Fahrenheit 451 - 31 = 420

Lets A Go   

    What maybe surprising to those that have read any of these reviews, the amount of readers this is indicating is certainly being near or is absolute 0, is that I try to do as much reading as possible to balance out the amount of movies I try and watch. With the following text being one of the few that I will get around to writing something, I wouldn't call it an essay but a half full glass review would be more indicative, that reflects two adaptations of a novel that I just finished the other day. 

The Recommendation

    A person close to me had put a gun to my head and demanded that I go about in reading Fahrenheit 451 if I knew what was good for me or else. I had actually planned on watching Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor that very Saturday afternoon but my plans changed and so dear readers, I went about in reading the book. 

 

what the heart desired but was denied

Quick Thoughts

    I finished the book and I can kind of see why its important and all the love for it but, for lack of a better word, the structure of the fucking thing doesn't really do the material justice. From what I learned reading about the writing sessions that Bradbury had with this novel, he had gone about in grabbing various pieces from other various stories he had written and stitched the pieces together to come up with the basic novel. Adding a couple thousand more words to make it truly novel length and in the end the final book we have today.

    Reading this factoid after reading the book goes about in explaining the strange patched together feeling the overall novel has. It's pieces that sort of fit together but feel more awkward than it should be. Uneven flow all throughout for me personally. Not a perfect novel but it is pretty solid science fiction about censorship and more importantly, the prescient vision of the decay of our societies willingness to engage in material that may or may not be up to their liking

The Recent Adaptation

    So I read the book and thought that was cool then I saw Shock Corridor and goddamn is that movie real fucking great. Hard hitting and pulls no punches. Sam Fuller always delivers even when he doesn't like a film that I will talk about later or never depending on how I feel. 

 

what a trailer for what a movie

    Now after having seen Shock Corridor, I saw that it was only around 1:40 am and had time to try and squeeze one more movie before heading off to bed. In this span of time lasting seconds but feeling like years, I  had the inkling to try and see if there were any adaptations available to check out and lo and behold, I see one for immediate viewing on one of those terribly overpriced streaming services that I have been forced to indulge in.

 

Pretty rad poster I will admit

     And so it goes with the advent of terrible streaming platforms, I was given the opportunity of watching this and I did to my dismay.

The Movie

    To be fair, the material in the book doesn't necessarily need to be a one to one adaptation into a film since there some stuff that probably can't be pulled off unless it was animated. The biggest hurdle is the concept of the Mechanized Hound in the novel. This sentient machine dog that would chase down these book readers and drug them before the cops came to arrest them. The big chase in the novel is fueled by the mechanical hound tracking down Guy Montag and while it works great in the novel, there is no way to pull this off in a film. This recent film goes about in jettisoning that material which is fine but also makes some other changes/modifications that I see as far more detrimental to the overall film and ultimately not only make it a bad adaptation but also a pretty bad movie in general.

    In the future, Firemen no longer stop fires but instead start fires. They start fires for this totalitarian government that is suppressing people being able to have this knowledge. For this knowledge is too cumbersome and causes too much pain but there's a revolution going on maaan. One that nobody can see. And there is only one man to lead the revolution or as the film plays out, fumble his way into the revolution and ultimately destroy it. That man is Guy Montag. Also, the Ominus is something to look out for. A poor man's MacGuffin and so we shall call it the McGuffy.

    Though the summary isn't necessarily the most serious write up, its the most honest. Guy Montag is no longer a clean slate from which his interest in books breaks his brain. Instead, this Guy Montag is one that is haunted by the memory of his father's books being burned. Though i'm pretty sure his dad doesn't die or anything really tragic as that but I can't be sure since the movie does a pretty bad job of being able to commit to the tragedy itself that is haunting Guy Montag. 

    Fire Chief Beatty is no longer the man who can accept willingly and with gusto that books should not exist but instead is also a man haunted by the job he does and the books that he has read. Everyone is haunted.The world is haunted. I am haunted. By the ghost of Dennis Hopper which is actually a pretty good time overall.

    Clarisse is no longer a girl that lives her life completely opposite of how everyone else in society lives. As she was a character that saw everyone else stagnate themselves in this state of distraction while she lives in the moment. Wanting to do nothing more but exist in the world instead of exuding her life force by watching television. Modern day Clarisse is instead a haunted woman along with all the other haunted members of society who was part of a revolutionary cell, or I suppose THE revolutionary cell, but is now a informant for Fire Chief Beatty as she can do nothing else but fink to get by.

    The characters and their motives are vastly different and honestly vastly inferior to those of the novels with the wholly original constructed revolutionary party seeming to be the most disappointing aspect of it all. They are creating a super hard-drive called the Omnius. In the Omnius, all information will be stored. The value of this information? Pretty important I guess. At least that's what the movie is trying to tell me again and again instead of showing me but then again, books are made to be read by the individual and who are these individuals that will benefit from these books? A lot of effort is placed on the Omnius but nothing really seems to placate that the thing is actually worthwhile. Also, how do we store this information? In the DNA of a bird that needs to reach Canada.

     Guy Montag reads a book, I think it was Notes from the Underground, and it breaks his brain and he sneaks out into the night going undercover to reach out to Clarisse and they then become friends and read to each other and its all very not good because beautiful people reading books always seems to give off a clip art vibe and ultimately Guy Montag gets in touch of the revolutionary cell while being tracked down by Beatty and inadvertently destroys the entire revolutionary cell. 

    It's a pretty funny plot contrivance of needing to have this big showdown between Guy and Beatty that ends up being nothing more than a wet fart. Montag letting go the super smart bird from the burning farm and Beatty screaming in agony as he has to burn Montag alive. Why? Some sentimental nonsense is the feeling I have but maybe it was meant to be a genuine sense of sacrifice. To become a martyr even though he fumbled the ball and destroyed the revolution. I mean other members are killed and some get arrested so maybe the revolution lives on. The bird flies away though. 

    Its hard to say how much of the book is in the movie since they got rid of one of the most important aspects which was the Montags wife Mildred Montage. She was supposed to be the central example of what this society was as well as the example of what the destroyed individual strives to be in this repressive society but maybe the character stuff was too boring? I've been trying to figure out a good reason as to why to jettison her out of the movie but I suppose they wanted a love story of Clarisse and Montag to be the true heart of the movie.

    I can't remember much regarding the cinematography except the never ending dreariness of how the world was since books don't exist and regarding the music that played, I sure can't remember a tune so maybe there wasn't anything worthwhile in the first place to listen to.  

    As the credits were rolling, the feeling of hollowness came over as I started to process what I just saw. Truly amazing to see a film have just a complete lack of worthwhile characters and having to fatten up the film with all this additional material that truly added nothing like the social media stuff of the firemen streaming their raids, the revolutionary cell trying to do something to save the people or something and just all the modifications to the overall material that go nowhere. 

    Lackluster to the fullest. Dull to the core. Nothing good came out of this except for Michael Shannon. I don't know what it is with the guy but he never seems to disappoint. Even when he plays a real stupid character like this because there really doesn't need to be a Fire Chief with a sense of ambivalence at what he is doing. There isn't enough of a character in the novel to deal with this dual sided nature because the character in of itself is one that has accepted wholeheartedly the idea that books needn't not survive. What a swing and a miss of a movie. 

The Search for Another...

    I was in despair after enduring that movie. I needed something to dull the pain of such a not so good movie. There had to be something else. The book was 72 years old and in that time someone must have gone out of their way to make an adaptation. I searched through the ancient scrolls like Gandalf did for 20 years after catching sight of that gold ring. Just like him, I was smoking some of the finest weed of the shire and in what felt like 20 years but was actually 20 minutes later back in the past before the present that I realized there was another.

    I had a VHS tape. One from childhood that I never really got around to watching. As a child, I only saw a handful of VHS tapes over and over again and this one I remember vividly since when I first started watching this particular tape, I got really bored at everyone not talking so I didn't care much about finishing it. I knew the title though was Fahrenheit 451

Can't forget a cover like this

     I searched through my library of tapes but unfortunately, I did not see it. I was distraught and in being distraught over a movie I never got around to watching, I looked online to see if there was any post-VHS physical release of the film and lo and behold I found a what seems to fairly uneven quality Blu-ray for cheapie and then my eyes exploded the moment I saw this credit: Directed by Francois Truffaut

 

a reaction akin to this

    Apparently the dude had gone about in making his own adaptation back in the mid 60's and with me immediately buying the film because I knew I would forget to do so the next day from all that shire weed, I bought it and waited for delivery and it came and I saw it from the beginning to the end and so let us begin.

Flashback Chain Reaction to the First Adaptation

    Immediately I was hooked. The opening montage is that of photographs showcasing those old ass analog antenna's while a narrator speaks out the credits. The film already starting off on a strong note by throwing the viewer for a loop compared to what the 2018 adaptation does which contains opening credits that look as though they belong to a television show. I digress.

    The movie opens with firemen charging with their loud firetrucks, which look pretty nice in the now retro future look everyone expected the future to look like since they were all high as fuck, towards a location that is filled with books. A man in an apartment receives a phone call and immediately books it out of the house and has to go on the run for the rest of his life.

    The firemen rush into the building and start taking out every book they could find. Destroying the place as they toss all the furniture over to find as many books as they can and throw them out in handfuls over the balcony. All them landing into a pile like trash growing outside. Guy Montag suits up and burns the pile of books where a group of bystanders watch in enjoyment. This is done in relative silence which was interesting. Just this silence in their due diligence in doing their job. Like silent soldiers doing their duty without a question as to why.

    As the movie goes on, it follows the novel for the most part. Guy Montag has interactions with Clarisse who is back to being a neighbor as well as his wife Linda taking up a lot of his anxiety and pain. Here though is an interesting take on the material by having one actor, Julie Christie, play both roles. An idea that a producer or so suggested that they both be two sides of the same coin and I like the way it plays out. Clarisse being the woman that can enlighten while the wife Linda is here to make sure that the standards of conformity are always met with every invention that comes to existence.

    Guy Montag slowly starts to become a reader all the while Fire Chief Beatty is there on the outskirts watching. Him and this other Fireman goon that I can't remember. The two always seeming to be aware of what Montag is up to and goes about in creating a lesson for him that he will need to toe the line. That to become a reader will be something that will not matter in the end as there is nothing to gain from books. Or at least that is what they believe. For Montag though, he can't get enough of the books and this becomes this downfall. 

    He has a manic breakdown with his wife Linda that she sees that the only reasonable thing to do is fink on Guy and just at the point of his professional and personal lives are collapsing, the firemen all drive down to burn his house down. Guy going through the motions of finding all of his books and then being given the task of burning them. He ends up snapping and burns the fire chief and the goon then goes on the run. 

    The interesting part here is that he doesn't run to the resistance. There is no resistance. There are only the bookkeepers who have to wait for the time when books will be allowed then. They did do away with the whole notion of the bombs about to drop but I like this. Guy Montag running till he hits the outskirts of the city where the book-readers are. Meeting everyone that recognizes themselves as a book. Feels more natural here than in the modern adaptation. 

    Guy Montag is given the task of having to memorize his book so that they can burn it as no one there has a book on hand but just remembers the one book. As the movie ends, snow begins to fall and every book-keeper is walking around and reciting out loud the books they have mesmerized. No interaction with one another as they walk past each other. People alone with a book they love and put to memory. That's how I take the ending at least. It does leave room to take it another way but for this, I love it. Just absolutely fantastic.

   Just a few notes of interest though that maybe only interest me. The jettison of the old man. A sort of teacher for Montag that becomes a person for him to search for near the end of the novel but his disappearance shows that his character wasn't necessarily the most needed and his absence isn't as greatly felt. The Mechancial Hound not existing is no surprise. Probably would of looked like that dog from Sleepers. 

a mechanical hound

    I also like the fact that the romantic element seen in the modern movie is just non existent. Clarisse and Guy are just two people wanting more for themselves and could find them in a book compared to some techno crap being sold to them. The Fire Chief works better here since they took away the tortured element that seems so important but was ultimately unimportant in the modern movie.     

    Overall, this just felt far more truthful with the original material than the 2018 adaptation but also it feels less forced in the way the drama plays out. All those abundant and unnecessary changes to a novel that didn't need it. Whats there works for the most part and if you could navigate through the necessary and unnecessary then you can get a good movie as seen here.

All There Is and Shall Be

    It's not much of a contest when it comes to the more interesting adaptation. Truffaut has just about everything working in his favor. The music is great because Bernard Hermann was one of the greats. The world that this society exists is far more interesting since it takes place the previously mentioned retro-future world of the 60's. Looks better overall just because everything doesn't look so goddamn dark and moody like the most recent film. It just works out better so go see it. It's pretty rad. 

The Remake of The Assault on Precinct 13 That Happened To Be An Insult To Me

 

Flash Back To The Future Present

Back in my younger days, John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 was one of the first DVD's that I purchased with my low paying minimum wage job of receiving 4 whole dollars for every 2 hours. This occurring during the turbulent time in which I too believed that if I grew a mustache and had my MiniDV camera that I could create masterpieces alongside my heroes like Sergio Leone and Uwe Boll. 

One of the first DVD’s to ever enter my library

Obviously my first mistake was that I actually needed a full grown 3 foot beard and a 16mm camera with black & white film to create masterpieces but I had neither and so I wilted away. Becoming a shell of a man by watching more and more movies, listening to too much hip hop, and my final vice being the amount of time spent trying to track down a reasonably priced uncut release of Salo. 

 

this shit was running upwards of 200 dollars back in my day

 

Years wasted and in all that waste, I refused to transcend into the holier being that I could be but never getting around to it but now, JUST NOW, I saw a movie that reminded me of this origin story.

Why I Remember

In the year 2023, I have just seen the 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13 and was in complete shock at how boring it ended up being. Nobody on screen was doing anything to separate themselves or rise above from the trivial and seen before characters they were playing and the moments of action were some of the least suspense/thrilling scenes I have ever seen in a film in all my film watching years. It was amazing that when the credits started rolling and the KRS-ONE song was playing that I couldn't remember the last time where I had seen a film that made the tremendous effort to show so much of nothing.

The main character of this film is Sergeant Jake Roenick played by Ethan Hawke who has a pretty good opening prologue involving a drug deal gone wrong to give a strong introduction to his character and his state of mind but that ultimately loses any and all steam as the movie goes on. His own personal dilemma of being a drug addict/alcoholic to cope with his trauma is pretty much thrown aside as the film goes on and the corrupt cops show up.

What's this about corrupt cops? On paper, they are just the replacement for the gang members from the original but in execution, the replacement becomes the central problem as to why the film becomes so streamlined and diluted.

The character of Marion Bishop, they went about flipping the name of Bishop from the cop of the original film, is now the person that takes over the original bad guy Napoleon Wilson of the original movie, who was just a murderer being sent to death row, but in this film Bishop is a Detroit crime lord that gets caught by Detroit's finest on New Years Eve and because this story takes place on New Years Eve, the character immediately gets sent to prison because the cops wanna party but on the way to the prison, the Sheriff's transferring him and other criminals get caught up in a snowstorm that detracts them from their original destination and towards the only place around, Precinct 13. 

The criminals get placed into the rusting cells and the Sheriff’s stick to the plan of waiting out the storm till the morning before proceeding to the prison. And so, the cops in the precinct start to party it up while the criminals sit around doing nothing but that's when the corrupt cops show up.  

Why are these corrupt cops corrupt in the first place? The reasons remain unknown but having no other reason but to be corrupt, they show up with their super tactical force teams to take down Bishop before he has a chance to end up on the stand and testify that he is working with some dirty ass cops as well as ruin the corrupt cops' reasons for existing.

From the point of the corrupt cops showing up, the siege throughout the majority of the nearly 2 hour running time is pretty dull. People shoot here and there. People die here and there. Nobody who dies is interesting or developed enough to really give a shit about whether they die or not but the director spends a lot of time making sure that the dead are seen with a bullet hole in their head and the camera staying with them to sell the image that this shit is brutal. But it's not. It's just violence for violence sake. 

The film ultimately limps its way to a final confrontation in some woods near the precinct and that's when the film gets EVEN dumber. Corrupt cops and cops that were playing straight but ended up being corrupt show up. Night vision goggles are added to the mix and Bishop tries to play off like some real bad dude but never gets a chance to show that off. This movie needed Larry Fishburne not Lawrence Fishburne. Then when its all said and done, the two leads walk away exacting justice and getting away with murdering cops/fellow officers. 

To say that it's a worthless film would be too hard for there are exactly 2 moments in the film that are worth merit to be mentioned. 

 

The Only 2 Moments of Merit

One involves a police officer who had no plans to show up for the late night celebration at the shitty precinct and ended up showing up in the middle of night as all this shit pops off. A moment occurs where they can't tell if the guy who just appeared out of nowhere and survived all these bullets flying his way did so out of his own free will to try and get laid or is a plant sent in to tell the corrupt cops the plan that they have. This moment felt more akin to John Carpenter's The Thing than this film felt in any way like John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. A real tension driven scene where Bishop and his fellow criminals had their guns pointed at this goober and the other cops with Ethan Hawke and his cop buddies pointing guns at Bishop and his criminals. It doesn't last long but the scene was pretty great in the middle of all this banality.

The other moment is in the beginning regarding Ethan Hawke's character. He wakes up 8 months later as a drug addict/alcoholic after what has happened in the drug bust gone wrong. He ain't right in the head and is coping. 

There is a shot of his back to the camera while he is in the bathroom then he leans over to spit in the sink and in the mirror, he rises and we see his reflection of the mirror looking straight into the camera. This moment felt so thought out and actually out of place for what I expected so I got my hopes up. Then the film cuts with him driving out into the tundra of Detroit in December and it's amazing. This dilapidated city rusting still in time as just this frozen hellscape. 

I thought this was just such a solid start to the film that I ended up fooling myself into believing that the rest of the film was going to be able to achieve some more of this but it just sort of crashed into being a generic action movie. Possibly one of the greatest bummers I have had with a film in quite some time. True blue D grade entertainment masquerading as a B movie throwback all the while striving to be something but never being able to achieve anything outside of the tried and true cinematic idea of bullets flying around. 

It's one film that has been on my radar for quite some time and beyond that, there's not much else to say except for the music. The music is just there to telegraphic the emotions that the scenes fail to carry. Nothing more. Nothing less. EXCEPT for: 

The Comparison

It’s easy to say that this film is a failure in of itself more so than it just being a failure at being able to do something original/interesting in comparison to the original film but what if…this film had Zero chance of being good?

For a time, the film has been playing in my head about how lackluster it all came together in the end. I then had to re-watch the original 10 times in a row to make a complete analysis of the two films and what I came back with will BLOW YOUR MIND*.

Comparison Commence

The biggest change between the two films are the main antagonists. In the 2005 adaptation, which will be now written as Ass05, they were corrupt cops. Nothing beyond the notion that they are corrupt is their reason for existing and what drives them to be villains is that Bishop is the key to them getting indicted and going to jail. Simple run of the mill stuff all around and to be honest, there isn’t much to do here. The film doesn’t take much effort to show off corruption and instead relies on the notion that the setting of Detroit and that they are cops are enough to justify their behavior.

Now in the original, which will be written as Ass76, they were gang warlords/members. The film starts off with some of their brethren getting killed in an alley by police and the next scene is of the gang warlords all getting together in a Los Angeles hellhole apartment and taking a blood oath to fuck shit up. And they do by terrorizing then killing an ice cream man then killing a little girl that just wanted some ice cream. The film doesn’t hold back from this and shows the murder which creates this sense of doom and uncertainty towards these gang warlords and ultimately what seems to be their never ending number of henchmen as the film goes on. Creating an actual villain that brings terror to screen instead of what the remake fails to offer.

For the entire siege in Ass76, there is an aesthetic all throughout that nobody is safe from being killed and a guarantee that not everyone will be making it to the morning. The set up to how insane these gang persons are is strong enough of a reason as to why that tension exists in the first place but an added layer to their overall menace is for the fact that these antagonists seem to be otherworldly. Many upon many of them get shot again and again but there just seems to be no end to them. Even when the last standoff occurs in the basement, they are running up and dying left and right with another 2 to replace those that just died. In Ass05 though, it’s the complete opposite. It seems like the narrative is chugging along as corrupt cops are getting knocked off left and right with an end in sight. We just have to wait for the movie to hurry up and get to this final confrontation that doesn’t exist in the original because it has nothing else to do. Sure, people die and the director makes sure you know but who cares?

That leads to another difference between Ass05 and Ass76 are the characters. Somehow, and this may be my own skewed perception and so forgive me, but the characters in Ass76 manage to actually be characters. The biggest failure on the remake was the super duper mastermind criminal Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fishburne) having absolutely no presence in any of his scenes. There’s all this hype revolving around him and besides knowing how to shoot a gun, there isn’t much of anything there for the viewers to react to. Sure there’s that scene where he stabs a guy in the throat but other than that 1 scene, he's whole aura is just like Ethan Hawke’s character intro which goes nowhere in the long run. Lawrence Fishburne has presence and he can do a lot with a whole lotta nothing but damn does he disappoint in being able to bring nothing to this particular role. 

Compared to Ass76 and the character of Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston).

 

true presence
 

A murderer being sent to death row without a hint of remorse. The guy doesn't do much of anything besides reacting to the characters around him but it's enough. Enough to set a tone to the guy and when the bullets start flying and he has to do his part to survive, his brutality in what he needs to do is what keeps his character interesting to watch. 

There is one scene though that I would like to mention in regards to his characterization. It’s where Special Officer Starker is trying to have a conversation with him on the prison bus. The conversation just mingles along with the office trying to get some info and Napoleon responds with a rewritten monologue that stems from the greatest film of all time; Once Upon A Time in the West. 

 He starts talking about how ever since he was a boy, there was just something to do with death hanging around him. Like something outside of his control and just a part of his destiny. Just that small piece of characterization leads you wondering as to what he meant by that if you don’t know what he means and leaves you smiling when you notice the reference.

I could go on but I feel as though I have done my duty and should go watch John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 one more time just to be sure that its a good one. 

Conclusion

The remake of Assault on Precinct 13 could have been something truly fantastic. The script wasn’t probably the best but it had a far better cast than it deserved and a director that would go off to make some pretty good crime films with the 2 Mesrine films and Blood Father after this production. 

    Maybe me pondering on its potential to be something more is of speculation than fact but damn, what a shame all around that this didn’t manage to get out of the shadow of the original. 

*most likely will not blow your mind at all

A Joe On A Mission

 

The Next One

    Disillusioned. Lost. Surrounded. Alone. These are words that had little to do with my state of my mind from the last the opinion to this one but nonetheless, when I transfixed on the idea to write about a movie these words came to mind. Felt the years pass and my body wither as I couldn’t make a decision but then there was Fate.

    Fate is the name of this big fat cat that lives with me like a bum. He jumped onto a shelf where some movies were living and decided tonight that these movies were in his way. 3 swats of the paws later, the floor was covered with movies. He lost interest after I said ‘Goddammit Fate!’ in sticking around and I was left to pick up the movies and that’s where I found it. The recently imported German special edition of the supposed Uncut version of the 1966 Spaghetti Western Navajo Joe.

the copy in question

    It was Fate at work and after writing this review, I will give him a treat and it will be another victory to fulfill his state of ego that he is God.

My Experiences with the Spaghetti Western

I am a decent sized fan of the genre ever since the middling age of 16 years old which was about 65 years ago. Time sure kills you when you ain't looking.

Those were the olden days in which the only way to watch a Region 1 copy of The Big Gundown, And God Said to Cain, or Light the Fuse...Sartana is Coming! was to buy a restoration from a fan off a website that took money orders.

In regard to the fan restoration, I have the three films mentioned above created by a dude by the name of Franco Cleef who went about in using the English dub of a film as a foundation and then include scenes that were only available in foreign territories to create a restored version that was as complete as can be. Besides the inherent unevenness that comes with this process with the sudden switch to Italian then back to English, the films ended up becoming some of my favorites that I watch still to this day and so I owe a thank you to this Franco Cleef person.

This was the era in which you had to walk down to Best Buy and check out the weekly deal’s they had in the DVD section and hope there was a couple in the Western genre that you could pick up. This is the true entrance of the genre for me as I bought the Special Edition of Once Upon A Time in the West which was a seminal night for my current state of mind after watching it 3 times in a row on a Tuesday school night.

And if you couldn't find it in the physical world, you had no choice but to download via torrent’s and hope some asshole in some other country is seeding. Twas the only fashion in which I was able to watch the seminal film in the genre; Django.

From these methods, I started to dig in even more into the genre and as of now in my late age of 42 I can tell you that there are two directors with the same first name of Sergio, one being Sergio Leone and the other Sergio Corbucci, that would go about in making some of the greatest films in the genre.

Leone would be known for launching the genre into full gear by having his Dollar trilogies become the high water mark for perfecting the quality of the drama to entertainment ratio when it came to Spaghetti Westerns as well as breaking a small Italian film into the World stage.

Corbucci would be known as the man for directing The Great Silence and The Mercenary which are fantastic in their own right but it was him directing the surprised out of nowhere mega hit Django that cemented the Spaghetti Western as a genre to stay. This film contains one of the most, if not THE most, iconic character in the genre that would use that World stage the other Leone had brought the genre into and kick-start a failing Italian movie industry in making a ridiculous amount of unofficial Django sequels.

As to say which director is better would be a crime for the quality is high in both of their work but also for the fact that the way they approach the material is far too different from one another that it would be redundant to even attempt to do so.

Leone goes for a cleaner style in the sense of camera pans, dolly tracks and relying on cuts  to escalate tension in his gunfights. As well as using Ennio Morricone’s music not just as something to place alongside the image but interweaving the two together and creating this operatic sensibility to the entire picture to make it a far more grand spectacle than what the Western genre had to offer before it.

Corbucci on the other hand doesn't seem to have either the time nor the patience to commit to this sensibility and goes about in the complete opposite direction. He likes his vision of the West to be down and dirty. Gunfights are no longer man to man duels and instead are moments in which the two shooters find any way they can to get their shot in first. No honor to be seen. The good guys only winning of they managed to survive gunshots and beat downs but that doesn't mean there will be a happy ending to look forward to.

So bleak are his films that upon reflecting the two directors, there is great balance between the two's work within the spaghetti western genre.

Previews

Movie genres to me are like the Earth rotating around the sun. There is a defined line of time and place where a certain genre will be on my mind and at this moment, the Spaghetti Western is on my mind. Now, I'm no expert that I’ve claimed to be, though maybe I am?, but there have been a few films on my too watch list for the longest of times and the Sergio Corbucci directed and Burt Reynolds starring Navajo Joe has been one of them.

Now before I begin, I would like to spend some time in regard to the production of the picture because I think it’s funny that Burt Reynolds fucking hated it. Here are excerpts about the film from his fantastic autobiography But Enough About Me with the chapter entitled 'Destaphanado'.

 

"Clint Eastwood and I both went to Italy to make spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s. He got Sergio Leone and a trilogy of pictures that made him an international star. I got Sergio Corbucci and Navajo Joe." - pg. 151

"I spent years playing the third Indian from the left. I never got a funny line. I just took my shirt off as I got shot. I've played every Native American but Pocahontas, and I hated Navajo Joe because he was such a stereotype. Corbucci's idea of the way he would talk was, "You come. Follow." pg. 151

"The first day on the set the costume guy chipped up a ratty old wig and glued it on my head. It was the worst wig I've ever had, and that's saying something. It made me look like Natalie Wood." - pg. 152

From here he mentions his lack of hair and need for a toupee in his personal life then goes into about his trademark mustache.

"The mustache is a different story. I had to grow it for 100 Rifles in 1968. That was fine, because I was tired of hearing that I looked like Brando." -pg. 153

Funnily enough, Brando was a possible candidate for the lead of Navajo Joe but Dino De Laurentiis, the producer, ended up getting Burt who he figured looked enough like Brando.

"On the first day of shooting Navajo Joe, I had to choose a mount from a corral full of horses. The wrangler was a Spanish Gypsy named Mahan. He rode up on an old, swaybacked thing that looked like Don Quixote's horse. His ears were bent down and he didn't have a mane or a tail. But he had a kind of pride about him.

"which horse do you like?" Mahan said.

"I'll take the one you're on," I said.

"Ah, but he is my horse."

"I know, but he's the one I want."

"As you wish," he said. "His name is Destaphanado." -pg. 154

"There was a stunt where I had to ride next to a moving train and step onto it. Most horses will not run against a train, but old Destaphanado took me right up to it and the transfer was smooth as silk. I could see him looking backward to see what happened to me." -pg. 154

"Sergio Corbucci was all about body count. He thought that making a great Western involved killing a lot of people. He figured that if I killed more people than Clint Eastwood, Navajo Joe would make more money than A Fistful of Dollars. By the end of the first week I'd done so many stunts and killed so many people, I asked Corbucci to put in a love scene just so I could have a rest. He laughed and said, "We make American Western-a better. We take out love scenes and-a talk." -pg.154

Reynolds mentions how the pilot for a show he worked on, Hawk, got picked up and that he needed to wrap up on Navajo Joe quickly.

"Sergio was a good sport. "Okay," he said, "We kill-a people faster." I shot everybody in sight. I shot fourteen people in one scene. We got down to twelve guys and I had one day left on the picture. We were stumped on how to kill them in a different way until Sergio's eyes lit up and he said, "Dy-no-mite-a!"

    The film didn't do much for Burt Reynolds or his career but watching it now, I thought it was a great example of the physical approach he takes to a role without the need to say much of anything. Having to say something with just a look or the way he carries himself as he ponders a response. I'll speak more after the feature presentation.

Feature Presentation

what a poster

The movie starts with a massacre. Always a strong note to start off with a massacre in a Western and this one manages to cement how evil the antagonists are when they ride up to a group of Native Americans just hanging out/chilling and then they start killing and scalping them. They then take the scalps back to get paid but meet up with Joe on the way and he manages to kill two of them but the rest of the killers ride away. 

  They ride into town and find out that there is a bounty on their head and that scalps they worked hard in getting are worthless. Duncan, the leader of this posse, escalate the situation by killing people left and right including the sheriff then they get the idea that they need to burn the town down as well. While this destruction occurs, a buddy of Duncan’s appears and tells him about a safe on a train containing 50,000 bucks. Going on about how he has the inside scoop on how to open it without dynamite since he has the combination. A plan is set and just as they are finishing the deal, a group of entertainers rush out of the bar to escape. Duncan has some men chase them to try and stop them since one of them heard the plan and could identify the inside man. The two shoot up the wagon but Joe shows up and saves the day. They tell him about the train and the potential heist and so he goes off to stop it. 

The rest of movie is Duncan and his gang trying to get the money with Joe interrupting them at every chance. The gang growing more and more ruthless as they get desperate about the money but Joe manages to come out as the victor.  

Towards the end of the movie, a duel occurs between Joe and Duncan that left with a sense of melancholy when only Joe’s horse runs back to the townspeople to return the money before galloping away from the town and towards the mountains. Is the horse going back to Joe or is he running away back to nature? The unknown fate of Joe leaving the biggest question to ponder.

The Opinion is like a Block of Marble

working on my thoughts on the film

This was a film that I needed to think about for a moment. The amount of violence and the tone of the violence that the film was conveying was just tough. Cinematic violence isn't a problem but this was something else. This was a sort of violence that felt of masochist tendencies for the sake of it but then on second thought, it felt valid. It's a tough movie. There aren't that many laughs in it but Burt Reynolds has enough charm with just being who he is that he manages to bring a sense of ease in the scenes that have him in it.

The villains have their moment and Duncan is more of an interesting idea more so than a properly executed villain. He has a backstory involving him being a half breed with his hate towards White men and Native Americans since they both treated him like a bastard but it doesn't have a chance to flourish like it should.

Burt Reynolds is definitely the star of the picture and it's easy to see why he disliked it but overall, I enjoyed what he did in this film. As mentioned, it's a real physical role but inside of this genre, its probably THE most physical demanding role to occur in any of these movies. Reynolds is flying everywhere. Just launching himself into the air and stabbing every person he flies into. It's great. A real kinetic energy that isn't really seen in the other films. Just think back to Clint Eastwood in any of the films. The guy isn't running anywhere. He's not making any quick movements except for pulling out his gun, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger. Lee Van Cleef is the same deal. Franco Nero isn't running anywhere. All these roles are mostly them giving off their intimidating physical presence to enhance their sense of mystery. The less is more approach.

The character of Joe follows this trend since he isn't saying much all throughout this movie but the way the dude is running, flying, stabbing, and punching his way through the movie brings a very different sensibility to this compared to the other films. One that I very much appreciate.

It's interesting to see how most spaghetti westerns don't have a sense of romance in regards to characters and their motivations. The characters just never seem to have a need for romance and its obvious that for this film, the director had 0 interest in Joe falling in love with anyone but nonetheless, there is a tenderness between Joe and Estella, a Native American woman, that works in town as a maid of sorts. Even with the handicap of the clunky English dub, there is something there and whenever a Western can achieve this warmth of genuine affection then I can find myself enjoying it a little more.

my masterpiece

What Makes it Beautiful

Now that I got most of everything out of the way. I need to mention the real showstopper of the movie; the score. Ennio Morricone, billed as Leo Nichols in the opening credits, brings the real heat of the movie. A returning theme that plays all throughout at every moment possible and though it may seem like an idea could be a possible detriment to the film but it somehow works. The music just explodes all throughout the 92 minute running time to create this unifying sense of grandiose. The music was filling in the gap in what was missing to make the film not only good but GREAT.

terrific stuff

It's been some time since I have heard a score that is now permanently cemented into my head. I can't tell if its the lack of interest on my end or the lack of strength in musicians in doing some so evocative to get me to remember.

Morricone was the kind of guy that would make the score and then hand it off to a director and every time he would manage to enhance the film. Sometimes managing to make something that is not only magical to the movie but memorable enough to have you whistling the music a few minutes after the credits have rolled.

The Final Chisel to Unlock the Statue of The German Blu Ray Release of Navajo Joe

I was not surprised that I enjoyed it but I am more so surprised at the amount of enjoyment I got out of it. Not to say I found the violence a good time or anything but the sum of all its parts together makes this film so great. From the way it looks, because though I haven’t mentioned it, there are some fantastic shots in this film. From the music to the performances. Even with it’s faults, I still found myself thoroughly engaged in the film and for that I will gladly place this in my top 10 favorite movies.

    Though it can never be number one, which is impossible with Once Upon A Time in the West taking that place now and forever, this film will definitely be one that I go back to from time to time just like that one.