I know, I know. But rewatching Holiday recently only reconfirmed my opinion.

Well, ok. You've made an effort. No jail for you.

(totally just kidding. I am not the Boss of Movies who can declare people to go to movie jail and only watch Dune.)

only watch Dune

::shudder::

Since I've got ninety berjillion channels now it's easy to go fishing for films I've never seen. Joss had cited Ulzana's Raid as one of the influences on Firefly (along with Hill Street Blues and Stagecoach) so I nabbed it off the Retroplex channel. (Anybody else getting the -Plex series of channels? IPlex for indie movies, Retroplex, Mplex? They've got an interesting library. I caught Altman's Long Goodbye and Thieves Like Us off them in the last month.)

Anyway, back to Ulzana's Raid which is a western from 1972 starring Burt Lancaster as the grizzled old scout and a very young Bruce Davison. It's usually discussed in terms of being a Vietnam allegory, but it succeeds beautifully just as narrative. It's utterly brutal in its logic and follows a cavalry unit trying to capture a renegade Apache, Ulzana.

There are several scenes from the movie where you can see Joss getting his idea of the Reavers. The Apache are exceptionally vicious and wildly feared by settlers and soldiers alike. The whole raid is a torture and raping and killing spree. It's clearly well researched, and the Apache's cruelty isn't explained away, but it is placed in a cultural context (and the soldiers respond in kind and that's where the My Lai comparisons crop up).

(As portrayed in the movie, the Apache have an almost Highlanderesque sense about killing. It's a way to take on a man's power into yourself. Killing him slowly and painfully is a way to take in more power over a longer period of time. Once you get into that kind of logic, then things get very ugly.)

It reminded me a lot of Lonesome Dove in that sense. Just a very clear eyed view of how a running battle would be fought if the combatants were unburdened by any scruples. Very lean and satisfying narrative.

Certainly the Apache are demonized in the movie, and yet that attitude itself is what is examined explicitly and implicitly in the story. Bruce Davison's character is the just-out-of-the-Academy officer who begins the movie thinking the Apache just need some Christian charity and whips around into racism shortly after encountering them. (And that's not the end of his character's arc either.)

The story very sucessfully upends a lot of western cliches in surprising ways. Several scenes are outright shocking.

I think you'd like it Nutty. It stuck to its own narrative logic in a very clean way. You'd like it too, Cor, if you haven't seen it. Definitely belongs with the classic late period western revisionist films of that era.

Burt Lancaster's post-studio film career is really fascinating. All kinds of masterpieces and odd gems. The Leopard, The Swimmer, Atlantic City, Local Hero, Ulzana's Raid...

I know, I know. But rewatching Holiday recently only reconfirmed my opinion.

Holiday is excellent (JZ's favorite, incidentally) but so stagey. Bringing Up Baby is best watched after two glasses of champagne. Once you fall into the froth of it then it can just sweep you along.

I've got a channel called "retro" and one called "indie" - are those the plex channels?

I've got a channel called "retro" and one called "indie" - are those the plex channels?

That's them. Look around for Metroplex too. I don't know why but it's elsewhere on my channels, but part of the same package.

Thieves Like Us

I'm always happy to see this one in circulation.

Because the scene with Hold On does that to me every single time.

By that scene, he was curled in a ball laughing helplessly ("They know the harmony!"). The scene that broke him was "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand you, LeAnn. One hole or two?"

I watched Punch-Drunk Love again this evening and ever since the world has slightly, kinda taken its shape. I love when that happens.