In the same year came one of the best of the recent westerns. Glory was the story of the first black regiment to fight for the North in the civil war and how they overcame prejudice from their own side to gain respect and dignity for blacks in America. Directed by Edward Zwick, it lit the tinderbox for the careers of a young Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman and told a moving story about the difficulties faced by them and the young white officer charged with leading their regiment.  The ending always brings a lump to my throat when I see it. Oscar glory followed with 3 gongs for best supporting actor (Washington) and best cinematography (Freddie Francis).

Westerns became cool again. The next year we were treated to Dances With Wolves (1990), a stirring Kevin Costner western, looking at prairie life from the point of view of the native Americans and a disaffected cavalry officer. Costner collected 2 Oscars for it and went on to make other westerns but never reached the heights that he did with this film. Open Range was a return to form but Dances With Wolves was the pinnacle.

Clint Eastwood successfully returned to westerns in 1992 both acting in and directing Unforgiven. This film was a gritty and realistic account of how Clint’s character is paid to avenge the disfigurement of a prostitute. It is a character-led piece with occasional bursts of explosive and bloody action. The supporting cast are pitch perfect and some of the myths of the west are exposed. It won 4 Oscars including best picture and best director.

Gettysburg (1993) directed by Ronald F. Maxwell recreated the famous civil war battle and gained many admirers for its attention to detail and stirring battle scenes. It also spawned a prequel – Gods and Generals (2003) – showing the events leading up to civil war.

So the western is alive and well and can still thrive in the mainstream. When Spielberg does mini series about westerns (Into The West) and old stories can be reinvigorated to reach a new generation then it will always have a place in Hollywood.

The most famous mutation of the traditional western was the spaghetti western. These were films made largely in Europe (Spain being the most believable location to double as Arizona or Texas) by Italians mainly that created an identifiable sub genre with its own characteristics.

Important directors on the world stage came out of this movement such as Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci. Leone put his case forward as one of the world’s great directors with such films as the Fistful of Dollars trilogy and Once upon a Time in the West, a candidate for the greatest western of all time. Bertolucci, at this stage in his career was involved as a scriptwriter for Leone and emerged later on as a fine director in his own right outside the western genre.

There were scores of spaghetti westerns made during the period 1965-1980. They were recognisable for their stylistic differences to the traditional westerns. In particular, the use of closeups of the characters’ expressive faces usually dripping with sweat or smoking a cigarette before an explosively violent scene ramped up the tension in these westerns. The villains were colourful and hideous and psychopathic. No horrific act was out of their range. They even made that Hollywood western stalwart, Henry Fonda, into a steely-eyed child killer in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Heroes were not the archetypal heroes of old westerns. They were much more complex. More like anti heroes. Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name in the Fistful of Dollars trilogy typifies this. He is probably the least disagreeable character in the film but is no angel himself. In Once Upon  a Time in the West the main protagonists are symbols more than characters telling the painful story of the opening up of the west. None is without sin but there is a chance of redemption by the end for some of them.

Spaghetti westerns are violent and sometimes unpredictable interms of plot and ending. One notable example of this is The Great Silence directed by Sergio Corbucci. It is sometimes referred to as the Alpine western with its backdrop of mountains and snow and is a very dark tale with a completely miserable ending. No heroes riding off into the sunset here. Very little light relief during the film aswell. Italian directors were definitiely experimenting with stories, characters and visuals to create unique films that could still be called westerns.

No self-respecting spaghetti western was complete without a quirky yet mesmerising soundtrack from Ennio Morricone that emphasised the difference between this western and the traditional Hollywood western. Sometimes beautiful and evocative, sometimes downright irritating, Morricone’s soundtracks make the spaghetti westerns even more distinctive.

The western was also influenced from further east, Japan. Hollywood film makers saw the upsurge of spaghetti westerns and knew they would have to up their game. So they looked for new storylines and John Sturges used Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai as the template for The Magnificent Seven. Both of these films were successful in their own genre. Leone used the basic plot of Yojimbo directed by Kurosawa as his base line for A Fistful of Dollars. And yet Kurosawa openly acknowledged his regard for John Ford’s westerns. So chicken… egg?

Despite all the critical acclaim given to westerns, all was not well. By the mid 1980s the western was dead as a genre. Nobody was making significant western films. What happened? I’ll talk about that next time.

But the western started to become more of an art form in cinema when John Ford made his Cavalry trilogy in the forties and fifties. They coined the term “horse opera” and could be seen as works of art. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache and Rio Grande all  had the panache of a director at the top of his game with action and the western genre.

However, the most important film he made was The Searchers bringing out a performance by John Wayne, his long time leading man, which is the best of his career. The Searchers also uses the interiors and exteriors to suggest danger and isolation both physical and psychological with a strong performance by the supporting cast. It explores the issues of racism, friendship, loss and grief within the boundaries of the the western genre. It is probably the most complete western film of all time – strong in story, cinematic image, action and acting.

Perhaps the most over-looked and under-rated John Ford western is My Darling Clementine. Someone described it as more of a poem than a story. More lyrical in pace and narrative. It was a retelling of the gunfight at the OK corral but uses pacing and imagery to provide a unique beat to the film. A gem of a film by a master director.

And who can forget John Ford’s initiation into westerns with Stagecoach giving an young and then unknown actor called John Wayne his big break.

Later period John Ford westerns such as The Horse Soldiers, Sergeant Rutledge and Two Rode Together did not hit the heights of the earlier films although there was a brief return to form in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He did direct the civil war segment of How The West Was Won and finished his westerns with Cheyenne Autumn, an unusual film of its time that looked at the west from the point of view of the native Americans. This was ground-breaking in its day.

A John Ford western could be characterised by ravishing visuals of the landscape with Monument Valley providing the inevitable backdrop in many of his westerns. Dust and desert, sunrises and sunsets, rousing soundtracks and music, exquisite action and horsemanship, strong story lines and usually some humorous scenes to counter balance the serious and dangerous aspects of the film. He blended it together to produce moving and rousing entertainment and, some would argue, high art as well. He is one of the first “auteurs” as he had his own signature on most of his films. That indelible stamp influenced many directors that followed and was the baseline of development for the western genre.

Post John Ford westerns started to diversify but all owed a debt of gratitude to Ford for setting the benchmark by which westerns were to be measured.

As a younger whipper snapper my early view of epics were that they were historical stories based on Greek or Roman tales and myths. I cannot tally up how many subtitled Italian “sword and sandal” epics I watched at the local cinema. Romulus and Remus, Helen of Troy, The Wooden Horse of Troy and many others. They were exciting, colourful, wide screen and action-laced. I can’t say, looking back, that any of them had any great merit but for a young lad of 12 years old they stirred the imagination.

But there were two that stood out during this period as worthy contenders for the best epic ever made. The first is Spartacus and I have mentioned this elsewhere in this blog. I can’t remember whether I blagged my way into the cinema as it was an adult certificate or whether my dad took me but anyway…It had all the trappings of a great epic film – wonderful story of one man against Rome, exquisite photography (you would expect that of Stanley Kubrick though), fine leading actor performance by Kirk Douglas (who also produced the film) and tremendous supporting cast filling in the gaps between the battle scenes. Ah, the battle scenes… Whenever I watch the final battle scene with the Roman legions marching I just marvel at it. It looks like a well-oiled machine but you can see every penny up there on the screen. A definite cast of thousands.

The second and perhaps underrated epic film is El Cid. An unusual subject for an epic at the time of its making produced by the maverick Samuel Bronston and directed by Anthony Mann. A Spanish nobleman unites warring kingdoms in medieval Spain to fight the invading Moors from Africa. The story was not well known but still remarkable for that. A complex story involving political intrigue and family jealousy and betrayal interwoven with grand scale conflict. Many reviewers over the years have said that it is the greatest epic film of all time as long as it keeps its mouth shut. Granted some of the dialogue is clunky and jars occasionally. But there is so much more to marvel at. I watched it on television again for the first time in many years the other day and I must say I was still wowed by it overall. The production design was breathtaking, sumptuous colours, designs and fabrics popping out of the screen. Incredible locations and interiors. I used to think that some of the acting was over the top but I now realise that the actors were fighting to be noticed in the midst of such a visual back drop. Nevertheless, with a strong lead performance from the recently-deceased Charlton Heston and excellent supporting cast it was bound to be a winner. The cream on top of the cake was the action. Robust, bloody and spectacular. The scale and grandeur were there to see. The sight of thousands of Moors marching along the sandy crescent towards Valencia was frightening and blood curdling to a young boy immersed in the story. And the ending is unforgettable with The Cid (already dead but strapped to his horse) leading out his men to meet the Moors in battle and riding away along the sand into the distance after the battle is won. If there is a more iconic scene in a film let me know.

I did watch Ben Hur around the same time but it did not have quite the same impact on me as these two films.

As I grew older two more epic films had an impact on me. They were both directed by the same man, Sergei Bondarchuk. The first was his Russian version of War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy. Now I should say at the start this is not my favourite by any means – it is long (I saw it originally it in two three and a half hour segments) and fairly boring in places unless you are fan of the book. But it sprung into life in the battle scenes. His depiction of the battle of Borodino was amazing and the final shot as the camera tracked back and upwards from just a couple of bodies to show literally thousands of bodies on the battlefield was just heart stopping. A similar device was used in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha as the extent of the carnage is shown and the rivers running red with blood. His photography of the cavalrymen riding into battle with their lances created a fantastic tension and during parts of the battle he freeze framed scenes to make them look like portraits that could be hung in an art gallery.

In the second film, Bondarchuk concentrated on his strengths and produced the rousing Waterloo. More battle action and memorable scenes playing out the events that lead to a very detailed and rousing climax. Again the cavalry scenes were brilliantly realised and the choreographed splendour of the infantry made for action on an epic scale. Aerial shots of the battle field show how difficult it must have been to coordinate the action and make it believable. Again, the film doesn’t get into my top three because there are moments in the film where the momentum of the story is lost but for dramatic and full on epic action in the battle scenes it is hard to beat it.

So little time, so many epics…….

The Last Waltz is a film documentary by Martin Scorcese based around the final(?) gig of The Band, that legendary but cultish rock band, that became famous through being Bob Dylan’s backing band for a while. The film came out only two years later than The Song Remains The Same yet as films they are poles apart.

The Band were more legends in the American music industry rather than world wide famous rock stars. Their pedigree was impeccable, they were killer live performers and they commanded respect amongst their peers. Their friends numbered among the royalty of the 1970s American music scene. Individually, they were not household names like Led Zeppelin or The Who. But together they created a small phenomonen.

Martin Scorcese obviously was a fan and he conducts several interviews personally with The Band about their career. But the main event is the concert footage with guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Dr John and countless others. Not only is the sound reproduction high quality as is the camerwork and lighting but there is a great feeling of celebration in the performances. Judicial use of editing makes the action always interesting. Scorcese displays the concert footage in its best light and highlights the variety of musical styles on display with The Band accompanying the musical guests on many of the songs. It’s almost like you’re there. There are no great stylistic cinematic tricks to distract you from the performances.

The film is worth watching as a historical document and shows a slice of the 1970s American music scene with many of its movers and shakers but for me it’s all about the music. No pyrotechnics, no real myth making agenda just a record of high quality music for the sake of it. Beautiful.

In summary The Song Remains The Same documents the Led Zeppelin gig at Madison Square in New York and was released in 1976 when the group were at their zenith. It is interspersed with various dream-like sequences I assume were meant to be representations of the personality of the members of the band. There are also gritty sequences of the hard-nosed manager and his cronies taking the stadium management to task with copious amounts of adult language. As the film was financed entirely by the band it is safe to say that the overall effect is to try and extend the myth of Led Zeppelin. It is designed to make you think that there is more to the band than there actually is. As the camera looks into the crowd you get the feeling that they are mesmerised by the presence of the band. This isn’t just a gig but a religious experience. An alternative explanation is that the looks of love and awe were chemically induced!

My overall impression of the film is that of variable quality in both the movie sense and music sense. There are some moments in the film that are absolutely electric, during the concert footage, where you can understand why they were hailed as the best band in the world. The opening – Rock and Roll – gets things off to a tremendous start and many of the more famous riff-based songs fare well. But they do retreat into the more self indulgent, long versions of various songs that was symptomatic of that “progressive” era which can be a big yawn after a while. More jazz than rock. Maybe that’s why there are the dream sequences which tend to be played over an extended solo in the concert. However, Stairway To Heaven does provide one of the highpoints. There is more than a little technical proficiency and panache in Jimmy Page’s guitar work but he tries to prove it time and time again. But I guess that this is what fans expected at the time and much of the filming is based around close ups of Page playing his guitar and posing. However, he is outgunned in the posing department by the lion-haired, lead singer Robert Plant who stands and wiggles his hips in an almost effeminate posture before unleashing his powerful and unique voice.

The film can be magnificent and irritating at the same time. I can’t help but compare it to The Kids Are Alright with The Who. Kids has a vibrant energy as a film and a record of performances that The Song… only reaches in small segments. But there are large parts of The Song… when it just seems a bit too pretentious and a bit too much like fodder for the Spinal Tap script. I am still a fan of the music but I can’t buy into the Led Zeppelin myth. Having read many reports of their live gigs over the years it seems they tended to be a bit hit and miss as a live band (although the Madison Square Garden performance was very good). So when you see that 20 million people tried to get tickets for the reunion gig I find that a bit surprising. But I am an old cynic and all the myth building in the intervening years has clearly done its job to herald the return of the rock messiahs. I am sure that The Song Remains The Same has also played its part in this process.

There I was, a forty something guy, going through this course with a group of young sixth form students (18 years old at the most). The lecturer – Alistair Mickie - was a joy, really enthusiastic about his subject and it rubbed off on to everybody. It gave me a great lift to go down to the college one night a week and forget about the worries of the day job. I had decades of experience of watching films over the kids and could quite easily pull out specific examples from my memory. I particularly enjoyed the detailed analyses of parts of films and found new meanings and images that I had never seen before. You suddenly start to understand what the director or the actors meant to get across. The theory gave me an insight into how to watch and understand films better than before. It gave me a new lease of life.

Watching Eisenstein and the old Russian directors showed me what montage was all about. We even tried to do a Proppian analysis of the story in Casablanca – the first time that the teacher had even tried this. Even analysis of more recent films (not necessarily great ones) such as Speed and The Net provided insights into the grammar of film and the underlying story telling. Studying Kubrick as an auteur/author and the rules on different genres and being able to discuss them and listen to different views was quite liberating. We had to watch Citizen Kane, every one had to not because it is supposed to be the greatest film of all time but because, as a student it gave you examples of so many cinematic and editing techniques that it could be an example in almost all of the exam questions. And you could choose to analyse more closely some of your favourite films. I chose Seven Samurai and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Very different but very rewarding.

I don’t consider myself a film geek or even an authority. I am an enthusiast. I can still watch new films and appreciate them better than I used to. I have very eclectic tastes. From Hollywood to Art House, studio blockbusters to small independent films, english, american or sub titled and virtually any genre (although I am not too keen on romantic weepies – my better half loves them wouldn’t you know!). I do know that following that course helped me appreciate films and the cinema a lot more. Reading books is fine but discussion and debate makes it better. I suppose film forums and film chat rooms can provide that sort of outlet for your views nowadays. It opens your eyes and sharpens your senses and gives you a vocabulary to talk about a visual medium.

My main message from this post is to keep learning about film. That way you can get a better appreciation and ultimately more satisfaction watching films whether they are good or bad.

But aren’t we missing something? True, there is so much choice but it is fairly sanitised and regimented and self censoring. Some of the great pop music films happened at key times during the last century. They were pioneers in the medium and upset the establishment. They said something about the social and cultural setting in which they were made. They were not just tapes of live performances but social commentaries on the times of upheaval in young people’s lives.

Woodstock exposed the hippy culture to the world and for few short years influenced the young people of the world until the reality of drug use hit home. Not many great performances other than Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner but the atmosphere, the smell of the event and the times was palpable. It was only supposed to be a small music festival for a few thousand punters but caught the imagination of the young people of America who showed up in their hundreds of thousands. The orgainsers were overwhelmed for the three days of the festival – and it descended into chaos. No rules, no boundaries – a big mess for the authorities. Nirvana for the youth of America.

Monterey Pop showed the music establishment trying to deal with changes in music and unleashed the career of Jimi Hendrix. A short time before it had been a folk and jazz festival but all of that changed when Bob Dylan did the unthinkable and went electric. When he did that he was booed by the way! Monterey Pop showed a great diversity of music and performances from mainstream Mamas and Papas to big blues with Big Brother and the Holding Company (lead singer a certain Janis Joplin) to the Who and Hendrix.

My favourite pop music film of that era is The Kids Are Alright featuring the rise of The Who. Or the ‘orrible Who as Roger Daltrey calls them. It shows the group as individuals and what makes them tick interspersed with some electric live performances and iconic TV moments. It conveys a real sense of youthful anger and restlessness not only in the music but in the interviews as well as some madcap moments with Keith Moon and Ringo Starr. See where instrument bashing and destruction originally came from! It’s nice to see that The Who (or the remaining members – Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey) are still touring and can still see off the young ‘uns – just watch their performance at Glastonbury 2007 to check that out. Getting on a bit now but you still see the odd spark of that unrest and anger. Even something like The Great Rock and Roll Swindle in the seventies featuring the Sex Pistols does not show the rebelliousness of youth so well as The Kids Are Alright.

Are kids still rebellious? Of course they are. But they seem to be channeled through main stream media. The establishment has learnt its lesson from the anarchy of the past. Could a Woodstock happen again? Not likely, too much organization, health and safety etc., rules and regulations. Even Glastonbury is safe, socially and culturally speaking. For goodness sake, parents want to go as well! Management of events and the music industry are tightly controlled and not easily changed. Events rarely have the danger (physical or otherwise) and naughtiness attached to them now. Although it was comforting to see youthful rebellion can still rear its head at events when the crowd invaded the stage during Iggy Pop and The Stooges performance at Glastonbury this year and caused mayhem for several minutes.

I’m not going to get into the debate about whether it has got too extreme because we are where we are now. Taking something away is much more difficult than letting some one have something in the first place. But when did it all start to get out of hand.

My first memory as a child of seeing something graphic on a film screen was when my dad took me to see “The Alamo” (1960) with John Wayne. I had been brought up on a diet of western TV series on the television but seeing this huge spectacle was exciting. But the scenes that stuck in my mind were during the final battle scenes where Davy Crockett (John Wayne) was killed by a Mexican cavalryman’s lance and the end of Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark) being bayoneted by Mexican infantrymen. I had never seen anything so graphic before and certainly not in my TV westerns.

But I think that the real opening of the floodgates happened with Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” (1969). Watch it now and you may think that it is not a great deal different to a lot of films today in its depiction of violence. However, at the time there was a great uproar in the artistic community and the public at large and opinion was very much divided. Peckinpah made violence and death an artistic statement in the film. The use of slow motion and explosive blood pouches to simulate real bullet wounds made some of the fight scenes seem balletic, horrific and intriguing all at the same time. Peckinpah had a penchant for violence and this is encapsulated in the Wild Bunch’s final battle where hundreds of Mexican army soldiers are dispatched by a Gatling gun in slow motion with blood bursting from their gunshot wounds falling helplessly backwards down steps. To much critical acclaim I might add.

It had an incredible impact on making  action movies. No longer could you make westerns where one cowboy shot a gun and another fell off his horse. The boundary had been shifted. A new aesthetic of violence had been created. It quickly spread across other genres and boundaries were pushed and crossed and the system of censorship was tested severely over the next two decades. There was also a leap forward in the use of make up and special effects to emphasise the violence at this time.

Films like “The Exorcist” (1973) tested the boundaries in the horror genre creating not only physical violence but more disturbingly psychological and supernatural violence. The special effects and make up on this film produced some stomach churning results. The Censors worked overtime with this as nothing as graphic or detailed or disturbing had been seen on the screen before. There was a lot of hype around the film before it opened and people went to the screenings t be terrified. News of some individuals having heart attacks during the film only served to widen its notoriety and its appeal in some quarters. A number of scenes were deleted before it passed the censors for theatrical release. Only in recent years with the rise of DVDs  have some of the deleted scenes been reinserted.

Two years before in 1971, Stanley Kubrick had released “A Clockwork Orange” which had told the story of a group of disaffected young men and one in particular – Alex –  and the alienating world they lived in. It had been criticised for its extreme, almost glorified, ultraviolence and graphic rape scenes. There were a number of copycat violent incidents following the release of the film which sparked off a very heated public debate over the links between film violence and its impact on impressionable people. It grew so heated that Kubrick removed the film from the public domain with no one being able to see the film for over 25 years. The debate overshadowed the themes of the film which were very relevant at the time – the alienation of young people in the early 1970s; the brutal concrete landscape and environment that people were living in; and the violent reaction of the state to rebellious youth.

I believe these films were turning points in the depiction and expansion of graphic violence in the cinema and paved the way for graphic violence in realistic and fantasy films of today.Whether that is a good thing or not I leave to you.

I guess this latest TV showing is tied into the upcoming release of “300″, a retelling of the classic graphical novel by Frank Miller as a dark comic book fantasy.

I saw “The 300 Spartans” as child as part of my induction into sword and sandal epics. Just another one of a large number of epics made about events in ancient Rome or Greece made as co-productions usually with Italians taking the lead. I remember “The Wooden Horse of Troy” (later retitled “The Trojan Wars”), “Romulus and Remus”, “The Colossus of Rhodes” and a few more.

“The 300 Spartans” was in that genre but had largely Hollywood values and the cream of British acting talent taking the supporting roles at the time. It is not the best film in the world but to an impressionable 11 year old in 1964 it was exciting and captivating. The scale, the action, the excitement, the heroism, the sacrifice.

As a more cynical 54 year old the scenes that invoked my attention this time round were the politics, the oratory, the history and the arguments between the city states of Greece before unification. Ralph Richardson was wonderful as Thermistocles. It’s not quite in the league of the darkly menacing and acidic sparring between Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton in the Roman Senate in “Spartacus” but interesting nevertheless.

The action scenes were quite impressive as spectacle but a few close battlefield shots let them down ultimately. And the final rain of transparent arrows drawn on to the film that kill the remaining Spartans is a bit laughable. But it was 1963. No CGI then. At the end of the day it was a traditional Hollywood film about a worthy subject - self sacrifice to  protect freedom and democracy against tyranny. Some have seen it having Cold War overtones. Looking back there are many parallels with “El Cid” which came out two years earlier in 1961.

Now back to the here and now. I confess to not having seen the film yet but “300″ looks very promising. The trailers are sensational. Clearly this is no remake. And the stamp of “Sin City” on the look of this film is undeniable. I hope the acting and the narrative are as good as the graphics. This time style is paramount. It appears as if bronze statues have come to life. Realism and historical accuracy are put to one side as the tale becomes a fantasy. And maybe a homoerotic one at that.

What it does share in common with its predecessor is the epic qualities in the battle scenes. Nowadays, we cannot expect to see live action epics that just happen to use half of the Greek army to act as the hoardes of Persian invaders. It would be just too costly. So CGI steps in and we can manufacture virtual warriors. Scores of them at much less cost and much more manageable.

Violence as we all now know has to be shown graphically today. Audiences of most ages have come to expect it. Tons of gore and hacked off limbs. Stop motion fight sequences. Blood splashes in slow motion. But there has to be “wow” factor, something that hasn’t been seen before to single it out from the crowd. Even in the trailers you can see that “300″ has it, the “wow” factor.

I just hope there is sufficient back story, character development, and narrative nuance to satisfy us old timers. Otherwise, it may just be a Pyrrhic victory for style over content. I have cheated and looked at the IMDB feedback which at the moment is terrific. I’ll have to see for myself!