The Big Country(1958)
Stone me
stick to a narrower comment.
I haven't seen it for many years, yet the theme still sounds
as powerful and evocative today as it ever did.
William Wyler, I read was favoured for his direction of
women, amongst other things. His success with Jean
Simmons stands out.
The character played by Gregory Peck is an interesting one.
The theme is an apparently routine inspection of A-type
characters clashing (or locking horns if you like), but the
unmistakable theme is to debunk this type of film, and it's
usual assumptions.
Peck, while a "hero" asks after fighting Heston to a standstill,
"what have we proved?" He preaches against range war and
for peace by negotiation.
Normally he would have been cast as a "coward" unfit to
play his part in the "Wild West".
His eventual choice of mate is Jean Simmons, who is a poor,
powerless woman, yet when the film ends, Peck and Simmons
look the most suitable inheritors to the West.
Not the type of film I usually come to like, but this one hits the
spot for me.
Stone me.
David Oberman
>The character played by Gregory Peck is an interesting one.
>The theme is an apparently routine inspection of A-type
>characters clashing (or locking horns if you like), but the
>unmistakable theme is to debunk this type of film, and it's
>usual assumptions.
>Peck, while a "hero" asks after fighting Heston to a standstill,
>"what have we proved?" He preaches against range war and
>for peace by negotiation.
>Normally he would have been cast as a "coward" unfit to
>play his part in the "Wild West".
I wonder whether this film was influenced here & there -- thematics,
stylistics, scope -- by several of the westerns Anthony Mann did with
Jimmy Stewart (like THE HIGH COUNTRY & BEND OF THE RIVER).
wull
"Stone me" <sun...@boulevard.hwd> wrote in message
news:xiGJm.65317$Sn4....@newsfe15.ams2...
Good essay Stoney
Wull
Dave in Toronto
> William Wyler, I read was favoured for his direction of
> women, amongst other things. His success with Jean
> Simmons stands out.
> Stone me.
I saw an interview with Wyler where he touches upon the making of The
Big Country - He said that when he read the script and found out Jean
Simmons was to play one of the leads he foresaw all kinds of problems
with the casting -there were a number of scenes with her on horseback
and he thought he would have to use doubles extensively - to his
surprise and delight he found that the demure little English miss was
a superb horse-woman, fitted into the milieu perfectly and was no
problem at all.
Dave in Toronto
El Klauso
globular
Should be related. But after watching and slightly researching Heaven's
Gate, I discovered what seems to be an archetypal story of the west.
A situation probably in many westerns good and bad, but notably in Shane
and I think The Big Country.
The real story of Heaven's Gate, and a book or two written a long time
ago, established the western scenario of one group of people trying to
keep control of the land, while other settlers try to make a life there
and the first group tries to get rid of them, to be very succinct.
Basically, the earlier group arrive there and use the land for cattle to
roam around, some time later the settlers come along, perhaps new
immigrants, and try to settle and put up fences for their stock which
aren't meant to roam as far. Hence conflict, even to the extent of the
first group having government connections or backing, as seemed to
happen in Heaven's Gate.
Film Buff
Moross slighly reworked his theme "Ride thru Blanco Canyon" and used it later as the main title To "Valley of Gwangi"
This was a standard with musicians up until the 70's
Another example is Steiner using parts of his "King Kong" score in "Last of the Mohicans" (1936)
Martin 'Martinland' Schemitsch
> Anyone noticed -
> Moross slighly reworked
[...]
> This was a standard with musicians up until the 70's
<rant>
Well, it's standard with sound designers, erm, composers nowadays as well, except that the "original" musical material they come up with in the first place is much blander. ;)
You can put it positively the other way around: At least composers back then started out with rich symphonic material... ;)
</rant>
ML
tomcervo
> Anyone noticed -
>
> Moross slighly reworked his theme "Ride thru Blanco Canyon" and used it later as the main title To "Valley of Gwangi"
And used his theme for the now apparently lost "The Jayhawkers" (Jeff
Chandler, Fess Parker, black and white--I wonder why?) for the far
better known series "Wagon Train", now turning up again on digital
Retro tv.
El Klauso
thumb-print, or re-use of a certain kind of melodic or rhythmic motif,
as opposed to an extended direct full quote.
David Oberman
>I'd say most of these self-borrowings are evidence of a stylistic
>thumb-print, or re-use of a certain kind of melodic or rhythmic motif,
Like the opening rhythm motive of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony
mirrored in the chromatic eighth-note triplet & quarter note in the
opening bars of the Appassionata.
>as opposed to an extended direct full quote.
Like the full theme of the Piano Variations Op. 35 used elsewhere as
the theme of the final movement of the Eroica Symphony & the theme of
the final movement of the ballet music for The Creatures of
Prometheus.
tomcervo
Er, no. It's just a studio being cheap.
Endymion9
to be a man.
--
--
Dennis/Endy9
~Some will sink, but we will float. Grab your coat. Let's get out of here.
You're my witness, I'm your Mutineer.~ Warren Zevon
--
Blue
As in be like the Gregory Peck character, and do not be like the
Chuck Connors character.
David Oberman
>Er, no. It's just a studio being cheap.
That's the bottom line.
I actually have EROICA on my license plate!
Endymion9
news:716ccf00-eb93-4b09...@15g2000yqy.googlegroups.com...
To see not only the Peck character, but his eventual influence on the Heston
character. The Conners character was unredeemable but interesting.
Flasherly
> to be a man.
Which would be Burl Ives -- since the manly consequence of treachery
is death for his son and coward. Not much in a couple of hours to
develop how his son with such an upstanding example to turn to, turns
out to be a mangy low-life, currish critter. Apart the nature of a
tale with minor notes to its distraction -- so stated that more would
rotate by way of Ives for a goodly share of contrast for others, whom
whose concerns it would seemingly behoove them to play off. The
General, I say, is a tad psychotically edgy, near enough so (didn't he
play well the upstairs despot in Clockwork Orange, working on a red,
red cranial aneurism to Mahler, a while after Alex has had some good
ol' in-&-out inside his birdie's nest below);- Indeed, Heston is
almost as shallow as Connors, and Peck for dispassionately British
isn't quite as convincingly, so deucedly British, were at all British
affections least to connote much else. Whereas Burl Ives does seem
very much true to an American tradition -- clannishly pivotal to
living like a pack of animals -- nevertheless portraying willingness
for acceding concessions for an higher aspirations of the spirit of
noblesse appeal and rational sensibilities he guardedly respects.
Anyways for insofar and so much as I can say of Ives' approach to The
Orson Welles Methodology for Fine Acting.
--
'Getting a smile from an Englishman is like pulling teeth.' -Anon.
Stone me
"Flasherly" <Flas...@live.com> wrote in message
news:0aa03f15-4faf-42a3...@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
Was any character typically British? I think you refer to a common
myth that most societies seem to have about themselves.
I see the Hannaseys as the equivalent of cattle who have evaded the
roundup and gone wild in the bush.
They are on the edge of the best grazing land, yet have enough to
be competitors for the finite supplies of water.
They are also on the edge of what goes for society in an early
Western settlement. The eldest son is a bit of a cliche. His behaviour
can be explained better since he has no mother.
Although there is only a slight similarity, Jayne Russell gets to comment
the hardship and early deaths of women in frontier ranching, in "The
Tall Men", another interesting and different Western.
Burl Ives and Charles Bickford are played as bulls who have locked
horns and can never step back. The stage is set for one or both of their
deaths.
They have turned on each other as they must have turned on others to
gain their own ranches.
There is a common theme of the Wild West becoming settled, and
civilization replacing the law of the gun and rope.
Stone me.
Flasherly
>
> > On Nov 11, 8:09 pm, "Endymion9" <endymio...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> I've always said this film should be shown to young men as an example of
> >> how to be a man.
>
> myth that most societies seem to have about themselves.
>
> I see the Hannaseys as the equivalent of cattle who have evaded the
> roundup and gone wild in the bush.
> They are on the edge of the best grazing land, yet have enough to
> be competitors for the finite supplies of water.
> They are also on the edge of what goes for society in an early
> Western settlement. The eldest son is a bit of a cliche. His behaviour
> can be explained better since he has no mother.
> Although there is only a slight similarity, Jayne Russell gets to comment
> the hardship and early deaths of women in frontier ranching, in "The
> Tall Men", another interesting and different Western.
The Hannaseys "clan" never got further past me than their hovel of a
home -- an indelible impression, of course my own, of a dank, dark and
smoky room communally shared. Very much on the edge of what goes for
society -- not only in a frontier settlement (aptly then referred to
by Continental regards, notably British, for distastefully barbaric),
but for a similar construct accorded a rotating drum of tenement
peoples in New York City serving variously for immigrant trash.
Charles Bickford, the Maj., most closely resembles a direct tie to the
Old World notion of civilization -- mythical or not, I suppose it's
simply going to have to do for British, by dint of language and weight
of cultural artifacts entangled in Rule Britannia.
Hadn't thought of the son, being a lesser product without a mother and
a part of Ives dialog I'd forgotten;- really did think a lot of Ives'
acting abilities pertaining to that role, though.
No doubt a harrowing time to make the trek westward, into the
territories. Bones literally strewn aside the early wagon trails. My
own mother coincidentally came to America in a covered wagon and set
up roots around the San Francisco bay area. Far cry from agricultural
field wages, later, when her brother and my uncle came to be pictured
shaking a former President's hand, and as well named with a movie with
a bit of national notoriety surrounding an issue he handled.
All the more distanced to what my father's side and his family endured
-- a hovel of harrowing hardships, (to be sure, no so far distanced
from what Ives in some sense accounts, but for a noblesse, sic
Rousseau's affected nativity), as fit for little more than the blank
obscurity befitting a goodly many, amid lives and death of a commoner
sort fitted paupers -- with hardly a milestone to mark their obscurity
in presage to passage.
> Burl Ives and Charles Bickford are played as bulls who have locked
> horns and can never step back. The stage is set for one or both of their
> deaths.
> They have turned on each other as they must have turned on others to
> gain their own ranches.
> There is a common theme of the Wild West becoming settled, and
> civilization replacing the law of the gun and rope.
Still waters do run territorially deep, to say the least -- water is
increasingly again an issue, nor has the Grange movement likely to
have entirely lost its roots of influence among independents.
--
Democrats never agree on anything, that's why, if they agreed with
each other, they would be Republicans. -Will Rogers
Endymion9
news:0aa03f15-4faf-42a3...@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
Although Burl Ives was impressive, I would not hold him up as an example
since he was unable to see past the blood fued.
Peck's character's characteristics that I would show young men were
You don't need to prove anything except maybe to yourself (riding the
bronco)
You don't need to fight other men to prove you're a man
Being teased isn't worth beating or shooting other men over
When a fight is worth it, then you go all out (rescueing Jean Simmon's
character)