Regardless, Eastwood loved the beautiful story too much and pushed on with making the film. He hired Philip Kaufman to both write and direct the movie, now re-named "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Kaufman (along with Sonia Chernus) wrote a stunning script, but after only a few days on the set, it became obvious he wasn't working out as a director; his style clashed with Eastwood's. Eastwood quietly removed him as director and took over the job himself. As Eastwood's biographer notes, "Kaufman was to a degree the victim of Clint's growing confidence in his own abilities."
Despite this confused beginning, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" turned into a magical piece of Western cinema and a huge hit with audiences. It gets better and better with each viewing: a thrilling adventure when you first see it, its many layers of beautiful subtlety emerge each time you go back to it. Bruce Surtees's photography is astonishing, Jerry Fielding's music exciting and unusual for a Western, and every performance top-notch. Few films are as all-around well done as this American classic.
The DVD offers the film in a glorious widescreen transfer with a new 5.1 sound mix, but there are no extras. Considering the history behind the making of the film, this disc really ought to sport some fascinating commentaries and documentaries, but alas, nothing. Still, I can recommend few films higher than "The Outlaw Josey Wales."
Movie Review: disintegration of Missouri
Summary: 5 Stars
This film had every chance of being a great movie but lost its course somewhere along the way. The movie, especially the last half of the movie, should have been tightened up plenty. Because it wasn't, the movie is too long.
The first part of film is excellent. Clint Eastwood, as the poor farmer, Josie Wales, is attacked by the Yankee Red Legs who have swept in from Missouri. He is sabered, his child killed and his wife raped and murdered. The grief-ridden Wales, buries his family, recovers his revolver from the burned-out wreckage of his home, and starts to practice. At his low point, he is visited by Confederate guerillas under the famous "Bloody Bill Anderson", a man who has also lost his entire family to the Yankees.
Wales is happy to join up and fights in multiple battles against the hated Federals. As we know, however, the southern fighters are eventually driven to their knees. Wales' small group is one of the last to consider surrender. Most--but not the vengeful Wales--decide to accept Federal amnesty. It is a mistake. They are mowed down by the deceitful Union troops.
With a Yankee company hot on his heels he retreats towards Texas, taking revenge on Federal troops every time he can. By this time, of course, Wales has become one of the best and those who stand against him, die. He meets an old Cherokee man, Lone Watie, who himself hates the Federal Government. Together, they make an dangerous pair. Wales rescues a Navajo woman from the hands of criminals. She becomes a devoted, if somewhat unlikely member, of Wales new anti-Yankee band.
The movie probably should have ended here with some kind of terrific climax--maybe Wales and his two comrades fighting their enemies in some kind of last-ditch stand.
Unfortunately the movie doesn't end here. Eastwood's old girlfriend and nemesis, Sandra Locke [along with her miscast mother] are introduced. They are rebel-hating Yankees and, therefore, present the opportunity for redemption for both Wales and the women. Artistically, it just doesn't work. It's almost like Eastwood added an extra hour to his film just to make room for his girlfriend. It might not be what happened but that's what it looks like. Really a terrible shame.
By the way, the old Cherokee, Lone Watie, is taken from an actual historical character. Most members of the "Seven Civilized Tribes" of the Cherokee supported the Confederacy and many fought and died for the South. Chief Stand Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender, not surrendering until 1866.
People who think that Southern Secession and the Civil War were primarily about slavery must consider several things brought out by this film. First, Missouri had relatively few slaves and slave-owning families fought for both the Union and Confederacy. Nevertheless, Missori was one of the most violence-torn states during the War. People fought--no quarter--against people they opposed politically, culturally and personally. Finally, as we see with Wales, the violence became self-perpetuating. Enough people had been injured that they fought desperaely for motives of pure revenge.
Also, why is it that the vast majority of Native Americans who fought, side with the Confederacy? Few, indeed, were slaveholders. In my opinion, these American natives simply felt more sympatico with the laid-back, hunting, fishing Southerners.
Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Movie Review: Great movie- memorable dialog below
Summary: 5 Stars
Good movie, and in many ways it is a parody of the Western, with the mysterious stranger helping devout pioneers seeking the fruitful valley of their dreams in the west. One line captures this, as a local saloon "lady" says to one settler in an exaggerated accent: "Well ah do declare! Aren't you Mary McCory whose son had a ranch in Hidden Valley up at Blood Butte?" (not an exact transcript but you get the parody of stereotypical Western cliches). And yet Eastwood is able to milk them profitably. When challenged by a bounty hunter who justifies his occupation thus: "A man's got to do something for a living these days," Josey Wales retorts "Dyin' ain't much of a living boy".
Eastwood is also politically incorrect, just as he was in the "Dirty Harry" classics. For example, when Indian Lone Watie (beautifully played by Chief Dan George) begins describing a long litany of familar Indian woes, Josey Wales falls asleep and starts snoring. When the Indian female character Little Monlight chatters on at length, Wales says "Can't you shut her up?" It is doubtful if such moments would make the screen today, but in 1976, Eastwood pulled them off with unapologetic panache. Yet at the same time, the movie shows profound respect for the Native American, demonstrating the prowess of Lone Watie, Little Moonlight, the female Indian as a fighter, and also Ten Bears the Commanche chief.
In one scene, Little Moonlight saves Josey from a bullet by some quick shooting. He pauses amidst the action and the two gaze at each other briefly, conveying a shared respect, one warrior to another. Such moments are worth immeasurably more than a dozen hours of politically correct speechifying and posturing. There is the briefest hint of corny sentimentality expressed in the encounter with with Chief Ten Bears, played strongly by Will Sampson, but overall the film is remarkably clear-eyed and comes off well.
The words of Ten Bears are classic, evoking an era of hard men, plain-speaking, and unsentimental, elemental clarity- a sharp contrast to today's supposedly more sophisticated, but demonstrably corrupt and shallow "nuance". His mention of "double-tongues" can well describe hypocritical academics, talking heads of the mainstream media, assorted activists, pandering politicians, smug religious clerics and ever more arrogant judges and bureaucrats on all sides of the modern era's political divide.
"It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. There is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is thus good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death.."
The film works on several levels- as action packed Western, as a commentary, sometimes parody and ultimately a homage to the Western, or as a pointed commentary on the corrupt and cynical society that marginalizes straight-shooting men like Josey Wales, Lone Watie and Ten Bears. Indeed it is clear that Wales has more respect for his Indian opponent than the mealy-mouthed white purveyors of that era's government "spin". It remains to be seen whether the post 9/11 era can still produce men with the clear eyed moral clarity needed to take care of the dirty business that must be taken care of. As Ten Bears says: "No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men."
Movie Review: One of Clint Eastwood's finest achievements....
Summary: 5 Stars
I initially saw this film when I was in high school. It was OK, but I've recently revisited it (seeing it in a widescreen, digital transfer on DVD over the pan and scan crap on VHS does wonders for it), and it's one of Clint Eastwood's greatest achievements as director and as actor. It was only his fifth film as director, and it shows a deep maturity and intelligence that usually wasn't seen in Westerns (or Hollywood, for that matter). It's a great film, a work of art, a true epic, and a poetic, complex, and profound depiction of the West, the Civil War (and war itself), history, and America.
There are so many thing to admire and love about this film. One is its depiction of southern rebels in the Civil War. Too often the press and Hollywood always make the Civil War to be about slavery, when the reasons for war were far more complex and convoluted than an easy, misleading Holllywood history lesson would show. The Confederate soldiers are portrayed with much more complexity and empathy than usual, and the Union soldiers are depicted as cruel and as unforgiving as soldiers (especially in times of war) can be. There are many great scenes in the film. There's an early shootout in the film where many Confederate soldiers, who have finally surrendered, are mowed down viciously and thoughtlessly. It's a searing indictment of the "kind" victors in war. The scene where Josey Wales and Little Bear (the leader of the local Commanche tribe) make peace is one of the most powerful and moving scenes in the film, and one of the greatest scenes in Western history. The film is beautifully shot by Bruce Surtees, an early Clint favorite and one of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers. Clint wasn't the original director on this film. The co-screenwriter, Philip Kaufman (who went on to direct great films like Henry and June and The Right Stuff), actually directed the film for about a week, but then Clint fired him and took over the direction himself, as Clint felt Philip was going too slow. Clint ended up coming in with the film 8 days ahead of schedule, despite the change in directors. Even though Kaufman's career and ego were deeply hurt, he eventually recovered and went onto his own distinguished career. Eastwood was really the only choice to direct this film.
The performances here are some of the best in any of Eastwood's work. John Vernon as Josey Wales's mentor Fletcher gives a real towering performance. Sam Bottoms is fine as the young sidekick of Josey. Chief Dan George is wonderful as an old Native American that tags along, and Will Sampson is wonderful and moving as Chief Little Bear. Even Sondra Locke, who is often criticised by just about everybody, is very good here.
The film has some great dialogue, with two of the most memorable lines in Western history. "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy" and "don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining" are forever in Western folklore.
The DVD is excellent too, with 2 documentaries, one made during filming, and a recent one made a few years back. Both are excellent, and shed some fascinating light on this film, which grows in depth and meaning during repeated viewings. It's one of Eastwood's finest films, and one of the greatest Westerns ever made.