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High Plains Drifter (1973)

post #1 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:23pm
Thread Starter 
I continue to explore Westerns and Clint Eastwood. Being his Bday i threw this on.

Clint directs his first western and makes a violent and action oriented film. And it's great.

I loved the supernatural/mystic element of The Stranger. And the action is pretty well shot. It's very well shot, after all he must have picked up some experience working with Leone.

Movie's about a strange gunslinger who arrives into town and causes a little ruckus. The town is in dire need of help from a good gunfighter, due to some prisoners being released soon who will be looking for vengeance on the Town.

The stranger, as is often the case, is playing both side. He wants revenge on the prisoners AND the town.

I really liked it. But to be honest, the rape early in the movie really bugged me. Even if he wanted revenge on the town, or if that woman had done terrible things to the marshal, can't quite condone that. And then he forces himself on to another woman!
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post #2 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:30pm
I'm glad you liked it. He definitely seemed influenced by Leone with his directorial style with this, which is one of the many reasons why I love it so much. I understand your misgivings about the rape, but I've actually never had a problem with it. The way I've always interpreted it, is that they all had it coming to them in one form or another, and he was the kindest/gentlest rapist I can recall in the history of cinema.
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post #3 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:30pm
One of my favorite westerns, music sets the tone right off the bat, and the creepy trio of bandits are especially menacing. Eastwood's 70s directorial efforts are all really solid and enjoyable, definitely a far-cry from his contemporary work.
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post #4 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:35pm
I've never understood why people have such a problem with the rape scene (including, more recently, Eastwood himself). I think the problem here is the age-old mistake that people make in thinking that the main character must be the hero, and that we must like him. That rape should be a clear signal not to, in fact. Whether the townspeople deserve what comes to them or not, he's still a right bastard.

Also, I find it odd that people who can't condone the rape are just hunky-dory with all the murdering.
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post #5 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
I really liked it. But to be honest, the rape early in the movie really bugged me. Even if he wanted revenge on the town, or if that woman had done terrible things to the marshal, can't quite condone that. And then he forces himself on to another woman!
It's a strange thing to say, but I've always admired that scene. Vengeance isn't kind, and the agent of vengeance in this case is, suitably, a bastard. It's dirty, it's mean, it's not right, but it's correct. I like that.
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post #6 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:37pm
By the way, I'd swear that there were other threads about this movie. I'm pretty sure I started one myself. But the search turns up only this one.
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post #7 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:40pm
Thread Starter 
I'm not against vengeance being unkind and ruthless. It just seemed incredibly shocking when i saw it. Which is probably the point.
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post #8 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:46pm
I'll shamelessly recycle my FB comment from a half hour ago: But to be fair, Vengeance Personified never comes with morals, and Speed Dating was an entirely different animal back then.
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post #9 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:49pm
Gotta agree that the rape scene sort of sets the tone for the character. He's a bad dude and we learn that straight from the get go. As evidenced in the second link below I, too, am a Clint novice. But this is one of my faves.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
By the way, I'd swear that there were other threads about this movie. I'm pretty sure I started one myself. But the search turns up only this one.
http://www.chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93604

http://www.chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91582

http://www.chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81920
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post #10 of 23
5/31/10 at 10:56pm
First movie I ever watched on DVD! Which was for a bullshitty college class on philosophy and film. It was used to spur discussion on Nietzschean master-morality--to hilariously oversimplify it, nothing The Stranger does is "wrong" because he is powerful enough to create his own morality. Of course I haven't seen or talked about the film in about eleven years so this is half-pulled out of my ass, but you know, something along those lines.
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post #11 of 23
5/31/10 at 11:19pm
As far as Clint-directs-himself I can't decide if I love this or Josey Wales more, it depends on the mood I'm in I guess. I truly love this film tho - not least because of it's twisted sense of humour and downright surrealist ending.

I mean the movie ends with the town painted red, a dwarf being made the mayor and the place renamed 'Hell' - it's a Tom Waits song in western form for chrissake.
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post #12 of 23
5/31/10 at 11:32pm
For westerns starring and directed by the same guy, they're shockingly different films. Josey Wales starts in roughly the same territory, but winds up being a sort of life-affirming meditation on making one's own family. It's practically warm and fuzzy by comparison. You really need to be in two very different moods to appreciate both films.
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post #13 of 23
6/1/10 at 12:09am
Thread Starter 
I'm probably watching that one tomorrow.
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post #14 of 23
6/1/10 at 12:52am
Josey Wales is really mainstream compared to Unforgiven or Drifter. But it was my favorite for a long time. It's also the best looking of all his Westerns, for my money.
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post #15 of 23
6/1/10 at 12:53am
Outlaw's great, and it's just as Greg described it. If you haven't seen Hang 'Em High yet, that's really good too. I just saw that again today for the first time in years on TCM and loved it. I'm thinking I need to finally see Joe Kid and Two Mules For Sister Sarah. They came with the set that I bought just to have Drifter, but now I'm finally wanting to see those too.
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post #16 of 23
6/1/10 at 1:03am
It's interesting. I watched a double feature of this film and "Pale Rider" not too long ago and they really an intriguing 'two sides of the same coin' pair. HPD is all about vengeance being aggressive and angry (including the rape). Clint's character is almost an evil or 'devil' force. Forward a decade or so to "Pale Rider". Almost the exact same story (though not as well done), from the opposite 'angel' side. His character is not aggressive, but protective of the innocents. In fact, he only goes full bore for vengeance after the townspeople are out of harm's way.

So did Eastwood the director mellow a bit in the years between? Or did it just seem like it would be a cool experiment to make the same film from two different viewpoints?
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post #17 of 23
6/1/10 at 1:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uth Vaspetad View Post
I need to finally see Joe Kid and Two Mules For Sister Sarah. They came with the set that I bought just to have Drifter, but now I'm finally wanting to see those too.
I own this set as well. Joe Kidd isn't very good, but I haven't seen Two Mules in years, despite owning it on DVD, so I've no room to critique it.
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post #18 of 23
6/1/10 at 2:14am
Two Mules is a good film, but not among Clint's best. But Shirley Maclaine is adorable and it has a fantastic Ennio Morricone score.
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post #19 of 23
6/1/10 at 2:54am
I prefer The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven to this, but I love how much of a bastard the Stranger is in High Plains Drifter. I also like how Eastwood left the character's identity ambiguous. Maybe he's the brother, maybe he's the dead man back from the grave, maybe he's Blondie/Joe/Monco from the Leone films -- it doesn't matter.

I actually bought the Ernest Tidyman (Shaft) novel at a used bookstore a few months back, but haven't gotten around to reading it. My understanding is it is a novelization of his own screenplay, but the book itself makes it sound like it predates the film.

I've read online how people seem to think this is a remake of Django, the Bastard. I saw that recently, and while that Spaghetti Western has some really interesting compositions (not quite Leone-style, but cool nonetheless), Anthony Steffen possesses about 1/10 the onscreen presence of Clint Eastwood.
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post #20 of 23
5/18/11 at 6:45am

It's like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN minus 6... but add in rape and a midget sidekick.

 

THE MAGNIFICENT RAPIST

 

 

I oversimplify, but I feel that I need to chew on this one a bit more. It wasn't really at all what I expected, especially after revisiting Leone's DOLLARS trilogy just before. It's pretty damn mysterious. Could Clint also be interpreted as the Devil himself? Causes townfolk to fight amongst themselves and "seduces" the women (temptation and sin) who cheat on their others, paints the town red and names it "HELL", and then sets it aflame? Hiring him was like making a deal with the Devil himself. The town's already corrupt, but it just took a little push to self-destruct. Just another view.

 

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE BEDAZZLED


Edited by DARKMITE8 - 5/18/11 at 6:57am
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post #21 of 23
5/18/11 at 8:20am

As an actor and a director, Clint's got quite a "Sondra Locke being raped" motif in his 70s to mid 80s output. Interesting that he was such a sex symbol/male ideal to women at that point.

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post #22 of 23
5/18/11 at 12:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post

As an actor and a director, Clint's got quite a "Sondra Locke being raped" motif in his 70s to mid 80s output.


Kinda casts the titles of the Philo Beddoe flicks in a whole new light, doesn't it?

 

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post #23 of 23
5/24/11 at 5:04pm

High Plains Drifter is my fourth-favorite Eastwood Western. It's also one of the strangest Westerns I have ever seen, along with Dead Man.

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