Well it's been awhile, but yes ladies and gentlemen I am back and ready to throw my opinion in your faces, this week I'll be exposing the truth of Mr. Eastwood in that he is in fact the Lord of Darkness. Or at least he comes off as Satan in the movie "High plains Drifter," whether he is in real life is still open to discussion but more on that in another blog. High Plains Drifter, what an awesome movie, I sincerely loved the hell out of this movie, why you ask? Simple it's almost 2 hours of Clint walking around messing up this town and doing what ever the hell he wants. Oh you want a beer bam its yours, you want to have sex with a lady hey go for it, you want to make this little dude the mayor and the sheriff by all means. How does this walking devil get away with all these evils? Well he killed three guys when he showed up, so the town figures he'll protect them from outsiders if they let him do whatever he wants. Which as it turns out in the end, he peaces out when the bad guys show up comes back and kills them but manages to blow up a building, set another one on fire, paint all the town houses red and make the place seem like a living hell. bravo. And if that wasn't enough heres the twist is Eastwood's character alive? Perhaps he was the twin brother of the dead sheriff, or maybe the sheriff wasn't completely dead when they buried him. Or the later theory which I really like is that Clint Eastwood was sent from Hell to avenge his own death and make the town pay for not helping him therefore making him the Devil.
What confuses me about that theory though is why he does help some people out for instance the native american family in the store, or the little dude who gets pushed around alot. It was touched on in class and I can definitely see the point that the only reason he was nice to these people was to further piss off the town, and in sense he had no beef with the Natives. As far as the tiny dude yeah there wasn't much he could do to help him when Eastwood was being whipped to death and then later on he ends up marking the grave so that could kind of save him from the wrath of hell.
The rape scene was pretty intense, and it came so suddenly I was just like wait wait what? I mean the girl gives him the eyes and does the whole im a rude brat who does what she wants routine which I've seen way too often, especially on My Super Sweet 16. You see girls like that your like man one day someones gonna knock you on your ass, and in this movie Eastwood does that...and then takes it further by dragging her through town into the barn...and then rapes her. Which she kind of gets into (yikes), and later on in the movie he does the same thing to another woman who tries to stab him with scissors, but in that scene hes much more psychological and the girl gets all heated up caz he plays this whole im sweet and i know it routine. I'm sure feminists would love this movie...NOT. I mean every woman character is being violated and seems to kind of like it, and everyone in the town is just lettin it happen and some of them are actually smiling when they see it. Thats what disturbed me about the rape scene not so much the camera aimed up at Eastwood dominating the audience or the graphic showing of the actual deed, but the whole follow up after it. I mean the husband tells his wife to stop freaking out and let the rape go, Seriously? That's horrible. It just makes us hate the town more and side with the evil ways of Clint.
I'd also like to touch on the fact Eastwood has the best one liners in this movie it really completes his whole character of mystery and I like how alot of the story is open to question and nothing is ever fully explained. If Eastwood comes to Fredonia you can bet ur bottom dollar i'll give him whatever he wants.
Heh. He's an old man now, and probably the most he'd want you to do is get off his lawn. But yeah, he's awesomely bad.
ReplyDeleteI'm a feminist, and I'm disturbed by the rape scene. But I love the movie, and that scene is part of the overall point, I think. It's supposed to shock, because we expect Eastwood to be a hero, and because it sets up a cliche, as you say, then takes it to its logical extreme. Also, as I think was it you who said that the real creepout is the reaction of the townspeople? Its like, we're not sure whose side to be on anymore.
I'd have liked you to take this a step further, and discuss what Eastwood is doing with hero types here.
I kind of touched on this in my post, but I'm not sure I agree that Eastwood's character was supposed to be "the devil." True, he was pretty angry and determined and there was the whole red paint/ "welcome to hell" scenario. But at the same time, his malice was really directed at specific people and events. Like...he took advantage of all the townspeople because they didn't help him (or the marshal, however we interpret it) and left their town painted red to make their humiliation permanent. So I wouldn't call him the devil, since he really was looking for justice in his own weird way.
ReplyDeleteand yes, the one-liners were sweeet
I guess you could definitely classify Eastwood as a Hero, even though he comes off at first as more of an anti-hero type, because in the end he does bring justice to the town. He does give power to the weak and picked on character so as to show the town what it feels like to be on the other side of the fence, and yes he does help out the native americans at the store even though they are discriminated against. He also is a strong heroic like character because rather then simply save the town from an attack he taught the town how to stand up for themselves and fight back. He also turned the ugly face of the towns past back upon itself and when he painted the town red he definitely left a permanent mark upon the town. Yet as i described before he rapes the women and kills people carelessly so he's a hero to a certain extent.
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