To me the nice thing about 3:10 is that it’s not pretentious at all. If you just want to enjoy a good western story, it delivers. But if you’re one of those people that also likes to think more deeply, there’s plenty of room for that also. You can go both ways.

Jesse James definitely is more of a thinking movie. I ilked it a lot also, but some people find that sort of thing boring.

As for the ending of 3:10…well lots of people still think it’s so-so

But you and Rollerboy have me open to the gay subtext in the remake being more pointed than I first thought. It helps provide an explanation for Charlie Prince’s shooting of Dan. He may not have understood the exact nature of Wade’s new attachment but he sure wouldn’t have liked it. Perhaps this motivation on his part wasn’t all that conscious though given the look of surprise/betrayal when realizing Wade’s response to the shooting.

Rollerboy has also convinced me that the ending didn’t just allow for diferent interpretations, but the film makers deliberately offered up contradictory ones.

Funny you should have called me cynical that day, Pierre. The same evening I was accused by another as being ’such a romantic’. Perhaps I’m as confused as some would have Ben Wade to be :-)

That’s 50 points for Craig Kennedy!

So, Craig, I guess we can assume that Pierre is not only almost perfect but nearly always right!

Off to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford this afternoon. Really looking forward to it. The SF Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub gave it a tepid review. But I was very encouraged by his comment -> ‘there will be a few hard-core cinemaphiles who declare this the best picture of the year (fans of Terrence Malick’s “The New World” and Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man”, you know who you are)’. And yes indeed, I do know who I am.

Looks like Pierre’s the thread hog — unless rollerboy has anything to add after having watch the ‘57 version. . . .

I feel as though our thoughts aren’t quite connecting. Could it be because you’re viewing Wade from only a clinical perspective? I dunno. Despite the valuable insight one can get from such analysis, Wade is not just a case study but a character in literature, and a fully developed one at that. Many examples are given of his goodness, not all of them easily written off as manipulation. And although he is manipulative, what makes his character meaningful is the juxtaposition and timing of his good and bad sides in relation to the story. I’m not suggesting we feel sorry for him. Rather, like most of us, Wade’s manipulative tendencies have origins. Those origins often involve unpleasant experiences from the past and how we learn to protect ourselves from the pain. When CJ asks whether Wade’s story was an act intended to elicit sympathy, I’m not sure because I can’t recall the scene clearly. But it easily could be both — manipulation and real feeling.

When you ask for examples of psychological pain, I’m a little hard-pressed. But there is the childhood abandonment incident. As I recall, there are allusions to other things, as well. I see Wade as someone who has buried his pain so that it does not show. He may use it to manipulate others into sympathy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t — or didn’t at one time — feel it. Either way, he’s affected by it. (We all are to some degree.)

“What distinguishes those that do isn’t the extent of abuse they suffered but their attraction to the material, social, emotional, and physiological rewards of a criminal lifestyle.”

I don’t mean to overstate that Wade is the way he is because his past was bulging with trials and tribulation. Certainly he has made choices. But the rewards you mention above — rewards he no doubt is attracted to — do not bring him joy. They opiate him from the pain I believe he has sublimated but is eating away at him — the pain of knowing somehwere deep down that he has chosen evil, sold out to the Devil.

Rollerboy, I’m glad you addressed the issue of homoerotic undertones/subtext. As indicated earlier, I felt the original had some distinct examples of that, primarily that one scene but a couple of other moments, as well. In fact, in one hotel room scene, there’s some pretty blatant phallic imagery as Glenn Ford lies in his bed. I tried to Google a breakdown of the plot of the original that I once read, but couldn’t find it. Instead, though, I found some reviews of the remake. David Ansen (Newsweek) describes Charlie Prince as “sexually ambiguous.” David Denby (New Yorker) describes Prince as a “dandified acolyte.” And another reviewer calls him “a henchman who cares too much about his boss.” So I guess there was a little something that made it into the remake that others commented on.

Regarding the crucifix imagery (“I didn’t buy it; that sort of thing is too pat for me”), I don’t think it’s too pat. Lots of filmmakers (including great ones like Hitchcock) do such things with special emphasis — they’re meant to stand out.

It’s true that for anyone — even diehards like us — to deconstruct a film like this, there must be something there. This is a classic tale. But no, rollerboy, Glenn Ford’s characterization is not typical at all of a Western bad guy. There are times when he seems almost impish in his charm.

I’d run out and see the remake again, but I don’t want to be odd man out if the Eastern Promises discussion begins — and Lust, Caution opened here, too.

Crikey!

In the meantime:

‘Sartre, when he was relaying the story about being abandoned at the train station by his mother, did you sense suffering? Or do you think it was an act designed to elicit sympathy?’

Good moment to reference to CJ re his pain. I read that sought of thing as the narcissist’s love of self pity and justifying their actions. I can’t remember the context well enough but it also could have been another form of manipulation. Psychopaths used to receive empathy training as treatment. That no longer happens. They can’t develop something they don’t possess the most rudimentary facility for. And it’s believed that the risk of such treatment is empowering psychopaths by giving them more information about how others can be manipulated through their feelings.

“Homosexual impulses or urges or subtext don’t have to involve everybody pulling their pants down” Hetero or Homo, wouldn’t the world be a more fun place if they did?

The gun with the crosses. That gets me to thinking. Was that Ben’s gun that had been taken from him by the railroad dudes? Or had ben taken it from Peter Fonda? Either way, Ben said at one point that that gun was cursed. I’m curious now what Ben seeing that Charlie had the gun meant.

Way to open up a whole new can of worms Rollerboy!

That’s all I got. I’m absolutely frazzled. It’s friday. Ahhhh.

Pierre, you’ll remember from the article from Script mag that I posted on AwardsDaily last month that the writers remarked on the fact that Mangold held the original in high regard. With the homoerotic subtext present at any level, there’s no way Mangold wouldn’t be aware of it and perhaps do his own subtle spin.

(Ironically, while it might have been cool and clever to sneak in some gay vibes in 1957, nowadays it’s probably not such a good idea — at least for a movie of this type. Audiences are more sophisticated and more likely to get the joke — but getting the joke and appreciating the joke are not the same thing. So if anything, the subtext would need to be even more foggy and vague or else risk alienating the core audience for Westerns.)

I wasn’t even going to get into this, because then it just seems like gay people think EVERYTHING has a gay subtext (well? doesn’t it? ha!) But then sartre has to say this:
“The boy he wanted to romanticize him as the gentleman outlaw was gone.”
…and then Pierre has to say this:
“…understanding this aspect of Wade’s nature, together with the nature of his appeal to Charlie Price and other individuals of both genders and how Wade used that power.”

I don’t think there’s a gay guys alive who hasn’t encountered a Ben Wade. A charming charismatic straight guy who figures out that he can manipulate gay men in the same way that he can manipulate women.

Plus, I want to hurry up and say this, to reiterate what Pierre said:
“…in order to have his own needs satisfied — sexual or not. Whether that dynamic manifested in actual sexual behavior is unclear but ultimately irrelevant.”

Homosexual impulses or urges or subtext don’t have to involve everybody pulling their pants down (dang it.)

I see the “Wild West” as a sort of wide open prison community without bars or walls. Everybody is an outlaw, there are no women for miles, and the hierarchy of leaders and followers is often determined by who swings the most meat — to be even more blunt: how the “tops” (by force of their dominant personality) are aggressively able to subdue the “bottoms.”

This doesn’t mean the followers are not some badass insanely violent and basically straight men — it just means there’s something about them that will allow a stronger male to make them submit and kneel down.

It’s not about going off behind a cactus and making out. It’s almost a fetishizing of the big brother bully or abusive daddy. I

I’ve rarely seen a western, old or new, that doesn’t have very strong elements of a man-crush thing going on.

But in this year’s version of 3:10 to Yuma, I wasn’t seeing it between Dan and Ben. I saw it plainly in the way William began to hero-worship Ben Wade. What was happening was crystal clear to Dan too: He was watching his son get seduced.

I know this makes a lot of people itchy but it shouldn’t, because — as Pierre pointed out — it didn’t have anything to do with sex, and even if it did, the sexual aspect is irrelevant. It’s a purely dominant submissive thing. And this goes back to why Ben found it so easy to dispense with Charlie Prince — Charlie was acting entirely too much like he was ready to play daddy.

But to me, that’s pretty insignificant to my attitude of the movie or whether I enjoyed it or not. I did very much enjoy it, on all kinds of levels. but the gay undercurrent is way down the list.

sartre, before I forget, another insignificant point: Maybe “crucifix” is not the exact precise term, but on the black pistol grips of the revolver that Charlie Prince stole from the man he gunned down in the railway tunnel, there was a the tiny intricate carving in gold or silver of Christ on the cross, very prominently featured in at least 2 closeups in the movie.

There was a deliberate crosscutting of shots between Ben Wade’s eyes and the close-up of Jesus on the the grip of those revolvers, just before Ben Wade did his last gotcha personality shift and shot down his own gang. The editing made it clear that was one of the last things Ben Wade saw before he shot Charlie Price.

I might be misremembering, so somebody correct me if I’m wrong about that, but things like that do tend to jump out at me — especially when I see them as gratuitous or a cheap shot. If it had been more seamless or made more logical sense, it wouldn’t make an impression on me. It would just become part of the gestalt. But handled clumsily, it sticks out and announces, “Hey! Look at me! I’m supposedly a clue to motivation!!”

I didn’t buy it; that sort of thing is too pat for me.

None of those things mattered all that much (like the come-and-go limping — the faster he ran and squatted and crouched, the more miraculously healed his limp would become) None of that would ruin the movie for me. I keep saying to you guys, over and over: I LIKED THE DANG MOVIE, ok? hehe.

(it probably didn’t help that I saw the movie with a group of rowdy and smartass friends. When Dan started running across town like an Olympic sprinter, my friend Devon said loud enough for two rows to hear: “Nice wooden leg.” His brother Dante said, “He must’ve grown a new one.” Not too funny, but what my friend Ethan said an instant later rescued the joke: “He’s like a damn salamander!” That got chuckles from people who weren’t even with us. So yeah, tough crowd we are.)

All I’m saying is these little inconsistencies and cheap tricks keep piling up until at some point part of my brain stops taking it all too seriously. I’m reminded once too often that this is just a movie full of standard plot devices — incredibly skillfully employed — and I stop bothering to deconstruct it as if it’s friggen Hamlet, hehe.

Because you know what this topic and this discussion has shown me? It’s shown me that cjkennedy, Pierre, and sartre are way better at devising proper psychological character motivations than the actual screenwriters of Yuma are. You guys should be Hollywood consultants and more movies would make more sense! I mean it.

The screenwriters seemed to me to b throwing in just any old clunky contrivance they could think of a the end. And that was great fun! It was a blast. It gave us all lots to talk about. It’s a vast plain of endless sagebrush to survey! But the soil is not very deep, that’s all.

sartre, you said it very well:
“…the apparent change of direction towards a conventional ending, only to wonder why the film wanted it both ways by using the whistle to finally show that he wasn’t in fact moved to self-sacrifice by Dan’s courage and values.”

It’s not just wanting it “both ways” though — they wanted it a half dozen different ways. They wanted to be heartbreakingly tragic, and then they wanted to wink at the audience. They wanted to be ironic and post-modern, but they wanted to be hardcore old-school. They wanted it to be dark as hell, and they wanted to end on a light punch-line.

They got what they wanted too. But it made the last 45 minutes sort of a mess.

I can’t wait to see it again though.

Now if you guys leave me hanging here with the last comment, I’m gonna be so damn pissed off.

hehe

I’m with you though on ‘it was Wade’s ability to attract others that ensured his physical safety.’

Is it fair to say Wade was a more traditional outlaw in the original but more ambigously motivated in the remake?

Anyway, I really enjoyed everything you guys had to say. I’m glad you decided to come here to air out your ideas. I’d like to take another look at Eastern Promises in the near future. It’s another movie that could hold up to some picking apart I think.

Further, I am not necessarily suggesting (with regard to the remake) that Ben Wade had repressed homosexual feelings — or any homosexual impulses for that matter. What I do suggest is that — on the basis of the original screenplay — Ben Wade allowed himself to participate in some way in a relationship with Charlie Price in which both parties were, at minimum, aware of homosexual impulses. I have no doubt that Wade was aware of Charlie’s attraction to him and that Wade played along to some degree in order to have his own needs satisfied — sexual or not. Whether that dynamic manifested in actual sexual behavior is unclear but ultimately irrelevant. Either way, though, I believe that understanding this aspect of Wade’s nature, together with the nature of his appeal to Charlie Price and other individuals of both genders and how Wade used that power to ensure his safety and ease his pain, provides a key to better understanding the film and its messages.

It was Wade’s ability to attract others that ensured his physical safety. The nature of his relationships with others allowed him to lead the life he was leading — one in which an opiate for his emotional or psychological pain would be available when he needed it, which was pretty much all the time. It was this opiate that enabled him to tolerate that part of him that was cruel, ugly, and at odds with that part of him that created beauty by sketching birds and other people (on pages from the Bible, no less — I guess that was his religion). In addition, Wade had rationalized a personalized — and perverted — code of ethics we can guess as having resulted from years and years of perceived abuse, pain, and victimization at the hands of family, friends, and/or “the system.”

I believe those two factors formed the basis of the character Wade that we see on the screen. I acknowledge that my interpretation relies on the screenplay of the original film, but my hunch is that the writers, director and cast (ie, Crowe and Foster) were well aware of the screenplay of the original. For some reason, however (and I can only speculate as to why), overt references to the homosexual angle were considerably toned down for the remake. This — plus the rewritten ending — weaken the film’s quality for me.

That said — and I’ve said it before — the remake is better overall than the original despite what I consider to be two flaws that are not insignificant.

But the thought of their fleeting presence in the movie doesn’t bother me. And perhaps that’s why my mind didn’t immediately fix on them. With another film it might have, but I found Yuma too engaging and genuinely intriguing as a character puzzle. The action and style elements were a fun ride, but what I was locked into were the performances and characterizations of Bale and Crowe. Afterwards my wife and I chatted about the film for about two hours without breaking stride. And it seems I’ve still got plenty to say about it here. Like CJ said, part of the immense enjoyment of the film experience comes through the subsequent uncovering of what made a film personally work or not work. And there is no better way of clarifying and refining ones own thoughts then having super smart and passionate film buffs like my wife and you guys to compare notes with.

‘If one guy in the whole town is trying to get me on a train, and I don’t wanna go, I just won’t get out of the bed. I’ll sit tight, thanks. What’s Dan gonna do? Carry Ben on his shoulders? (Though with that superhuman wooden leg, who knows?)’

Wade’s decision to run through the lethal streets with Dan didn’t seem off to me. The key was the scene where Wade is choking him (I hope I have this in the right order). Wade had his fill of the game. The boy he wanted to romanticize him as the gentleman outlaw was gone. Dan called on instinct and native intelligence as he faced death to say perhaps the only thing that would flip Wade into the game again – he appealed to Wade’s curiosity and sense of black absurdist humor. And the passage to the train offered a further challenge for Wade, and another opportunity to observe/measure Dan under a situation of extreme stress.

If I’m right then the film makers asked too much of the audience. There were too many nods to conventional endings that would see the villain support the hero through being inspired by his courage and moral strength. And as a result achieve some measure of redemption. But by allowing for this conventional interpretation of the ending they risked disappointing many. Those who wanted to believe the best of Wade, or at least thought the film’s internal logic called for Wade to genuinely hand himself in, would have been disappointed by the whistle. Those that thought Wade was nothing more than a charismatic psychopath would have been unsettled by the apparent change of direction towards a conventional ending, only to wonder why the film wanted it both ways by using the whistle to finally show that he wasn’t in fact moved to self-sacrifice by Dan’s courage and values. So yes Rollerboy I think the end was mishandled in some ways.

Thanks CJ for stimulating us to re-visit Yuma with your thought provoking post. I’ll do my best to finally zip it now.

Sorry for hogging this thread with long and regular comments, CJ.

Isn’t it fascinating how we each have overlapping yet different takes on the film? All are well thought through and argued. But the reading I personally find hardest to get with is yours Pierre. I got a faint sense of a homoerotic subtext, but no more than is often present in filmic explorations of closeness (particularly when it is uneasy, or involves some degree of idolization) between male characters. Perhaps the constraints of my own orientation blind me to the deliberate intent on the creative team’s part to explore these themes and motivations. However, without having seen the original I suspect I’d have little trouble more readily reading it the way you describe. Many fine films of that time seemed all about presenting a subversive subtext. Taking the aspects of reality that were socially and politically censored and expressing them in a variety of ways, including through the fears and repressed motivations of characters in both genre (more commonly) and prestige films. Also, your reading of character motivation certainly fits with a psychoanalytical formulation of psychological reality that seemed more influential in the films of that era.

I can enjoy well crafted psychoanalytical explorations in art. And can even be entertained by the most clunky and prosaic varieties (like Norma Bates in Psycho). But it’s not a brand of psychology I subscribe to professionally. And for me, the remake lends itself better to a more straightforward assessment of personality style based on what is known about the behavioral and cognitive features of psychopaths. There is plenty of compelling evidence that those assessed with the disorder as a group are fundamentally different from those who aren’t. In particular, the results of scanning brain activity and performance on cognitive tasks show that they process emotional information in very different ways from non-psychopaths. And certain behavioral consequences of this inevitably result, including their limited facility for emotional attachment. Because Wade’s behavior fits so well for me with the features of a psychopath his sexual orientation, even if it’s repressed, seems less necessary to understand his behavior. I’m certainly not saying you’re wrong, just trying to unpack our points of difference.

More later on today….

I forgot to add, CJ, that I agree with you about that. I think Mangold was trying too hard, and I also think that part of the motivation for it may have been commercial in nature. I suspect that’s why the screenwriters deleted the scene from the original about Charlie being a dancehall girl — commercial poison.

First, I saw the original 3:10 on a Saturday night and the remake at noon the next day. So comparisons are inevitable. Next, I feel that 3:10 to Yuma is a great story — even epic — not to be taken lightly. Both versions are noble efforts that succeeded to some degree — each in its own way — and therefore worthy of in-depth discussion. Still, I hope someone does another remake and that they really do it right next time.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I feel the remake is an improvement, overall, from the original but that the original is superior in a couple of key ways. More later on that.

I don’t consider this to be psychoanalysis as much as trying to read a film. I’ll begin by submitting my take on various aspects of the film:

I believe that discussing Ben Wade with respect to narcissim is only part of the story and that Wade’s sexuality encompassed both women and men. I believe he had a sexual hold on Charlie Price and perhaps even some form of sexual contact with Price from time to time. I believe that when one considers this premise as likely or even possible, it’s easier to understand the film.

What irritates me about the remake is that this aspect is all but ignored, leaving only the more observant (or gay) to speculate about. We’re given several hints but nothing obvious or conclusive. The original provides not only hints but also a big clue in the form of a scene that never made it into the remake. In the original, while Charlie Price has a drink at the hotel bar, the bartender makes it very clear while confronting Price and comparing him to a goodtime girl the bartender knew of in another saloon, another town, and another time. Scenes like that just didn’t happen in a 1957 western if not for a specific reason.

I believe that all this talk about why Wade killed whomever boils down to the fact that he had his own code and set of beliefs, that he had longheld deep-seated anger and profound pain, and that his way of dealing was to lash out violently but in an outwardly controlled manner. (Leave the dirtier work for Charlie and the boys.) It was Wade’s way of avoiding his own self-destruction. And it was a lot more intense and profound than boredom or ennui.

Art not only was his escape but represented the small part of him that wanted to create and produce rather than destroy or kill. If he drew birds (I can’t recall), that would seem to represent his desire to escape the life he was trapped in — even if it was partially his own doing. Deep down — very deep down — Wade was a moralist and idealist who got beat down, and his current lifestyle was his reaction to this. The pleasure he got (sexual or otherwise) from charming and controlling people was the opiate that made it possible for him to continue the hell of his life.

I think he exacted violence only when it was necessary for his physical survival or in accordance with his personal moral code. And yes, CJ, avoidance has a lot to do with it.

He was attracted to Dan at first out of curiousity, perhaps, but because Dan reflected what Wade once was — but Dan wasn’t as far gone as he.

So when Wade hurt someone it wasn’t just about anger and annoyance. That’s just what was on the surface. This is about how his own pain and self-hatred affected his personal sense of justice.

Wade is smart. Nothing he did arose from lack of intelligence or hot-temperedness. Thanks to Charlie, he has such control over his boys that he knows he’ll always get away. Any gang member who looks like a weak link is eliminated.

But what Wade really wants is to really get away, to find a way out of this hell on earth. And Dan, as it turns out, is his ticket.

In the hotel room, he tests Dan. He entices Dan to be more like the moral failure he has become. But Dan does not succumb. He earns Wade’s ultimate regard, a regard so strong that Wade invests his own failed hopes in him.

The symbols of the Bible and crucifix are important, especially the latter with respect to the story’s climactic scenes. It’s not about religion, really, it’s just that the crucifix at that point is an excellent symbol to insert. And I don’t think it’s silly or saccharine or whatever to read it that way (I’m talkin’ to you, rollerboy.)

Wade kills Charlie (and whoever else in his gang) because they killed Dan. And also because they’d have to be dead for him to make even the slightest change in his future.

The film is unclear about whether Wade makes it to prison. If it were important for us to know, we’d know. What is important is that he whistles for his horse. And this is where the remake veers dramatically from the original. In the 1957 version, it’s clear that Glenn Ford’s character has changed, that he’s off to prison to atone for his sins, and that Dan (Van Heflin) triumphs and lives. It’s a payoff that the cynical remake doesn’t give us, in the process altering the theme of the remake, mitigating the notion that even the worst of us can be redeemed, and diminishing the emotional and moral impact of the story.

Those are my brief comments.

Actually I can’t bring myself to blame Christian Bale. I think the last day of filming Mangold handed Bale some yellow pages.

Mangold: “I’ve decided to give Dan a wooden leg.”
Bale: “Fuck me! NOW you tell me?!”

—

“Ben would’ve been carrying Dan to the train.”

yes! cj! Now THAT’S an ending!

I hope I made clear that I enjoyed the hell out of ‘3:10 to Yuma’ and I totally agree, cj, so long as the internal logic sort of works, I’m along for the ride.

But I can’t wait for the DVD. I’m so sure there must be part of that hotel room sequence that’ll be revealed in the deleted scenes to explain why Ben was sketching Dan so lovingly (ala Leo-Kate in Titanic) Then the entire ending will make perfect sense

But you know, if he had been hobbling along like Shorty the half-soldier from Good, Bad, and the Ugly, that whole chase sequence would have been WAY shorter.

For the record, the pony business at the end didn’t trouble me at all. I’ve come around to Sartre’s way of thinking and I don’t think Wade was reformed at all.

I enjoyed the wink at the audience for what it was, not unlike the rat at the end of Departed that bothered people so much…talk about taking a movie too seriously!

As far as any kind of analysis goes, well sometimes it’s part of the fun. For the most part I’ll give a movie free reign to set up its world and amaze me with stories as long as it stays internally consistent to itself (yes I know you can’t hear explosions in the vaccuum of space, but in Star Wars you just CAN damnit), but when I feel a story is taking short cuts, it pulls me out of the experience and then I start asking questions and then the magic disappears.

Go ahead and screw me, but tell you that you love me first, that’s all I’m asking.

With 3:10, sometimes it felt like it wasn’t covering its tracks too well. You could see the man behind the curtain pulling levers and turning gears. I wanted to believe in the Wizard of Oz because it was so damn much fun, but I was troubled. So I talk. And I talk and I talk and I talk. And now I’m at peace. There is harmony in the universe (whether it makes any noise or not) and getting to that point was as enjoyable as watching the movie in the first place.

At the end of the day, my gut tells me whether I liked a movie or not. The words just help me communicate why. Sometimes the words escape me (hard to believe, I know, but it’s true). Ask me why I loved the hell out of The New World for example and to this day I don’t think I could tell you. But I did, and in the end that’s all that really matters.

Anyway, glad to hear from you and I hope you’ll find time to stop back again soon.

And Sartre, that was fun. Exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I tossed out the post. Thanks to you and Joel and Rollerboy for humoring me.