Once Upon a Time in the West

Most of the films I have previously reviewed for this course were considered masterpieces right out of the gate, and this label was not questioned until years later if at all.  Once Upon a Time in the West, however, had almost the exact opposite effect.  The New York Times review published the day after the film was released does not have high praise for the film and flat out calls it bad saying, “Granting the fact that it is quite bad, ‘Once Upon the Time in the West’ is almost always interesting, wobbling, as it does, between being an epic lampoon and a serious homage to the men who created the dreams of Leone's childhood.”  Today, the general consensus is much different.  Even the comments posted in response to this review show an overwhelming support of this film, going as far as to call it “the best Western ever made.”  Why do the views of a 1969 audience seem almost opposite in comparison to a present day audience?  I believe the answer lies within the ideology, which has clearly changed in those 40 years.

Our textbook defines ideology as “the ways in which a certain image of one’s place in the world becomes internalized and then functions as a guide to proper conduct in a given social context” (503).   Using The Searchers as a sample of the “proper conduct,” there are obvious changes and disruptions in the dominant ideology of the time.  Let’s start with the obvious: Henry Fonda.  The audience sees him and expects a kind, soft spoken gentlemen.  They get a point-blank child shooting villain.  To make matters even more confusing, this is not the first shoot out we see.  Instead of the film building up to one final shoot out in which the good guys take down the bad (like any good Western should) the first action of the film is one of these shoot outs, except it’s so soon that we really are not sure which side is good and which side is bad, which is where I believe the biggest ideological challenge lies within distinguishing who is good and who is evil.

We want to believe that the nameless harmonica man is good because he shot the men that hassled the poor old station attendant, but we question in because how many “good guys” appear out of nowhere and shoot three men for an undisclosed reason?  The portrayal of him with Cheyenne still does not allow us to properly label him.  The same can be said for Cheyenne.  He appears to be evil; when he enters everything stops and all focus is on him, not to mention the fact that he is in cuffs.  His meeting with Jill makes us wonder if he really is evil.  After all, he seems to want to help her, and at this point, he seems to be fighting against Mr. Harmonica.  I seem to be rambling on about the confusion, but this mirrors the feeling the audience gets when watching the movie.  Mr. Harmonica seems to fall into the side of evil when he sneaks up on Jill and rips her clothes, leading the audience to believe he is going to rape her.

It isn’t until the end of the movie that we have a better understanding of good vs. evil, but it is still foggy and much less clear than your average Western, challenging our ideology.  We have to accept that the “good guys” are not good through and through; they have some elements of evil.  The film also challenges the idea of sides.  It seems as though it’s every man for himself instead of one common goal uniting each other.  Mr. Harmonica is seeking revenge, and the only reason he helps Jill and Cheyenne is to attain it, so in a sense, it is for his own gain, perhaps even selfish.

Then we get to family dynamics.  The Searchers has strong family ties shown through Ethan’s five year quest for his niece and sudden change of heart.  In this film, the only sense of family is a dead one, leaving us with a whore, definitely not what a 1969 audience is used to, but exactly what Leone wanted to show.  This film makes a question good and evil, and makes us realize that our beloved heroes sometimes are not as pure as we hoped.  It also shows the average American as the villain, a drastic change from The Searchers as the Comanche were not even viewed as “human.”  What was considered normal for Westerns is challenged in a Western film, which according to the review, seems to have been rejected at the time, but today’s audience loves it because, unlike the people of that time, we can identify with some of the characters, and it fits into our dominant ideology much more neatly than the ideology of the 1960’s.

The Searchers

“Can one shot redeem a film?”  This is the question Roger Ebert challenges us to answer in his review of The Searchers, referring to Ethan’s sudden embrace of his niece, Debbie, after convincing us all his only intent was to kill her.  While Ebert describes the cinematography as “astonishingly beautiful,” the real story lies within the context of the film, where an intense hatred and misrepresentation of the Native Americans emerges throughout the entire film and is in no way covered up.  Sure, Ethan does rethink his motives and embrace Debbie at the last moment, but was this because of a change of heart towards the Comanche, or was it simply because he has finally learned of the importance of family?

Evidence throughout the movie strongly suggests the latter.  From the beginning, the Comanche are portrayed in such a negative light, the audience automatically identifies them as the “bad guys” without even realizing it or taking a look at the entire situation.  Our first encounter with the Native Americans is set up in a way that we know they are up to no good, shown by the desperate scream of Lucy when she realizes they are around, and the automatic search for the gun by her father.  When they actually appear on screen, it of course is the scary looking chief up against poor, innocent Debbie with her doll, automatically making the audience think less of Native Americans; who would harm a little girl?

We then see the complete destruction of the home of the Edwards, complete with a hazy sky and thick, black smoke filling the air.  Emotion runs high as their actions were so awful, Ethan cannot even allow the others to see what has happened.  Of course the audience now wants the good guys to win more than ever, but it is a little much when Ethan shoots an already dead Comanche twice, showing extreme disrespect.  The Comanche are even portrayed on the same level as animals when the Reverend’s plan is put to action and the men try to sneak up on the Comanche tribe in the evening, hearing only the sounds of crickets and frogs, but the calls and cries of the Comanche begin to blend in as well, taking yet another stab at the nature of these men.

The deepest stab, of course, leads directly to the significance of the scene Ebert brings up: the fact that Ethan feels as though those staying with the Comanche (including his kin) cannot be considered Americans, for being with that tribe is not being alive, leading to his decision that Debbie would be better off dead.  Hatred does not get much stronger than that.  The audience may, for a moment, think he actually has a point when we see the American girl that was held hostage and has gone completely mad, losing all comprehension whatsoever, and causing us to wonder if Debbie has had the very same fate.  This suspicion strengthens when we finally are reunited with Debbie, but she begins to speak in Comanche and leads us to believe she does not remember her family, until at the last minute she shows recognition and the urge to come back home.

All of the elements leading to the dislike and distrust of Native Americans seem to fall into the category of modernism as it easily isolates Native Americans as a whole, bunching them all into one category: heartless savages.  This plays into the idea of isolationism, which generally in Westerns goes to the hero of the film.  Ethan does live out this role, shown beautifully in the first and final shots as he is clearly alone, however the Native Americans have an intense alienation and disconnect from virtually every group but their own.  We cannot and do not relate to them at all, and we really learn nothing about them other than their ruthless nature.  While this movie is obviously not trying to represent an actual historical event or fact, we interpret this Western world as a possible reality, which is troubling because of the evident one-sidedness we are often reluctant to point out.

Of course I am not saying the Native Americans were in the right to kidnap innocent victims, I am simply stating the lines of good and evil may not be as clear cut as we wish.  During the final pursuit of the Comanche as the Edwards party invades the camp, we see a brief shot of a Comanche woman and child running, trying to escape the gunfire, but it is so quick, we barely have time to worry, an extreme contrast from the American child’s encounter with the Comanche where we enhance how horrible it is, even though the Comanche were unarmed. 

To answer Ebert’s question, no, the single shot does not make the movie.  It was crucial as the opposite outcome would have led to a disappointed, dissatisfied audience, but I do not think choosing the correct option justifies all of the previous actions.  They took a stab at the Comanche almost every chance they got; they even added a shot of Scar throwing a rock at a dog.  I also am a firm believer that this embrace signifies his want of a family and strong ties to his kin, especially since he made it clear that he had nobody left as he wrote his will, and even martin rejected him.  Ebert was right, the shots are beautiful, and it does have an intriguing plot, but I cannot say one shot erases all of the alienation and disrespect from numerous previous shots.

The Panama Deception

The dark silhouette of a woman appears on screen, taking up the entire shot.  The audience cannot help to wonder who this woman is and what story she has to tell, which is exactly what The Panama Deception sets out to do.  While we do not know much, we can tell that this woman is a civilian, and throughout her short testimony we can clearly see that she is a victim.  We barely have enough time to sympathize with her before we transition to a shot of a United States General, juxtaposing those in charge pushing their way to the front line of the battle, and those that have been in the background, yet hold the true story.  The General gives a brief testimony about his perspective of the invasion before it cuts to another civilian, this time fully visible and in distress, and finally showing the Pentagon spokesman, with an American flag proudly displayed in the background.  This sets up the documentary perfectly; although there is a strong bias, both sides are represented in an attempt to finally uncover what really happened in Panama.

Documentaries often have a main goal of persuasion and The Panama Deception easily delivers.  From the beginning the film pegs the United States as the bad guys and the citizens of Panama as the innocent victims.  During the opening testimonies, intense, dramatic music is playing, getting louder and louder as the stories become more and more harsh, but the abrupt end of this music leads in to an upbeat Latin song, producing a very happy mood as we pan through Panama pre-invasion, showing a country that was happy before the United States decided it was necessary to intervene.  The same Latin style of music plays again in the documentary, this time after the invasion has occurred, and the music is now much slower and gives off a feeling of sadness and despair, a complete turnaround from the initial song.

The film does represent both sides involved, which is a contrast necessary to become credible, especially when the basis of the documentary is interviews and personal testimony.  The use of actual footage and showing real headlines, news clips, and political documents heightens the reliability of this documentary; however, the bias and persuasion still remained throughout the film.  Trent strategically places contradicting ideas next to each other, such as actual footage of a mass burial site shown before the Pentagon spokesman flat out denies anything remotely resembling a mass burial, going as far as to indicate he is not quite sure what that term means.  Trent effortlessly makes him look both unaware and unreliable, both scary things considering his prestigious position. 

Trent may not have convinced her entire audience despite her parade of convincing evidence.  Hal Hinson, a writer for The Washington Post wonders why issues such as these have not been brought up more often in the political realm and claims that “The best explanation is that the film's allegations of misconduct, mismanagement and illegal actions by the government are without substantiation -- that is, without conclusive legal substantiation -- for a convincing case to be made,” which I understand to a point, but I cannot help to wonder if that is the real reason.  This documentary was extremely controversial and not readily picked up due to its content, which seems to strengthen the idea that there is something there we are trying to hide and cover up to prevent us from obtaining the legal substantiation necessary to make a case that can hold up in courts.  Isn’t it very possible that this topic did not come up in elections prior to the incident because it is not something we want to highlight?  Hinson does end the article by saying “Depending on a single source such as this one is always dangerous; there's the possibility that both sides are engaging in a propaganda war. But "The Panama Deception" does a superb job of documenting its case -- which if only partially true has the distinct smell of a rat.”  He is careful to cover his tracks and shy away from condemning anybody, likely because he is writing a movie review, likely to appear in the variety section, not as a headline.

Citizen Kane

A timeless classic may be a key phrase in describing Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane; however it is considered a classic due to the strategic cinematography, not because of the film in and of itself.  According to a New York Times review, “The blamable circumstance is that it fails to provide a clear picture of the character and motives behind the man about whom the whole thing revolves.”  I could not agree more.  While the storyline is not completely dry or void of intrigue, I found myself wondering what the point was and why we spent so much time in search of the meaning behind rosebud.  I also felt that while Charles Kane was the most developed character, he still was not fully developed as we were left with multiple questions regarding his life and how it came to be.  Aside from this flaw, the movie was brilliantly filmed and takes the audience deeper than most other films through the strategic use of sound, lights, shots and imagery that often mean more than initially meets the eye.

From the very first scene we know this film is going to have elements of mystery simply through the use of light.  It is very dim as we focus in on the house, causing an eerie, mysterious effect.  There is also music in the background, an extra diegetic effect that creates suspense, especially when the music intensifies as the lights suddenly go out.  This sense of mystery continues as a man falls to the ground, clearly dead, but we cannot see the face of either him or the nurse, purposefully causing the audience to question who had just died.  We then switch scenes to the film about Kane and transition to a scene in which the camera tilts down onto a massive crowd, then pans to the speaker, who is talking about the legacy of the Kane Empire, ending the mystery of who the dead body belongs to.

During the film about Kane, we see him in his old age in a wheelchair through a tilt shot, causing us to look down on him thus emphasizing  his inabilities and helplessness, and foreshadowing a little by creating some sympathy from the audience.  As this film draws to a close, we are taken to the room with the men that viewed it and soon realize that they are not satisfied with the tribute and want more, as one of the men demands to find out about rosebud, during which Welles uses a kick light, illuminating only the man’s mouth as he talks, showing that rosebud is the new mystery of this film. 

We begin to slowly unravel this mystery through the eyes of Mr. Thompson who first travels to talk with Mr. Thatcher, during which he learns of Kane’s childhood and relationship between his parents.  Welles uses a choker shot of a young Kane and his mother, showing a deep connection between the two while capturing deep emotion, which the film will later come back to.  As we continue to piece together Kane’s life, we come to a scene set in the Inquirer with Kane, Bernstein, and Leland in which Kane is talking but standing in front of the light, causing the room to be lit yet he is in the dark.  This could be interpreted as Kane representing evil (darkness) or that Kane is living in the dark and does not know what is truly important.

I believe that it is the second possibility; Kane is still living in the dark.  During his campaign for governor he gives a speech with an oversized poster of his face behind him.  The scene begins with a deep focus shot, but both the foreground and background were Kane, and the camera then zoomed in on the poster, stressing his power and significance and showing how the focus was constantly on him.  This transitions to the next scene when Susan Alexander is found out.  The scene uses an establishing shot with all three parties involved, switches to a close up of Susan as she asks, “What about me?” and returns to the establishing shot, showing that Kane has not even moved, indicating his lack of interest in her problems when his reputation is on the line. 

The very end of the film gives us a little hope that Kane is starting to get a sense of direction after Susan falls ill.  Welles uses a perfect deep focus shot of Susan in bed with the glass and spoon on the nightstand and Kane tirelessly knocking on the door.  For a moment, the focus is completely off of Kane and on Susan.  After his final divorce and sad death, all that remains are his countless possessions filling a giant room.  The camera pans across all of them, almost mocking Kane as if to say that all he has to show for his lifetime of work is a room full of statues; just objects that he cannot take with him.

I enjoyed the poetic undertones of the film and the style in which it was portrayed, but I did feel a bit disappointed when it ended.  I wanted something more; I wanted more answers and a definite answer so that I could feel as though the problem was finally resolved, which I cannot say is a feeling I ever got.  I was glad Welles revealed the identity of rosebud, but the final scene left me feeling somewhat depressed.  If that was Welles’s intent, (which it very well could have been) then bravo, job well done.  If not, perhaps I am just looking for a nonexistent happy ending.