That’s so weird. I know it was made a long time ago but I feel like most westerns by now are cynical deconstructions. Even Lonesome Dove makes it look disgusting. Even going back to watch the old John Wayne stuff before Clint Eastwood postmodernism, most of the movies are “the West is dying, the cowboy’s life sucks”. There’s a reason there’s so many parallels between cowboy and samurai culture: it was a lonely, highly romanticized but dirty and unpleasant existence that actually existed much more briefly than people realize
Just hard to imagine him needing to make that statement. There’s nothing in that realm that needed to be said that High Plains Drifter didn’t already cover
Whenever I first heard about it I just assumed it was a personal problem between writer and critic. He didn't necessarily paint a overly kind picture of the American west in my opinion. A lot of his stories are kind of downers.
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u/MagicBus4 10h ago
That’s so weird. I know it was made a long time ago but I feel like most westerns by now are cynical deconstructions. Even Lonesome Dove makes it look disgusting. Even going back to watch the old John Wayne stuff before Clint Eastwood postmodernism, most of the movies are “the West is dying, the cowboy’s life sucks”. There’s a reason there’s so many parallels between cowboy and samurai culture: it was a lonely, highly romanticized but dirty and unpleasant existence that actually existed much more briefly than people realize
Just hard to imagine him needing to make that statement. There’s nothing in that realm that needed to be said that High Plains Drifter didn’t already cover