The House Next Door

By Kevin B. Lee

[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]

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“An army of one,” the poster for The Outlaw Josey Wales proclaims, its space dominated by director-star Clint Eastwood brandishing his trademark feral squint and massive six-guns, an icon of rugged individualism carried over from his immortal starring roles for Sergio Leone. Eastwood wrestles - perhaps not altogether successfully - with his protagonist’s proto-Ramboesque vigilantism, alternately ingratiating audience blood lust while pointing out the emotional vulnerabilities of this otherwise remorseless killing machine. The film both indulges in and subverts Western formula, gradually chipping away at Josey Wales’ stolid, trauma-borne impassivity by gathering around him a ragtag band of frontier types (an aging chief, a squaw and two Jawhawk pioneers, all perfectly played) who ultimately combine to form a progressive vision of a diverse, self-determining Western culture. The script (by Sonia Chernus and initial director Philip Kaufman) and direction reference a litany of Western classics and directors: not just Eastwood’s mentors Leone and Don Siegel, but also Ford (characterization through broad typing) , Hawks (vibrant ensemble work and budding sense of community), and Peckinpah (ecstatically choreographed violence). Sharing a concern with Eastwood’s Unforgiven for the necessity of violence and the responsibilities of citizenry under the rule of societal corruption, this is more expansive and subtle in its re-visioning of the West, as well as the more optimistic; for all of its contradictions, it’s one you could actually build a future upon.


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