Classic films ask: Where have all the cowboys gone?

Forgive the lack of "newer" reviews this week. I periodically get on genre/decade kicks that result in me getting so wrapped in in rediscovering classics that I really couldn't care less about seeing "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" or whatever other movie happens to be drawing crowds in a given week. Lately, I've been rewatching some films from the 1970s and late '60s that I haven't seen in years but recalled as being some of the finest, most involving movies I've ever viewed. Far from letting me down, these revisits reignited my love for some key films from a period of American filmmaking (staring, arguably, in 1967 with the release of "Bonnie and Clyde" and continuing through 1980 with "Raging Bull") that represents, I think, an artistic Renaissance that stands as the true Golden Age of cinema. More '60s and '70s goodness coming next week, along with some newer stuff as well.

Midnight Cowboy

**** (out of four)

[Masterwork selection]

1969, John Schlesinger, U.S., R (originally X)

Repeat viewing.

Unfortunately, this pivotal film is remembered by many as simply "that X-rated movie that won the best picture Oscar." It may have been racy in its day, but by modern standards this is very much R-rated fare (I've seen more graphic depictions of sex in some PG-13 movies), and such a beautiful, emotionally affecting story deserves to be remembered beyond its MPAA rating. The film tells the classically American story of Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a young man who decides to quit his dead-end job as a dishwasher and seek his fortune as a "hustler" in New York City. This American Dream quickly turns into a nightmare as Joe finds the "easy life" to be much more grueling and soul-sucking than he imagined. On this journey of self-discovery he meets Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a greasy, crippled small-time con man who scams Joe out of a few bucks before the two become unlikely friends and roommates in a condemned building. The film is filled with haunting images of urban decay, and the central symbol of the American cowboy — at first idolized but later cast aside in the interest of more realistic ambitions — serves the film's themes well. This is a weighty, dense example of gritty Americana, but it's accessible on a basic level as well thanks to Voight and Hoffman, who give two of their best performances and create what is, for my money, cinema's best and most likable screen couple.

The Wild Bunch

[Masterwork selection]

1969, Sam Peckinpah, U.S., R

Repeat viewing.

If "Bonnie and Clyde" represented the conception of modern American screen violence, then "The Wild Bunch," with its story of aging gunfighters failing to adapt to a changing American landscape near the turn of the 20th century, is its bloody birth. I can't quite imagine what it must have been like for audiences to first see the film 40 years ago when in westerns, if you shot a man he would usually just clutch his gut and fall down. This is the film (or, at the very least, one of the key films) that made it okay to show the terrible results of physical violence in an action-movie framework. In other words, Peckinpah forces us to deal with the brutal violence taking place on screen, but we're not meant to cower from it. In some sort of bizarre (but very human) paradox, we're meant to celebrate the Wild Bunch and their exploits just as readily as we condemn them as killers. However, the movie is notable for far more than just its violent content; it's a visual masterpiece in other ways, too, including its constant use of troubling, conflicting images (a would-be Mexican revolutionary is dragged through a dirt street while tied to the back of an automobile; a woman nurses her child, whose head rests inches away from a well-stocked bandolier), and the film's themes of lost honor and masculinity are vividly rendered and involving. In the end, though, the best reason to see "The Wild Bunch" is the image of William Holden utilizing a Gatling gun to mow down a few dozen Mexican military men during the movie's extended gunfight finale. It just doesn't get much cooler than that.

Straw Dogs

[Masterwork selection]

1971, Sam Peckinpah, U.K., R (originally X)

Repeat viewing.

Throughout the years, I've always revered Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" far more than its follow-up companion piece, "Straw Dogs." But then again, the last time I saw the latter, I was too young to fully appreciate it, and certainly lacked the real-world experience necessary to comprehend what the film was actually talking about beyond its surface story. The movie — which I now realize is superior to "The Wild Bunch" in every way — follows David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a mild-mannered American mathematician who moves to the English countryside where his wife (Susan Day) grew up. Relations with the local townspeople are instantly frayed by David's thoroughly American cluelessness, and eventually several of the more brooding, intimidating men go too far when they threaten David's wife and home. (Cue the highly controversial rape scene, which was key to the film being banned in the U.K. until 2002. It's upsetting, but not necessarily for the typical reasons.) The finale pits an unarmed David against a handful of gun-toting home intruders, and what transpires is an absolutely thrilling celebration of masculinity. Watching the movie again was like taking a sledgehammer to the face, and believe me, I mean that in a very, very good way. I love films that take a bold stance on a Big Issue and get implicitly confrontational with those who would dare disagree with them (especially when I agree with most of what they're saying), and this may be the most outright confrontational film ever made. First of all, the entire film is about the idea of confrontation: How does a man react when what he values is threatened, and how far should he go to protect what is, in the most primal possible sense, "his"? The answer, of course, is "as far as is necessary," and Peckinpah thumbs his nose at anyone who would take exception to the concept of self-defense and snobbishly call it "nihilism." The film holds that pacifism may be a fine ethos for women and children, but men — real men, with real responsibilities — do not have the luxury of remaining passive in a malignant world. So, the film becomes not the story of a man fighting for his home, but rather a broader examination of the male impulse to protect what he owns. There is much more to say about this incredibly important work, but I will save it for later when I examine the film more completely in a full-length essay.

Jason Wallis is a News-Sentinel copy editor. He can be reached at jasonwallis@comcast.net.

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