Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Drilling for oil in "Open Range"
With the release of the Kevin Costner-Robert Duvall movie "Open Range," there's been plenty of commentary about the return of the old-fashioned Western. Roger Ebert commends characters who act on their values rather than their loyalty; A.O. Scott mocks the facile delineation between good men and bad; James Berardinelli makes comparisons to Ford and Kurosawa. Everyone seems to like the filming of the climactic shootout.
So why aren't more critics talking about politics? Gunfight movies have nothing to with life in the West, now or in the 1880s. These movies operate in a "mythic space" -- as Richard Slotkin noted in "Gunfighter Nation" -- where they can ask what American values mean in the face of new political challenges. "High Noon" is an allegory of McCarthyism; "Fort Apache" and "Rio Grande" debated anticommunism and the Korean War.
Westerns have fallen out of favor in part because our society has become more willing to discuss such questions openly. In the 1990s, if we wanted to ask what the Internet meant to American values, we just debated it, without having to hide in allegorical mythic spaces. But in this new century, the challenges may be mounting.
In "Open Range," a wealthy land baron insists that only he has the right to make money off government land. The heroes counter that in America, public resources are for the public, not just the rich. Is it only coincidence that such a movie is coming out during controversies about drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas, privatizing the National Park Service rangers, and awarding nation-building contracts to politically connected companies?
Costner's "Dances with Wolves" captured a public sentiment for racial healing, and propelled it through the 1990s. While its ambitions are less obvious, I hope "Open Range" can do the same now.
So why aren't more critics talking about politics? Gunfight movies have nothing to with life in the West, now or in the 1880s. These movies operate in a "mythic space" -- as Richard Slotkin noted in "Gunfighter Nation" -- where they can ask what American values mean in the face of new political challenges. "High Noon" is an allegory of McCarthyism; "Fort Apache" and "Rio Grande" debated anticommunism and the Korean War.
Westerns have fallen out of favor in part because our society has become more willing to discuss such questions openly. In the 1990s, if we wanted to ask what the Internet meant to American values, we just debated it, without having to hide in allegorical mythic spaces. But in this new century, the challenges may be mounting.
In "Open Range," a wealthy land baron insists that only he has the right to make money off government land. The heroes counter that in America, public resources are for the public, not just the rich. Is it only coincidence that such a movie is coming out during controversies about drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas, privatizing the National Park Service rangers, and awarding nation-building contracts to politically connected companies?
Costner's "Dances with Wolves" captured a public sentiment for racial healing, and propelled it through the 1990s. While its ambitions are less obvious, I hope "Open Range" can do the same now.
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