Title: "Nonwestern Westerns" series in San Fran
Description: a great idea
Jennifer Young - March 27, 2008 05:49 AM (GMT)
Too bad they didn't include TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER. What other films would fit here?
sfmoma 'nonwesterns' film series
Michael Blanton - March 27, 2008 08:22 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Jennifer Young @ Mar 26 2008, 11:49 PM) |
| Too bad they didn't include TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER. What other films would fit here? |
That is too bad. I love TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER. Very melodramtic and great use of color.
Takashi Miike's SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (2007) mixes Samurai and Spagehtti Western elements.
Alex Cox's STRAIGHT TO HELL, shot in Spain, and WALKER, shot in Nicaraugua, (both 1987) have Spaghetti Western elements in them, and mix genres as much as TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER. Cox's EL PATRULLERO (1991) (great film, BTW) set in contemporary rural Mexico - and in many ways very similar to the Coen's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) - is a modern day Western.
I'd also throw in two recent Western's; John Hilcoat's THE PROPOSITION (2005) is an Australian Western starring Guy Pearce, Danny Huston, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson and John Hurt and Jan Kounen's BLUEBERRY (2004) is a French film, shot in Spain and Mexico, starring Vincent Casell, Michael Madsen, Juliette Lewis, Geoffrey Lewis and has a cameo by Ernest Borgnine.
From an earlier period, there's a box set of East German Westerns called "Westerns with a Twist" told from the Indians point of view. The three films are THE SONS OF THE GREAT BEAR (1965), CHINGACHOOK: THE GREAT SNAKE (1967) and APACHES (1973).
Michael Blanton - April 20, 2008 05:38 PM (GMT)
RAVENOUS (1999), by the Brit director Antonia Bird, is another Western I'd add to this list.
Filmed at studios in Prague and on location in the mountains of Slovakia and the desert in Durango, Mexico with actors from Britain, America, New Zealand, and Native Americans - Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, David Arquette, Joseph Runningfox, etc. - this Black Comedy is a combination of genres, Western, Horror, Vampire, Native American Myth, Political (implicitly and explicitly equating Manifest Destiny with vampirism).
Good stuff. ^_^
If you have an all region PAL to NTSC player, the British disc (about 5 pounds GB) has a nice 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, while all past US releases have been non-anamorphic.
Wade Sowers - April 20, 2008 07:41 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Michael Blanton @ Mar 27 2008, 02:22 AM) |
I'd also throw in two recent Western's; John Hilcoat's THE PROPOSITION (2005) is an Australian Western starring Guy Pearce, Danny Huston, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson and John Hurt and Jan Kounen's BLUEBERRY (2004) is a French film, shot in Spain and Mexico, starring Vincent Casell, Michael Madsen, Juliette Lewis, Geoffrey Lewis and has a cameo by Ernest Borgnine.
|
. . . in addition to THE PROPOSITION, I suspect Australia must have been the setting for quite a few "westerns" as their late 19th Century seems to have been a bit like ours (I think you might need to substitute sheep for cows in the scripts) - I have seen a few: there was the Tom Selleck vehicle QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER (1990), in which Alan Rickman coming off DIE HARD is still in full villain mode, the recent NED KELLY (2003) with Heath Ledger, and the very 60s Tony Richardson NED KELLY (1970) with Mick Jagger . . .
. . . there was also an excellent Canadian "western" called THE GRAY FOX (1982), in which Richard Farnsworth plays an America stagecoach robber who goes to Canada and starts robbing trains - Mr. Farnsworth was quite wonderful in this little movie . . .
Michael Blanton - April 20, 2008 09:16 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Wade Sowers @ Apr 20 2008, 01:41 PM) |
| I suspect Australia must have been the setting for quite a few "westerns" as their late 19th Century seems to have been a bit like ours (I think you might need to substitute sheep for cows in the scripts) |
In THE PROPOSITION they substitute Australia's Aboringinal people for America's Aboriginal people. And in that vain, Rolf de Heer's THE TRACKER (2002) with David Gulpilil - who's also in THE PROPOSITION - and Fred Schepisi's THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH (1978) could also be considered Westerns.
Wade Sowers - April 20, 2008 10:03 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Michael Blanton @ Apr 20 2008, 03:16 PM) |
In THE PROPOSITION they substitute Australia's Aboringinal people for America's Aboriginal people. And in that vain, Rolf de Heer's THE TRACKER (2002) with David Gulpilil - who's also in THE PROPOSITION - and Fred Schepisi's THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH (1978) could also be considered Westerns. |
. . . yes, in a way THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH certainly does resemble a western like Abraham Polonsky's TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE (1969) . . .