1. Kellogg is enduring a heat wave, making it all the more inviting to spend hours in the air conditioned comfort of Vizio University and continue educating myself in the world of movies. (Several years ago, I learned that the word for a self-taught person is "autodidact". The word does the job, but it's not a word I like the sound of, so I doubt I'll used it much.)
I continue to prepare myself to watch The Last Picture Show. I'm going to watch select black and white movies that precede it and take a look at filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich knew very well and admired.
He admired Howard Hawks. I read in the Criterion booklet about The Last Picture Show that the last movie shown in the Sam the Lion's movie theater in The Last Picture Show is Howard Hawks' Red River (1948).
I also learned that in 2008, the American Film Institute listed Red River as one of the ten best Westerns of all time -- number five, in fact. (If you'd like to see the titles of AFI's top ten Westerns, scroll to the end of this post.)
So, I rented Red River from Amazon with a couple of things in mind. First, I wanted to ponder why, in a story about a dying Texas town, Peter Bogdanovich chose Red River as the last picture show to be screened at Sam the Lion's movie theater. I have nothing to write about this question just yet.
Secondly, I wanted, as best I could on the relatively small screen of our Vizio television set, pay special attention to the visual aspects of Red River, knowing, as I had learned, that Howard Hawks determined that shooting this movie in color would be too garish, and so it's presented in black and white.
The visual content of Red River is stunning. For one thing, for much of the movie it is unrelentingly out of doors and so the forces of nature subject the cattle drive that dictates the movie's movement from scene to scene to intense conditions of heat, storms, and rough terrain. Frame after frame of this movie is filled with the movement of thousands of cows and steers and horses, always set against the stunning panoramas of expansive skies, cottony clouds, wide open spaces, and striking hills and mountains rising out of the landscape. Nature makes this cattle drive a grind and the demands of the land and the elements weigh heavily on the mental states of the movie's characters in such a way that the overwhelming and unrelenting demands of the natural world give us pictures of the overwhelming pressure the cattle drivers are under.
These panoramic cattle drive scenes contrast with the camp scenes. These camp scenes struck me as claustrophobic, not because the men were in closed spaces, but because the demands of this long, long cattle drive were wearing them down, eroding their morale, fraying their nerves, exhausting them. These scenes reminded me of the soldiers' long march to Agincourt in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, but Red River stands in contrast to Henry V, thanks to the character played by John Wayne.
2. Whereas Henry V is able to inspire and rally his beleaguered troops on the eve of the battle at Agincourt, John Wayne's character, Thomas Dunson, is a hardened, obsessed, stubborn, legalistic, inflexible leader. Wayne plays this callous character's descent into Ahab-like madness brilliantly in subtle increments, masterfully portraying Dunson's psychological and physical decline. When the camera moves in close on John Wayne, gone is the charm and vigor we saw in his portrayal of Kid Ringo in Stagecoach. In this movie, Wayne's character does not draw us near to him but repels us. Not only do the cattle drivers he's leading come to despise him, we as viewers find him unappealing, too.
I'm going to leave it at that. I'd rather not give away how matters come to a head on the cattle drive, what happens, and how it affects the rest of the movie. I'd much rather you watched the movie to find out.
3. The heat suppressed my appetite. Today I went to Yoke's to purchase a six pack of Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA. I knew neither Debbie nor I wanted to cook, so I bought some salami, chips, salsa, celery, crackers, and seltzer water thinking that we could make ourselves a platter of cold food items whenever we wanted to eat.
I emerged from Vizio University, pumped up from my enjoyment of Red River, and, after feeding Luna and Copper, I fixed myself a very small gin and tonic and squeezed the juice of a mandarin orange into my glass. The drink was short and refreshing and whet my appetite for salami slices, slices of a Cosmic Crisp apple, and saltine crackers. I enjoyed drinking a light cocktail and a very light and uncooked dinner.
For dessert, I went online and read more essays praising and analyzing Red River.
AFI's Top Ten Westerns
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