When he directed and acted the film, Eastwood was 62 years old. Twenty years ago, the prosperous Eastwood became popular because of the image of the heroic sharpshooter in Western films such as The Good, the Good and the Bad. More than twenty years later, playing the image of William in the film as a down-and-out killer, time gave Eastwood the best makeup.
But this film really interests me the most because of the characteristics of his "anti" westerns. Although the background location of the story is a small town with random names in the west, the main characters are no more than the sheriff, cowboy and prostitute. The plot of the story is still killing and being killed, but this movie is not at all familiar to us. The westerns of China are not even like the westerns of Eastwood’s past.
There is no righteous and fearless male protagonist in the film. William appeared in a pigsty and fell tremblingly in the mud. William seemed to be fearless in the past, but the reason was really drunk and numb. William came out this time not because he punishes evil and promotes good, but because the pigs he raised got plagued and had to return to his old business to subsidize his family. In short, the superman who used to be so chivalrous and tender enough to not eat the fireworks in the westerns disappeared, but was replaced by a wrinkled poor old man.
The next episode is even more so. It is not the bullets of the dead enemy that made William nearly killed, but the heavy rain and the beating of the sheriff. When Eastwood crawled out of the hotel curled up and rolled onto the street, everyone in the audience could clearly see that this man had nothing to do with the heroes of the West.
Then there is death. Traditional western films, like Chinese martial arts films, are idealized plots. Because some people are very bad, the heroes use them to punish evil and promote good, but also show martial arts. However, the reality is that everyone is complicated. For example, the cowboy in the film, especially the accomplice of the perpetrator, is a simple and a little shy guy who looks very young. When he was shot in the abdomen before dying, the sound of crying even touched William and Ned. The kid who has never killed is like a fan of Western movies. He is excited when he mentions killing. He is precious to the atrocities of a crazy killer like William. And when he actually pointed a gun at a living person, his expression seemed more horrified than being pointed at by his gun. When he finished killing people, but he didn't have the original excitement, maybe he just understood why the old William was a drunkard.
In fact, what makes westerns interesting is that they are unrealistic. If you really think about so many practical situations like this movie, it will be too tiring to watch the movie.
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