hyped garbage

A Brilliant Conflict

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

HOMBRE I have always had a strange relationship as a film fan to Paul Newman. Particularly when I was young I would have told you that the man just bugged me. I couldn't tell you why. Just that he did. And yet, two of my favourite movies then, and even now, are Cool Hand Luke and Hombre, both starring Paul Newman. I met the man once. I was doing security for a film read through, a film that never got made. We weren't told who the stars were or what the film was. Just that security was needed and we should be ready for anything. As people began to gather around the table to read, a few relatively minor stars then, showed up and immediately began to make obnoxious demands. They wanted to sit here or there. They needed a certain kind of water. They needed chairs for their entourages. And then Newman came bounding up the stairs in sneakers. No entourage. No fuss. Greeted every single person in the room. Did the reading. Thanked everyone. And left. And I remember thinking "Now, that's a real movie star. He doesn't need to prove a thing to anyone.". Yet that strange mental block remains. I can't bring myself to admit that I'm a Paul Newman fan. Perhaps it was because I was so obsessed with Steve McQueen as a kid. Still am. And I'm sure that I read somewhere early on that McQueen hated Newman because he felt Newman kept getting the roles that they competed for. There is something in our brains that gravitates towards that either/or way of thinking. The fact is that Newman was a great actor and a pretty damn good human being by most accounts, including my own, despite it being a very brief encounter. And the fact is that I love Cool Hand Luke. And I love Hombre, one of the few adaptations of an Elmore Leonard Western that really worked. For those of you who don't know, Elmore Leonard tried his hand at Western novels before he got into the crime novels that he is now so well known for. And Leonard was a very good Western novelist as well. Hombre is a fine example of this. The premise of a white man raised by Apache being forced to protect a group of white people that he doesn't care for, plays brilliantly with our ideas about what we call civilized behaviour. The most 'Civilized' person in the novel, a well educated, well manored professor has stolen money meant to feed the Apache people and shows us again and again his naked greed. While the man they all consider to be the least civilized, the white man who prefers the Apache to his own people, is the only one who shows integrity and courage. This conflict bubbles under the surface of a very good period Western, and in the film, Newman does a remarkable job of capturing Apache like mannerism. I lived among the Apache and Navajo on the Salt River Reserve in Southern Arizona, and I can tell you that they are a very special and unique people, even amongst other Natives. They do not move or talk or even seem to think like other people. There is a stillness to the Apache, and inner toughness, almost certainly derived from living in barren desert mountain terrain. And Newman captures that spirit extremely well. Frederic March, one of the great actors of early films, including Inherit the Wind, is excellent as the civilized yet greedy Dr. Favor and Richard Boone is impressively menacing as the main villain, Grimes. But it is Newman's movie through and through. He delivers a wonderful speech masterfully about the state of the Apache people, while cooped up in a mining shack with the others, all the while remaining unknowably stoic and still throughout. I don't know if you can argue that Hombre is a great Western. But it is definitely a very good one. And it is still definitely one of my favourite movies of all time. Maybe it's time that I admit that I am a Paul Newman fan. Maybe it's time I came out of the closet about Paul Newman. It's definitely time to admit that he is the star of two of my favourite movies of all time, Hombre and Cool Hand Luke. There I said it. I said that much. I love Hombre. I like Paul Newman. And I don't care who knows it.

Despite the ever present hotbed topic of racism, the film was a major disappointment to me as it is rather slow moving and the characters such as Richard Boone, Paul Newman and Fredric March are never allowed to develop fully.The one excellent performance here is by Diane Cilento as one of the passengers on the ill-fated stagecoach.Racism is not an underlying film here; rather, it is the definite theme. Kidnapped by Indians as a child and raised as their own, Paul Newman was eventually taken back by a man who gave him his name and upon the latter's death willed him his property.Seeing how the Indians have been mistreated has left an indelible mark on the Newman character and he faces bigotry on the coach for when his Indian past is discovered, the passengers no longer want to ride with him.The coach is summarily held up and the passengers must depend on Newman for their very survival.In a change of pace, Fredric March, one of the passengers, is an Indian agent traveling with his wife Barbara Rush and both show their nasty bigotry. Through the irony of the situation, Rush will also depend upon Newman in the end to survive.As always, Newman comes to grips with the situation and human decency propels him to save the Rush character, but at what cost?

A tough, sun bleached western from Martin Ritt, this is well served by fine performances and some tremendous cinematography from James Wong Howe.John Russell (Newman) is a white man raised by the Apaches, who travels by stagecoach with a group of people whose lives aren't as simple as we first believe. Threatened by bandits, Russell unwillingly leads his fellow passengers towards safety. His moral code is sparse and unforgiving, but he is surrounded by others of a different persuasion, most notably Jessie, played by Diane Cilento. When the bandits hold a passengers wife hostage, Russell's moral code is challenged, and it's his unexpected attachment to Jessie that causes him to behave differently. Newman and Cilento are excellent. Richard Boone is the perfect counter weight as Cicero Grimes, the principal bandit. Martin Balsam (stagecoach driver) and Frederic March (an Indian agent) make an impression too, as does Frank Silvera (Mexican bandit). This is a vastly superior western. Superlative work from the stars and an intelligent script, added to the dusty Death Valley location work, create a tense, sparse western well worth watching.

The first part of the film, from the very beginning until the trip starts, is simply perfect. My favorite scenes are the one in which the main character is in the bar with two Apache fellows and the one in which intimidating Grimes gets his ticket for the stagecoach. If the movie had kept in the same path this would be one of the best Westerns ever made. It did not, though it is still a good Western. Both Paul Newman and Richard Boone did a very good job. Filmmaking is also remarkable, a very careful work. The screenplay explores competently the different moods, interests and backgrounds of each character. Although not in the same average level of the first part of the film, the trip also has amazing moments, both in the interaction between passengers and in the final conflict.