I know this has been done to death but I am watching The Cowboys.

What a great movie. I love John Wayne movies.

One of my personal favorites.

The subplot of Duke being redeemed as a father after burying his sons “who went bad on him” is intensely impactful on me.

The addition of Nightlinger by Browne played and played off of emotionally authentically.

Down to Duke’s character becoming part of the greater West. The West is his burial when they cannot find the marker.

The dialogue is porch perfect among the cast.

That movie happened to be playing when I switched on the TV. Seen it before, but sucked me in. I'd forgot how enjoyable it was.

Duke’s early non-western, non-war films like Tycoon, Trouble Along the Way, Wake of the Red Witch (kind of late), and we can include The Quiet Nan are very good.

It was a bit of a shame later in life Duke got (if not type casted, I would argue the characters of The Searchers, Red River, The Cowboys, The Shootist, True Grit are not type casting) role casted.

Two issues played there 1) The the Genghis Khan debacle was his making and it scared him professionally. He found the script in a studio executive’s trash can. He read it and loved it seeing as another form of myth making that he wanted to make. The script was bad, and his performance was attacked. Brando had previously backed out of playing the Conqueror leading many to see the film as dead. This made him leery of taking roles that would stretch him. The famous quote is, “ Not to make an ass of yourself trying to play parts you're not suited for."

However, this philosophy was self-limiting. Duke, I’ll argue to this day Duke was ever the “actor” of any of them. Especially, Brando who I am not as big on as everyone else. Yes, I agree Brando was good. However, his “greatness” is belifthed by the role/product he enters. He made some terrible films that were only made worse by his lazy presence.

Anyhow, The Conquer set them open sat records for ticket sales, cost so much too make that it did not matter it was not a total flop, Howard Hughes who had bought RKO was so upset by the film (critically and from the cancer aspect) that the film is considered the end point for RKO.

The other aspect that saw Wayne getting what I term role cast, a separate construct from type cast, is financial. Duke Wayne was in his fifties when he made Rio Bravo. Whole Clark Gable was in his prime in A list roles. Duke had been banshees back to D roles after the fall Big Trail. When we think of good, early Duke Wayne films he is already in his late 30s and early 40s. This is not an attack. It is an observation that Wayne would agree with. He would take less expensive roles like Rio Lobo because he has a lot of people whose standard of living depending upon him at different times ex-wives, children, extended family, and even friends. That would also include his own. Dime as a brand, or Dune Inc., was real and after breaking through late in life, being hit in the nose a few times, Duke had to maintain his ability to be a draw. Hollywood is a business. The actor is also a business. The ability to take “artistic” risk was limiting at some point.

There is a VK’s j and white mini-movie thing Duke did. He is in his late 50s maybe early 60s. I only saw it once and cannot find it shaping. He plays a sports-writer. The closing scene is a close up. I can’t remember if it was a push shot. Duke’s face takes up almost all the screen. The shot is slightly below Duke. All you see is his face, shoulders, phone, and Duke brings his arm into the scene bringing a cigarette ti his mouth. The line delivered. The piece ends with Duke in a grimacing smile.

Mow, I can’t remember anything about that piece except for that end scene. The thing is wildly forgotten. However, the point is I can remember, vividly enough to paint it. That was the ability of good acting, filming, and directing to burn in my life’s memory an image, a captured emotional truth something that I cannot even remember beyond that one moment. Bad acting, cannot do that. That is art.

Cinema, like football, is the most collaborative form of making art. That lasting image. That lasting emotional truth took a lot of people to execute. However, Wayne was the quarterback. Could others make that great throw in this particular production? Yes. The fact is Wayne could make the throw too.

As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

I rarely go to the movies but my wife wanted to see Black Bag so we went. The movie was OK but my thought on every single preview we saw before the movie was "Why on earth would somebody make a movie about that?"

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

Partially based on the above, I will disagree. There are many films that I do not “enjoy.” That is not their purpose. I did not “enjoy” Oppenheimer, but appreciate it and a specs of the human condition because of it.

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

Well written Doc!

Western are pretty much universal in their point. DO THE RIGHT THING!!!!!! EVEN IF ITS HARD!!!!!

That doesn't sell too well these days.....especially in Hollywood!

Well, The Searchers is much more than that.

quote:

Originally posted by JTEX:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

Well written Doc!

Western are pretty much universal in their point. DO THE RIGHT THING!!!!!! EVEN IF ITS HARD!!!!!

That doesn't sell too well these days.....especially in Hollywood!

of course hollywood is not the real life ... western time was not ideal and harder than most will never been able to handle ...

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
As I see it, folks over analyzing movies and art is what ruins art and entertainment.

Westerns tend to do well in the market, for whatever reason. Hollywood seems to have decided against making them on a regular basis.

Compare that with the various superhero movies. Artistic wise, they are not too good… well put together, but very formulaic. Yet, for some reason, there are more and more of them being made.

All it is to say is that I don’t understand the film industry, and claiming it’s art is silly. It’s a business that makes a product that you enjoy.

Wait a minute.

Westerns are a time honored and proven popular theme. Yellowstone is the easy example as are several of the other spinoffs, Anything Clint Eastwood. Westerns are a go to. Solid as a rock. Always will be.

The superhero movies are no more or less a desperate stab at the niche audience who used to read comic books, it'll undoubtedly play itself out.

Movies are most certainly art. The cinematography of Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans,The writing of Big Jake or Top Gun Maverick, the pure gripping story of John Adams, Platoon and High Plains Drifter.

My friends and I still laugh ourselves silly at The Big Lebowski, Step Brothers and Taledegga Nights. Excellent comedy.

Comedy is art, scenery and prose is art.

there ain't a guy here that doesn't immediately see the picture when they read, "Mr McCandles, I thought you were dead!"

Maybe not Monet, but certainly art.

The scene in the Godfather outside the hospital of the Don is a perfect example of film as art.

When the hitters pull up to the hospital and see Michael and the poor guy coming to lay respected standing outside. Michael and this poor guy, at Michael’s order, have their hands in their coats. The hitters drive off.

Then the scene cuts to the poor soul. The average guy who got caught up in a Mob drug war. The camera shows his hand (empty of course) it is shaken. The camera lingers. The written word cannot achieve the impact of that scene. The message conveyed by that man’s trembling hand. It is truth (as an illusion of film) captured. All who view carry and bear witness to that man’s experience in this grand scheme.

The vast majority of Hollywood movies are not art. They are quite simply product.

The motion picture academy tries to highbrow that they are art. They are not. SOME films are art. More correctly, some parts of films are art.

Any of the medical books and publications in my office right now are not art.

You guys are not really changing my mind at all.

Movies can be social commentary, history, art, and also just a commodity.

Frankly, your comment on the godfather isn’t one I would consider, even though I agree the film is a great and artistic. Thus my point that the biggest issue with film as art is folks over analyzing it.

The vast majority of movies are not art.

Some comedies are art, but not all. I don’t consider Seinfeld art. Good comedy, but not really art.

Was the “piss Christ” art?

No.

Certainly one man’s art can be another’s garbage.

Hitler’s paintings or Hunter Biden’s? Maybe some historical value, but art? Don’t think so.

I am not here to change your mind. Your mind is made up. I am here to refute your overstatements. See above.

The individual reading will decide.

I have no use for commodity movies with no insight into the human condition or unable to transcend truth of the perceived human moment captured through the media.

If you don’t consider commodity movies art, then we agree more than not.

I don’t see any refutation of overanalysis of art being a part of the issue, either.

If you need to analyze something to declare it artistic, you have an issue. Art should give you a visceral reaction. Your long description of that one scene is how we get folks thinking something like the “piss Christ” is art. I’m not arguing against a film making you think being art, but if you have to think to have a reaction, it isn’t art.

I don't care, I still like a John Wayne movie.

No one is arguing not to.

I still remember going to see The Cowboys at the Paramount Theater in Lubbock, TX when it premiered. I went with my mom and dad.

My mother being an elementary school teacher and youth Sunday school teacher got on to my dad during the movie about me being exposed to the language. My dad just told her: He hears those words every day he is working cattle with men. It was my first experience of my dad taking up for me being able to handle adult exposure. I remember thinking that was great. I was in the 3rd grade.

John “Duke” Wayne was a national treasure. I had a life size poster of him on my childhood bedroom wall for about 13 years. The poster was the draw scene from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

The Duke