The Shooting
There's a scene late in 1966's THE SHOOTING that illustrates why I'm such a fan of director Monte Hellman. A man has been shot. His friend buries him with his bare hands. He and two others ride off into the gloom of the sunset. It's a perfectly shot and edited sequence. Simple, yet deep. Shame the rest of the picture is less successful. That a film scripted by Carole Eastman (writing as Adrien Joyce) feels like an undergrad's attempt at existentialism. Ah, I'm in the minority, as a loyal cult has hailed it as a lost masterpiece. An "acid Western" that paved the way for good acid Westerns like Jim Jarmusch's DEAD MAN. Light down, son.
Warren Oates plays Willet Gashade, a one time bounty hunter who returns to the old camp to discover his old partner under a tombstone and his friend Coley (Will Hutchins) paralyzed in fear that his killer will return. After a bit of exposition the men find themselves trudging through the desert to a town called Kingsley, accompanying an unnamed woman (Millie Perkins) who hired them as guides. Why? Her motives are not obvious, but Gashade has some ideas, and viewers who paid attention earlier should figure it out. Willet's seen her type, and unlike the slow witted Coley, he's not the least bit smitten with the somewhat attractive but detestable female.
She is odd and unpredictable, randomly firing a pistol into the sand and insulting both men repeatedly. Later, a third man appears - Billy (Jack Nicholson, who also produced the film), a shadowy gunslinger with the charm of a rattlesnake. He and the woman know each other. What is his connection? Stake in this journey? How about that guy with the beard who lies helpless on the ground? What about that very curious ending?
Hellman tries but to my eyes fails to create a poetic anti-Western. Many have pointed out similarities to the works of Samuel Beckett but this feels like a pale imitation (homage?) at best. This is one tedious movie, despite another fine performance by Oates. I appreciate ambiguity in my art but this rather felt confused as to how to be ambiguous. And it finally just isn't really that interesting. Eastman would go on to write more Nicholson pics, like the great FIVE EASY PIECES, but also MAN TROUBLE.
The final ten minutes of THE SHOOTING work best, and I do have to say that the final scene is worthy of post credit discourse. Maybe after you've drained a bottle of Wild Turkey at least halfway.
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