Re: The Westerns

The Magnificent Seven!? Archie, if you are going to get involved in a filmography discussion, you ought to do a little more research than watching old Cheers re-runs.

Speaking of Shane. Has anyone ever noticed that Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider was a re-make of that classic Western?

In preparation for this exceedingly important thread, I researched the matter (I just cannot say "googled" here; that term will need to ripen a few more decades before I can deploy it in good confidence) and found only a few varied and variegated comments mostly by the obscure.

The interesting thing is that Pale Rider is a re-make that is more like a re-imagining, uncovering deeper religious meanings in the Old West laying under some sort of post-modern erasure in the standard text of the classics. The Preacher, who is Clint Eastwood, who is Shane, who is Tom Doniphon and Ethan Edwards, is not at all some random rugged individual who happens to confront injustice, but more like an Avenging Angel purposefully sent by God.

It is as if Mr. Eastwood wants to jump completely over any necessity for individuals to civilize America, and gesture at a Manifest Destiny of civilization that only a God-given miracle could bring about.

That said, I now must go. Unlike the rest of you, I am more of a doer than a writer, and must now return to watching movies on my 512 cable channels rather than writing about them.