Tag: revenge

August 17, 2010 / / Main Slate Archive

WINCHESTER ’73

Winchester ’73 – 1953 – dir. Anthony Mann

It has been said that this film has every western cliché in the repertoire: dance hall floozy who’s a good girl at heart, trusty sidekick, shooting contest with incredible demonstrations of marksmanship, heroic stand by the Calvary, noble but inevitably defeated Indians, climactic shootout for two… even Wyatt Earp. Yet, Casablanca-like, the film gets away with a bevy of stock situations and even stock characters because every performance is so strong. The subtleties of the most subsidiary characters come across in a believable and refreshing way.

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August 12, 2010 / / Main Slate Archive

THE MAN FROM LARAMIE

The Man From Laramie – 1955 – dir. Anthony Mann

Prominent among the James Stewart films most often shown on television in the 1960s and ’70s were the five westerns that he made with director Anthony Mann. Despite this exposure, Mann, though something of a successor to John Ford in the genre of more psychologically complex westerns, is arguably not as well known today. Perhaps this is because he was considered more of a craftsman than an actor’s director, but in the western films Stewart made with him, the actor emerged as more understated, and showed audiences a whole new facet of his personality.

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March 29, 2010 / / Main Slate Archive

THE BAD SLEEP WELL – Conspiracy of Evil

By William Benker

The Bad Sleep Well – 1960 – dir. Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa’s neo-noir The Bad Sleep Well is a hybrid examination on the evil of revenge. Drawn by a thread of vengeance, each turn of events show that evil only grows more complex when driven by a sense of justice.  While the film’s protagonist Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) reveals his vengeful pursuit through an embezzlement scandal that consumes his company, Kurosawa unravels the evil dimension that has trapped each and every character involved.  It proves in the end that no matter what type of justice is sought after, the dirt it always on someone else’s hands.  When all is said and done, the cleanest hands suffer the greatest loss.

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