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The American Gods Pt. 1
When we think of the Western, we must think of an American myth, one no different from the Greek adventures of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. The reality of the American West was radically different from the stories posited in film and novels, just as the Trojan War was nothing (assuming it happened at all) like its fictional Iliad counterpart. In Greece, the ideals and thoughts of an entire culture could be summed through observation of a fictional Odysseus; this was the ideal for Greek thought and behavior. So it worked as a teaching tool or a barometer for right and wrong. A Greek man in classical times knew from Odysseus how he was supposed to behave, whether or not he followed the examples. So too is the Western myth. By seeing Wyatt Earp or Rooster Cogburn, we once could learn and know the ideals for an American. These ties can be found in any form of mythology on earth (for more information, read Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell), and for years they were the backbone of American thought. However, over time it changed, evolved, or perverted (pick your verb of choice) from idealized myth into horror, and soon into obscure nothingness. It is this set of ideals, and their eventual decline, that I wish to explore.
To understand the crux of the Western, we must examine its Hero both as an ideal and in relation to society and the villains. This is a film exploration: although the Western was created for, existed in, and was popularized by the dime-store novel, it exists as a mythological phenomenon in the cinema. Therefore, I choose to study Wyatt Earp in what may be considered the quintessential Western: My Darling Clementine. I choose this film over Shane, largely considered the perfect Western, simply because of the seeming imperfection. Shane keeps its nose to the grindstone, giving you a perfect Western hero superhuman in his skill (he even comes down from the sky onto the ranch, an allusion to the Gods of Mt. Olympus), and existing outside of the society he will save only to leave. It presents nothing more, and that is its strength. My Darling Clementine has different motives of which I will speak later. First, we will examine the nature of Wyatt Earp, and therefore that of the Hero.
After the death of his brother, Earp arrives in Tombstone, taking the position of Marshal and vowing to stay until his brother’s killer is caught. Earp is a man of action, an outsider who enters society in order to make it safe for the townspeople who live in fear of the Clanton gang. This is what the Hero is: best with his fists, fastest on the draw, and irresistible to women. His gun is the extension of his libido, for he is an asexual creature: it is only with a gun that he can love, and he must in the end leave the woman who falls in love with him when he leaves the town he cleaned up; his nature is only to kill.
This basically sums up Wyatt Earp and it is modeled perfectly in the first and last halves of the film. Here, Earp is both greater and less human, much in the vein of Homer’s rendition of Achilles. Yes, he’s there to save the town, but only subconsciously. His motivation is not altruistic in nature. Earp is there for the Clantons because of rage, and he simply doesn’t know or care about the fact that ridding the world of them will also save the town they are terrorizing. Typical of the Hero: one who does good because it is his nature to kill, and without the villain he has no place in society. I previously spoke loftily about Earp coming into Tombstone to save the town, but Earp doesn’t give a damn about the town: he’s out for revenge. Compare this to Achilles, a powerful heroic warrior who childishly refuses to fight because of a minor slight from Agamemnon: Gods don’t generally care whether or not they’re helping, they are instead motivated by in-the-moment feelings and gut reaction to revenge.
The nature of the Hero ties to this. The one he defines as villains are doggedly pursued. As he will eventually grow fond of the town he resides in, he attaches lofty goals to his own basic needs. In the case of My Darling Clementine, Earp’s abilities and the maxim of "actions speak louder than words are both taken to an Nth degree. After arriving in Tombstone, Earp doesn’t make a single move to find his brother’s killers. He doesn’t figure it out until Doc Holliday tells him. It is for this reason that I chose to speak about this film: not only is the Hero typical, but the town around it is an illustration of the world around him, a personification of the ideals of the Old West. Until the showdown with Holliday, we largely see, not hear, Earp in the background while the town simply exists. Added to this is the presence of Clementine, and her scenes with Earp allow the story to meander, but with a strong purpose. What we are left with is a poem, a requiem to the mythology of the Old West.
The Searchers (1956, Dir. John Ford) is less than typical in terms of the presentation of the hero. However, it does illustrate quite effectively the fact that the villain is a mirror to the hero. While the Hero finds himself allied with good, the presence of free will gives Scar a choice to ally himself wherever he chooses. In The Searchers, Ethan goes on an aggressive hunt for the Indian tribe who kidnapped his niece. Scar, by contrast, has made choices. He is every bit as talented as Ethan physically, but he is also human in nature. That the villains of Westerns are human is telling: humans, and society, are corrupted. While the hero, even as an instrument of death, is pure, existing in society would destroy that society. Living amongst humanity gives him the illusion of humanity, and through this he is corrupted.
The corruption is core to both the Western and the evolution of the genre. That society is corrupt has always been a mainstay: it is the simplicity of isolation that the hero relies on. Aided by the McCarthy trials and the blacklisting of "Red Hollywood", High Noon (1952, Dir. Fred Zinneman) takes the idea of a corrupt society into the stage of a horrific nightmare. Marshal Will Kane, on his way out of town after his wedding, discovers Ben Miller is out of jail and returning to town. He could leave, but he knows Miller will destroy the town when he discovers Kane gone. And so Kane opts to stay and help the town he once saved from Ben Miller years before. In previous Westerns, Kane would have been distrusted by the townspeople initially, but in the end he would have been aided by a select few, and thanked by the town at the triumphant conclusion. That’s where High Noon differs: his Deputy, Harvey Pell, immediately flees, holing himself up for the bulk of the film, wrought with guilt. Judge Mettrick packs up to leave town. And, in a horrifying scene at the church, the townspeople Kane wants to save demand he leave, turning their back and waiting for him to die.
The script was written by Carl Foreman, who also saw an entire community turn against him when he refused to testify and was blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings. This paranoia and fear created a movement in the Western which eventually led to its downfall: no longer does the Hero exist to save civilization; now he must exist to save himself from civilization. It is from this that the most terrifying horror movies ever seen were created.
Terrifying, yes. But it also served to destroy the Western, a form of mythology founded upon American ideals and instructions to a way of life. While it initially served as a story showing the simplicity of the ideal way of life, from this point on, as the Heroes became darker and less heroic, the civilizations they sought to save became less worthy of aid. This is not the stuff myths are made of. So we see here where the Western was going with High Noon; a civilization bursting from the seams with venom and a Hero who must save only himself. Take this further and we see the essence of the next movement typified by two films: Hud and Fistful of Dollars. We previously saw the hero as a creature to be seen in awe trying to save a young civilization (whether it wanted to be saved or not) from the surrounding jungles. By the time-frame of Hud (1963), though, the fight is over and the heroes have won. Hud is the same creature as Wyatt Earp: fast on the draw, best with his fists, smart, aggressive, and sexy. Yet now, in a tamed modern society, he is a sociopath. Hud is a commentary on the Western as a whole, a requiem filled with reflection on the past. While the Hero is normally a pivotal force to the story (essentially a man of action), here his actions cause no effect. Although the movie is about Hud Bannon, the force of the story comes from his father Homer. In this civilized world, Homer’s ranch is being attacked not by rivals or bandits, but by disease to the cattle. And through it all, Hud just wants to take the ranch so he can sell the oil underneath the land. If this were the 1890’s Hud would be welcome against Homer’s enemies, but in the modern-day enemies can’t be fought with hands or a gun, and Hud can only fight those in his way, whether they’re with him or not. Hud has no enemies to fight, and so he is only a monster unleashed on all unfortunate enough to be close to him. Homer has no enemies whom can be defeated by Hud, and so Hud fights Homer. In true Hero fashion, Hud wins, but Hud, as a Western Hero, is seen for what the Hero really is. The final shot sums up the Western as a whole as Hud’s face is silhouetted, and then covered by, the closing farmhouse door. He is alone in the world, left with no one who he hasn’t already hurt. So too is the rest of the Western. It’s not a comforting thought to realize that the heroes we’ve worshipped from afar are in fact sick demented monsters. The entire film serves to lay bare the inner workings of the Western, but in the end it also pays homage to it. Think of it: in My Darling Clementine Wyatt Earp and Clementine danced to the title song; in Hud we see Lonnie and Homer sing along with a crowded movie theatre to a bouncing ball on-screen. The world has changed, and in this modern world the old myths can be only dreamt of from a distance.
Psychosis turns into anarchy with Sergio Leone’s 1964 Fistful of Dollars. From this point, it becomes easy to see the lack of allure to a Western: Leone’s film is a great escape to carnage, but no one would ever dream of adopting its ethics and living in its world (a world so "simple" in code it has adopted a credo of no rules). John Wayne hated this movie.
One of the first shots in the film is Clint Eastwood, as The Man With No Name, horsed and riding up to another horseman. As he approaches, he discovers the rider is long dead, the horse walking around the town with no one willing to bury the corpse. While Eastwood’s character is more complex, and Hud’s world more intriguing as film, it is this mindset that has called the death knell of the Western’s mythology. No one can look to Hud and dream of a better world, or model themselves on The Man With No Name, and in the end the genre has flamed out. Since Sergio Leone, only 1992’s Unforgiven (Dir. Clint Eastwood) has had success, and the film is plagued with similar perversity to its nature as even the town’s women are vile and corrupt, screaming for the blood of two cowboys throughout. This does not make these bad movies: all of these films I’ve spoken about as mutations of the Western are excellent films. However, it must be realized that they (influenced by a change in American thought) have changed the Western into an unrecognizable form.
It has been a standing recent theory that the mentality of the Vietnam 1960’s has created a void in America. With everyone untrustworthy of everything, we have begun to mistrust ourselves. We, as a civilization, no longer seem to be just weak townspeople; now we are sick and demented creatures bent on destroying the pure Hero. Or, just as bad, we now see our Heroes as being sociopaths themselves. For the first time, a civilization exists without a sense or faith or mythology to guide it. Without this guiding force, will we burn away like our own mythology has?
Next Installment: What will fill the void left behind?