Ahh..Sunday TV and The Wild Bunch/Whedon
Jan. 18th, 2004 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAlias and The Practice were surprisingly good tonight. Of course I ignored the bits that bugged me, but I'm astonishingly good at that.
In Alias? I read during the Syd/Vaughn scenes and watched during the Jack/Isbella Rosellini/Sloan bits. In short - Alias is *really* good when it focuses on SpyDaddy. Really bad when it focuses on Vaughn. Kill Vaughn! Kill Vaughn! Oh don't worry, no one ever listens to me. If they did, Andrew would have died in Conversations with Dead People and Jonathan would have stayed in Mexico.
What I loved about Alias was it misled you last week, we thought the whole thing was about Syd and Vaughn, but nooo...it's about Jack and Yatya and Sloan and Irini. It's about Spy-family. Wicked cool! Jack contacts Irina to help get Syd out of Korea safely. Irina's friend, the lovely Isabella Rossellini who looks and sounds more and more like her mother Ingrid Bergman, shows up and tells Jack, she'll help him get Syd out, but only if he agrees to assainate Sloan for her. No questions asked. Jack reluctantly agrees. They go together to see her contact, the contact refuses, they persuade him - great fighting from Victor Garber and Rosellini is truly spooky here. I adore these guys. Then Jack goes off to kill Sloan. I wasn't afraid for V/S - they aren't going to kill those two and if they do? They'll miraculously come back to life, come on, no one important ever dies on this show or stays dead. I was however worried about Sloan. Him, I can see killing. Be a stupid move on the writers part, but you never know. Yatya calls Sloan and tells him to consider this a warning, while Jack is waiting in the lobby, that if he doesn't back off of Irina, she will let him die. He can't even trust his friends. Then she calls Jack and tells him to abort...Jack walks in and Sloan and Jack have a mini-confrontation, re-establishing their animosity. Jack confronts Yatya, whom he knows is Irina's sister, and asks her why she disrupted his recent good terms with Sloan. She said someday Irina would let him know her agenda. Then she really kissed him. Hot. I was happy I watched, I really enjoy the older actors and I think that was what last week's episode was missing - those actors.
The Practice - was a humorous and somewhat interesting episode about Alan Shore, the show's anti-hero. This character reminds me a great deal of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond, a character who does despicable things for noble reasons and then nosedives into self-loathing after he does them.
Also reminds me of Angel, who sort of does the same thing. Fascinating character study which has saved the Practice. Read an article on it in the Sunday Times, in which David E. Kelly states that he realized he needed a somewhat murky character to cut through the righteousness of the other characters and it would only work realistically for two seasons, before he'd have to disbarr him.
When he asked Spader, Spader made it clear that he would only be interested if they kept the character murky and eccentric - anti-hero like - if the character becomes normal, he can't do it.
Kelly said that was fine. And off we go. Spader specializes in murky ambiguous characters. Oh this was a good episode, hope people didn't tune out because of last week's travesty.
The Wild Bunch and Joss Whedon
I think if you want to understand where Whedon and ME are going with their stories, you need to have seen or at least have some knowledge of a 1970s, late 1960s film entitled the Wild Bunch by Sam Peckinpaugh. Whedon, Bell and the other writers have referenced this film in interviews at different points and the horrible Gorsch brothers are taken directly from it.
Years ago, when I was in undergrad - I took a course called Cinema The Western. The final paper I did for that course was The Last Western: The Wild Bunch. For some reason male film buffs, particularly those who are in their 30s- 60s love this film. I won the heart of my professor writing this paper - and it was a good thing too, since he was the same prof that I had for two James Joyce courses and a course on science fiction novels.
Why the Last Western? Well Sam Peckinpah did something with the Wild Bunch, no one had really done before, including Sergio Leone who came close with the man with no name films and Once Upon A time in the West. What did he do? Well for starters, he killed everyone but one character and that was a supporting one (also the antagonist - Robert Ryan - who existed outside the Bunch now), not the protagonist. But that's not the main thing he did - the main thing was he did not tell the classic heros journey, instead of told a tale about a tired bunch of outlaws at the end of their game, the world changing around them, and trying to find a way of dealing with it. There was no riding off in the sunset. No girl. No clear redemption. No answers. Just dealing with the life they'd built for themselves. And dying by their own code.
The movie starts with a close-up of a scorpion, we back up a bit and see some red ants that the scorpion is trying to sting but actually is losing to, back up a little further and see some kids flicking matches on the ants and pushing the red ants towards the scorpion, back up further and see the Wild Bunch horsing around town, back up further still and see the old member of the bunch, Robert Ryan, who is watching them. These images pretty much tell us everything we need to know about the Bunch and how Peckinpaugh sees the human condition. Scorpions eaten by ants, caught by kids.
The story isn't overly complicated - but the characters are. William Holden plays the head of the Bunch, a tired war captain on the losing side of the war, he still wears vestiges of that uniform. As do members of the bunch who served with him. They've planned a train heist and barely manage to escape with the loot into Mexico. As they are doing the heist, Robert Ryan who is now with the union army is pursuing them. He meets them in a confrontation on the border, yet somehow decides to let them go - asking Holden's character what he plans to do now - times have changed, the war has been long over, its not the same world any more. Holden's character shrugs. Holden and Ryan had been close at one point and knew each other longer than they knew anyone else. Which is why Ryan finds a way to let Holden go. I don't remember exactly what was said - last time I saw it was in the 1990s. At any rate, they escape the union troops and end up in Mexico, where they get slaughtered by the MExican army. (I think Holden gets killed. The Bunch takes revenge. Lead by the Gorsches played by Ernest Borgnine and another actor I cannot remember the name of but did a ton of these character roles. Only one who survives is Robert Ryan.)
Westerns before the Wild Bunch - featured a hero, often played by John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, or Gary Cooper having a crisis of conscience, dealing with it, getting the second chance and being redeemed. He rides off happily into the sunset. The "classic heros tale". Rod Taylor played it. Gary Cooper in High Noon. Dean Martin and Richard Mitchum respectfully in El Dorado and Rio Bravo - Howard Hawks comment on High Noon. After the Wild Bunch, the focus changed, it was no longer that simple, the hero became a little less heroic and not always salvageable. Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid is an example - of post Wild Bunch, in this tale Butch and Sundance escape with the girl to Mexico, sort of retire, then do one more heist and are killed in a shoot-out. Then there's Peckinpaugh's PAt Garrett and Billy The Kid - similar to The Wild Bunch in tone and structure. It was a movement away from the romantic view of heroism to a more gritty realistic, possibly existentialism view of heroism in a gritty world.
Another thing these later Westerns did was introduce incredibly flawed characters to the movie landscape. It was just a little less black and white. The hero was also a murderer and thief. The villain? Saved people and reluctantly helped the troops stop a heist. But Westerns had been doing this for a while. Whedon grays up his universe with the character of Spike - who is neither completely evil nor good. His motivations seem murky in Season 5-6. Which is troubling to some viewers who preferred the more black and white years of Season 1 and Season 2. Things began to get murkier in Season 3, when it was revealed but subtly that Angel and Angelus may not be as different or separate as Buffy thinks. We saw the lines between black and white fade as the teens began to grow up. Similarily as the Western and film grew up - the tone got grayer.
Firefly and Angel the Series are Whedon's attempt to do the same type of tale in a television framework. Buffy was the more straight forward heros journey. I think Angel may be the modern version, the grittier one, the version that doesn't necessarily end with hugs and kittens. Greenwalt may have been interested in the heros journey, but I don't think Minear, Whedon, or Bell are. It's a different focus. Especially now that Firefly ended. This is a tough thing to pull off on tv, b/c tv audiences like to be comforted - they want what the 1950s and 1960s movie audiences wanted in a western, the nice sunny ending. But life ain't like that. It doesn't come with guarantees. And I think ME is more interested in exploring the toughness of that, than the fantasy.
If I'm right, will be interesting to see if the audience follows. (Some folks just can't handle grayness or murky heros - just look at the bestseller lists.) Certainly a far more interesting tale in my opinion than the classic heros journey that most of us have read/seen millions of times and can tell in our sleep.
In Alias? I read during the Syd/Vaughn scenes and watched during the Jack/Isbella Rosellini/Sloan bits. In short - Alias is *really* good when it focuses on SpyDaddy. Really bad when it focuses on Vaughn. Kill Vaughn! Kill Vaughn! Oh don't worry, no one ever listens to me. If they did, Andrew would have died in Conversations with Dead People and Jonathan would have stayed in Mexico.
What I loved about Alias was it misled you last week, we thought the whole thing was about Syd and Vaughn, but nooo...it's about Jack and Yatya and Sloan and Irini. It's about Spy-family. Wicked cool! Jack contacts Irina to help get Syd out of Korea safely. Irina's friend, the lovely Isabella Rossellini who looks and sounds more and more like her mother Ingrid Bergman, shows up and tells Jack, she'll help him get Syd out, but only if he agrees to assainate Sloan for her. No questions asked. Jack reluctantly agrees. They go together to see her contact, the contact refuses, they persuade him - great fighting from Victor Garber and Rosellini is truly spooky here. I adore these guys. Then Jack goes off to kill Sloan. I wasn't afraid for V/S - they aren't going to kill those two and if they do? They'll miraculously come back to life, come on, no one important ever dies on this show or stays dead. I was however worried about Sloan. Him, I can see killing. Be a stupid move on the writers part, but you never know. Yatya calls Sloan and tells him to consider this a warning, while Jack is waiting in the lobby, that if he doesn't back off of Irina, she will let him die. He can't even trust his friends. Then she calls Jack and tells him to abort...Jack walks in and Sloan and Jack have a mini-confrontation, re-establishing their animosity. Jack confronts Yatya, whom he knows is Irina's sister, and asks her why she disrupted his recent good terms with Sloan. She said someday Irina would let him know her agenda. Then she really kissed him. Hot. I was happy I watched, I really enjoy the older actors and I think that was what last week's episode was missing - those actors.
The Practice - was a humorous and somewhat interesting episode about Alan Shore, the show's anti-hero. This character reminds me a great deal of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond, a character who does despicable things for noble reasons and then nosedives into self-loathing after he does them.
Also reminds me of Angel, who sort of does the same thing. Fascinating character study which has saved the Practice. Read an article on it in the Sunday Times, in which David E. Kelly states that he realized he needed a somewhat murky character to cut through the righteousness of the other characters and it would only work realistically for two seasons, before he'd have to disbarr him.
When he asked Spader, Spader made it clear that he would only be interested if they kept the character murky and eccentric - anti-hero like - if the character becomes normal, he can't do it.
Kelly said that was fine. And off we go. Spader specializes in murky ambiguous characters. Oh this was a good episode, hope people didn't tune out because of last week's travesty.
The Wild Bunch and Joss Whedon
I think if you want to understand where Whedon and ME are going with their stories, you need to have seen or at least have some knowledge of a 1970s, late 1960s film entitled the Wild Bunch by Sam Peckinpaugh. Whedon, Bell and the other writers have referenced this film in interviews at different points and the horrible Gorsch brothers are taken directly from it.
Years ago, when I was in undergrad - I took a course called Cinema The Western. The final paper I did for that course was The Last Western: The Wild Bunch. For some reason male film buffs, particularly those who are in their 30s- 60s love this film. I won the heart of my professor writing this paper - and it was a good thing too, since he was the same prof that I had for two James Joyce courses and a course on science fiction novels.
Why the Last Western? Well Sam Peckinpah did something with the Wild Bunch, no one had really done before, including Sergio Leone who came close with the man with no name films and Once Upon A time in the West. What did he do? Well for starters, he killed everyone but one character and that was a supporting one (also the antagonist - Robert Ryan - who existed outside the Bunch now), not the protagonist. But that's not the main thing he did - the main thing was he did not tell the classic heros journey, instead of told a tale about a tired bunch of outlaws at the end of their game, the world changing around them, and trying to find a way of dealing with it. There was no riding off in the sunset. No girl. No clear redemption. No answers. Just dealing with the life they'd built for themselves. And dying by their own code.
The movie starts with a close-up of a scorpion, we back up a bit and see some red ants that the scorpion is trying to sting but actually is losing to, back up a little further and see some kids flicking matches on the ants and pushing the red ants towards the scorpion, back up further and see the Wild Bunch horsing around town, back up further still and see the old member of the bunch, Robert Ryan, who is watching them. These images pretty much tell us everything we need to know about the Bunch and how Peckinpaugh sees the human condition. Scorpions eaten by ants, caught by kids.
The story isn't overly complicated - but the characters are. William Holden plays the head of the Bunch, a tired war captain on the losing side of the war, he still wears vestiges of that uniform. As do members of the bunch who served with him. They've planned a train heist and barely manage to escape with the loot into Mexico. As they are doing the heist, Robert Ryan who is now with the union army is pursuing them. He meets them in a confrontation on the border, yet somehow decides to let them go - asking Holden's character what he plans to do now - times have changed, the war has been long over, its not the same world any more. Holden's character shrugs. Holden and Ryan had been close at one point and knew each other longer than they knew anyone else. Which is why Ryan finds a way to let Holden go. I don't remember exactly what was said - last time I saw it was in the 1990s. At any rate, they escape the union troops and end up in Mexico, where they get slaughtered by the MExican army. (I think Holden gets killed. The Bunch takes revenge. Lead by the Gorsches played by Ernest Borgnine and another actor I cannot remember the name of but did a ton of these character roles. Only one who survives is Robert Ryan.)
Westerns before the Wild Bunch - featured a hero, often played by John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, or Gary Cooper having a crisis of conscience, dealing with it, getting the second chance and being redeemed. He rides off happily into the sunset. The "classic heros tale". Rod Taylor played it. Gary Cooper in High Noon. Dean Martin and Richard Mitchum respectfully in El Dorado and Rio Bravo - Howard Hawks comment on High Noon. After the Wild Bunch, the focus changed, it was no longer that simple, the hero became a little less heroic and not always salvageable. Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid is an example - of post Wild Bunch, in this tale Butch and Sundance escape with the girl to Mexico, sort of retire, then do one more heist and are killed in a shoot-out. Then there's Peckinpaugh's PAt Garrett and Billy The Kid - similar to The Wild Bunch in tone and structure. It was a movement away from the romantic view of heroism to a more gritty realistic, possibly existentialism view of heroism in a gritty world.
Another thing these later Westerns did was introduce incredibly flawed characters to the movie landscape. It was just a little less black and white. The hero was also a murderer and thief. The villain? Saved people and reluctantly helped the troops stop a heist. But Westerns had been doing this for a while. Whedon grays up his universe with the character of Spike - who is neither completely evil nor good. His motivations seem murky in Season 5-6. Which is troubling to some viewers who preferred the more black and white years of Season 1 and Season 2. Things began to get murkier in Season 3, when it was revealed but subtly that Angel and Angelus may not be as different or separate as Buffy thinks. We saw the lines between black and white fade as the teens began to grow up. Similarily as the Western and film grew up - the tone got grayer.
Firefly and Angel the Series are Whedon's attempt to do the same type of tale in a television framework. Buffy was the more straight forward heros journey. I think Angel may be the modern version, the grittier one, the version that doesn't necessarily end with hugs and kittens. Greenwalt may have been interested in the heros journey, but I don't think Minear, Whedon, or Bell are. It's a different focus. Especially now that Firefly ended. This is a tough thing to pull off on tv, b/c tv audiences like to be comforted - they want what the 1950s and 1960s movie audiences wanted in a western, the nice sunny ending. But life ain't like that. It doesn't come with guarantees. And I think ME is more interested in exploring the toughness of that, than the fantasy.
If I'm right, will be interesting to see if the audience follows. (Some folks just can't handle grayness or murky heros - just look at the bestseller lists.) Certainly a far more interesting tale in my opinion than the classic heros journey that most of us have read/seen millions of times and can tell in our sleep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Ah wonderful!
Date: 2004-01-18 10:38 pm (UTC)It's been a long time since my last viewing of the Wild Bunch. (Seen it three times, but not since early 90s.) So I forgot it was Ben Johnson and Warren Oats, and that Ernest Borgnine was Dutch. Hmmm if it's Angel who dies, maybe that's why I got confused and thought it was the lead character. (My mind comparing it to Angel the Series. Although I think Whedon was really doing The Wild Bunch in Firefly...way too many parallels.)
Actually, I think a lot of the changes in the tone of the Western which you mention can be traced back at least to The Searchers (a cited influence on Firefly, unless I'm mistaken), if not further.
But the Searchers didn't quite go as dark, John Ford backed up a little. He didn't have Wayne kill Natalie Wood and Wayne still more or less was redeemed. Peckinpah took Ford's take just a step further. (I did the Searchers for the final in the class, along with Red River - two of my all time favorite John Wayne films.) That said, the change in tone does date back to John Ford who took the hero into a dark place, and not any hero, but the cinema idol John Wayne. Wayne fought for the role and for the movie and it is one of his favorites. The Searchers reminds me a great deal of Holtz/Angel/Connor story in S4, so much so, that I can't help but wonder if Whedon may have based aspects of it on that film.
Before the Searchers we did have a few anti-hero westerns: Gregory Peck in The Last Gunfighter, and in Duel in The Sun - he dies in both. Also the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an oddly toned Western...not dark but not exactly light either. None of these went quite as dark in tone as the Wild Bunch nor were they as violent. Peckinpah changed how violence and gun battles were filmed on screen with the Wild Bunch - doing slow-motion shots, later borrowed by Quentin Tarantino. Sergio Leone, did he come before or after or during Peckinpah? Can't remember. At any rate, he had a similar style, although his heroes always lived. Once Upon The Time in The West, The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Leone did the music thing - which Whedon borrows for Firefly. Also the flared lighting and focus on objects. In watching Firefly - you can tell Whedon loves Westerns.