The Troubadour Podcast
"It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind." William Wordsworth The Troubadour Podcast invites you into a world where art is conversation and conversation is art. The conversations on this show will be with some living people and some dead writers of our past. I aim to make both equally entertaining and educational.In 1798 William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which Wordsworth called an experiment to discover how far the language of everyday conversation is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure. With this publication, he set in motion the formal movement called "Romanticism." 220 years later the experiment is continued on this podcast. This podcast seeks to reach those of us who wish to improve our inner world, increase our stores of happiness, and yet not succumb to the mystical or the subjective.Here, in this place of the imagination, you will find many conversation with those humans creating things that interest the human mind.
The Troubadour Podcast
Is "High Noon" Toxically Masculine? W/Viewing Room Crew
Embark on a cinematic journey through the dusty trails of "High Noon," as we dissect the intricate layers of this timeless Western. With the help of our esteemed panelists—Jennifer Bawani, Jack Schumann, and Mark Pellegrino—we peel back the curtain on the artistic triumphs and critiques of this Gary Cooper classic. From the nuanced portrayal of Sheriff Will Kane to the controversial interpretations that have swirled around the film, our conversation promises a fresh perspective on an old favorite, exploring its enduring themes and dissecting its place in the cultural zeitgeist.
As the clock ticks towards the film's climactic showdown, our discussion turns to the powerful exploration of masculinity and femininity within the genre, questioning how these portrayals resonate in the modern era. We commend the film's strong female characters for their defiance against the era's constraints and consider how their virtues both conflict with and complement the story's trajectory. The Western hero archetype gets a thorough examination, too, prompting reflections on how contemporary films like "Tombstone" and Clint Eastwood's directorial ventures have been influenced by, and revisited, these classic roles.
Finally, the politically charged background of "High Noon" takes center stage as we navigate the minefield of interpretations it has provoked, from John Wayne's outspoken disdain to its curious embrace by Presidents Reagan and Clinton. The panel tackles the juxtaposition of personal integrity against societal expectations, and how art can transcend the creator's intent to offer universal insights on morality. This episode is not just about a film—it's about the very fabric of storytelling and character that challenges us to confront our own perceptions of good, evil, and standing up for what's right. Tune in for an intellectual shootout that promises to enlighten, entertain, and provoke thought long after the credits roll.
Welcome everybody to the viewing room and high noon now and today, by the way, as usual, I have Jennifer Bawani, jack Schumann and Mark Pellegrino. Now first let me give you a little overview of this story, very briefly. We have a sheriff on his wedding day and he, and on the noon train comes an old villain coming into this town. He's about the sheriff is about to leave and retire with his wife and a shop, but he's kind of pulled back in based on some things we're gonna be talking about. I think that's basically it. There's a very simple, one-line, very good one-line story in a sense. So we'll talk more about the plot, the story, the characters, all the cinematography, the acting, what it's all about. But first let's have our 30 second review and I'm actually gonna start and we'll go through everybody.
Speaker 1:So I really love this. I used to think it was pretty good. I used to think it was horrible Because I read some reviews that I probably shouldn't know, but now I think it's really, really great work of art. I really think it's a great work of art and so I definitely give it thumbs up. I Recommend it to people to watch, even if you end up don't liking it. I think I do have my disagreements on some thematic things that are happening, but that's not to say about the art, the artistry in the you know what's being conveyed, which we'll talk about. So that's my quick review. Loved it? I thought, oh, and I thought Gary Cooper was really good. I can't wait to hear Mark's view on his acting. But I was like, wow, that's Impressive. I thought, okay, so let's go jacks. How about we have you 30 second?
Speaker 2:I Loved it as well. This is the. I had seen it a long time ago Maybe 10 years ago, I guess for the first time, so I really enjoyed watching it again. It's so interesting to go back and watch these really well done black and whites when you don't have the benefit of a ton of special effects and you know you're really reliant on your acting and the writing. I think and I I really enjoyed Gary Cooper in this. It was. I have thoughts too about his performance in this versus his performance, wasn't he? And he was fountain head too right, yeah, he's how it worked, he played Howard Rourke I don't think he actually understood the role of Howard Rourke very well.
Speaker 2:I think he understood this role quite well as, as will Kane. The I thought Grace Kelly was was really good in it as well. This was her kind of a breakout role for her. I think it was only her second time on screen and the message was the. The message and the morality play of it I thought was very interesting and not. John Wayne actually famously came out to say that he hated the movie, which I think is interesting that we can talk about because he considered it to be un-American. And yet it happens to be Two presidents favorite movies, ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who, bill Clinton I suppose was, was rumored to have hosted 17 different screenings of high noon at the White House. So but yeah, I thought it was really good. All right, jennifer, that's because Bill Clinton was looking at Grace Kelly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I.
Speaker 1:Wasn't, I wasn't.
Speaker 4:I was less impressed with Grace Kelly I this, this film to me, I give kind of a. I agree with you completely, kirk. It is a Great piece of art. That was my, my takeaway. It's very simplistic, it's universal. You have one character and his choices are Separating us from civilization and chaos, and that's beautifully said. I don't know what to say. I was beautifully set up. I love that, and I was, I don't know. I was less impressed with Grace Kelly. More I was actually like the character Helen Moore. I think she's way more interesting.
Speaker 4:As far as the story goes, though, it seemed like it dragged on, like it was set in real time, like when they start the movie it's like 1040, and then you know something's going to happen at noon, and it's about how long the movie is, and it's Basically. You're following him around as he tries to convince this town, who May or may not really deserve it to, to go and fight with him against this murderer. And I was just. He's a one, one aspect. He's a hero, but I think he's a one-dimensional hero. It and maybe that's something we can talk about. Maybe he was a hero in the 50s, but I think today, in modern times, he's kind of yeah, okay, that's my. Those are my thoughts.
Speaker 3:Mark, yes, so my feelings about the movie are very complicated. I saw it as a young man and and was blown away by it. Today, of course, there are aspects of the film that do not, I think, come up to modern muster. If you, if you watch something like the bear and you love the style and the acting in that this is going to leave you Wanting, because the acting is very stylized Very much of the time and that doesn't translate to today, but that does mean what those characters were were doing was was occupying a frame. That is actual art, not not realism, but art.
Speaker 3:And so, while I could have issues with aspects that we'll discuss that I don't think they don't think carry over into modern times, I think the thematic elements of the film are are something that every child should be introduced to very early on in their development, whether a man or a woman, and Because I think they have to do with integrity.
Speaker 3:Although I think you one could think that he's fighting for the town and Sort of sacrificing himself for a town. That's very unappreciative, I think there's a deeper thematic element with respect to him facing down evil, knowing that he can't run from it, he has to face it, which I think is that we all, that we all have to learn. So so, not even story-wise, but just for the spirit of the movie, I have to give it a thumbs up, but I have to give it a thumbs Sideways to down for elements that don't translate into modern times. So I would love to see this remade. The problem is, I think some of the values in it would be Toxically masculine and people would not relate. The younger generation generation would possibly not relate to it If it was a male character going through this, possibly if it was a female but not a male character.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I I wonder if it's even possible, given what the story is trying to say, I think, to do it With a female character. I think you'd have to fundamentally change the whole point of the story.
Speaker 2:Well, what do you think the story is trying to say then? So I think it could work with the female character well.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe today we're. You know what is a woman Like? That's, that's true, but I I think one of the interesting things about this story to me, and seeing it one is you know, there's a lot of things about the ideal, and there's several moments of young boys, teenagers and even the deputy in relation to the man. One of my favorite lines is Is by Helen, where she says to the deputy you are a good-looking boy with broad shoulders, but he's a man. It takes more than shoulders to be man, and I think there's the idea in the story. Again, this is the idea in the story. Whether you agree with this outside of it is different, but I think the idea in the story is that women are women because they just are. Men have to choose to be a man. You have to become a man.
Speaker 1:The whole point is arguments throughout the story of you know, he goes, knocks on your door Are you a man? Come fight with me. He goes to the church. Are you a man? Come fight with me and defend the town. And then the women are like what are you doing? Don't you remember that? What's his life as so? This is all about the idea of choosing to be a man. That's essentially what is again. Yes, a lot of people will say that that's toxic masculine masculinity today. Okay, whatever, but that's what the story, the movie, is saying.
Speaker 2:I disagree.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I Don't disagree with with what you're saying in terms of that story, that he is like going and knocking on doors and Asking people to you know to become men. But I think you could just as easily Replace that with knocking on doors and asking people to be courageous, and asking people to to stand up for themselves. It may not sound as sexy as toxic masculinity, um, but I don't. I think that the movie had a broader message too. I thought I. To me, the movie was all it takes is for good people to do nothing, and Then you lose a town, and he's the person, he's the one person who's going to do nothing. He goes and everybody. He goes and he tries to deputize people and, one by one, they drop away from him and, and oddly, the only person that wants to fight with him is a 14 year old boy who's trying really hard to be a man, right, but, but I so I think that the broader message is about Kind of that, that line between civilizant, civilized and non civilized, and and what do you do to stand up for yourself? Basically, there's also other aspects that we could talk about too, in terms of Passivism, because in a sense, his wife Grace Kelly's role Represents the, the pacifist perspective. Until and until, which. I loved.
Speaker 2:Actually. I think this is a great objective. His lesson is, you know, until something that she, that mattered to her, was threatened, until, like, she actually thought, she hears a gunshot and she thinks that it's her husband, she jumps right off the train To to go and save him, because of course she has. She's a Quaker and, you know, doesn't believe in violence. Her family was tragically killed by it, so and and in the end, she's the only one that stays in fights with him. Right, she becomes a man. Right, she puts on her big boy pants and and fights alongside. So I think this was less. To me, this story was less about what like manhood and what it is to be a man. Maybe you guys disagree, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Well, this is why I said something like this would probably go over to the current generation as toxically emasculine, because, I agree with Kirk, there are aspects of strong aspects. Thematically, that a man is a moral judgment. It's not just a biological fact, it's a moral judgment, which is why I think Lebedevon Mises alluded to Rand as one of the best Einrand, to one of the best men he'd ever met, and she took that as a compliment, because, whether that's a social construct or not, there are aspects to masculinity which women could have too that we judge as moral aspects, and the point is important to be made, despite the resistance to it in our society today. And for me, the even deeper element is sort of alludes to what you were talking about, jax is evil. Evil prospers when good people do nothing.
Speaker 3:The idea that the man understands the nature of evil better than anyone else in the town, some of whom profit off of the evil and are mad at him because he actually quashed the evil and their own access to grime with him. But he understands that the nature of evil is something that needs to be confronted because it will chase you wherever you go. You can't run from it. You have to confront it and beat it. When I first saw the movie and being a young objectivist, I thought I would have done the end of the movie at the beginning, thrown my star in the ground and left the village to its own fate, because that's what they seemed like they wanted. But it wasn't about that. As a more mature man I now see it was about personal integrity. It was about confronting evil. It was about fighting bad where you have to, because if you don't it will pursue you forever.
Speaker 4:I agree. That's the part why I thought the heroic part of him was that he didn't run away from it. He faced it. He didn't invade the fact that the sky was going to come after him and he'd find him at his house with his wife off on the prairie somewhere. He faced that and I don't think he was. I don't really think he was doing it for the town so much as for himself. My issue with him now is that we laud him for going and doing that, but he failed in a lot of ways because he walked around the town and he didn't use negotiation skills. He didn't use leadership skills.
Speaker 4:I think that's probably one of the reasons why John Wayne didn't like the movie. Because I went and watched Rio Bravo. They are repuddle to that. I watched that last night to see what that was about. There's a more. It's a similar situation where the main character has a bad guy coming to get them, but he has to talk these misfits into joining him, but he does it organically. I feel like that's missing from the story is his ability to do that. He just seems like a cardboard guy, just like okay, join me.
Speaker 3:That's also some of Gary Cooper's style, but you've got to figure he's been a marshal in the town for a long time. Everybody acknowledges or at least a few people acknowledge women are the first to have done and made the town safe for women and children to walk around. If you have any grasp of the history of the West and how wild things must have been and what kind of man it took to tame a town like that and make it civil and bring a law in order to it, that's a massive task. You'd think that he wouldn't have to convince a lot of people. He'd just simply say, hey, I did this. This town is safe, I need help, help me.
Speaker 3:People would come flocking to his door, but that wasn't the case For me. I don't know John Wayne's beef, but for me that would be my beef, because Americans do mostly, or at least at that time, seem to be unique in their desire to take up the flag, to take up the righteous cause and to fight for it and not allow themselves to be bullied or cowed In that respect. If that was his critique, I could see that Nowadays. I think that crowd is more akin to what we see today.
Speaker 4:It's really ironic that it was considered a commie propaganda film. Now today we're like ooh, the left would probably hate it for its toxic masculinity.
Speaker 2:What do you think is?
Speaker 1:toxic masculine in it. How do you understand that is applied to this? And to set a curiosity I'm not saying that.
Speaker 4:I think Mark was saying that.
Speaker 3:I think the whole idea of male toughness, of aggression, of the capacity to use and direct aggression and physical violence has become an anathema. They've worked it into the entire masculine profile and defined it by that. The capacity for that kind of action is a very powerful thing that men shouldn't reject. It's not in the Jordan Peterson sense where it's like I have to control my animal, my beast. I have no idea what's in me. We're not all fucking murder waiting to come out. A real man, as his ex-girlfriend says, carries a moral strength. This is one of the things that made George Washington so powerful. Amongst 50, 60 founding fathers, who are all far more educated than him, he carried himself as a man with great power and great moral stature that held the union together against some very powerful forces just the force of his masculinity. It's being contaminated now by fear of aggression. Fear of, I don't want to say the negative expressions of masculinity, but the physical expressions of masculinity. That can be very terrifying, I wonder.
Speaker 2:I think, the only. I actually think that it is kind of a. It could be seen as a very strong statement against toxic masculinity, in the sense that the criminals are the ones that are the toxic males. He's fighting them. He's fighting against just the complete lawlessness and just. I think it was also really interesting how they kept cutting back to the criminals waiting for that train to come in, waiting for Frank Miller to show up and all the things that they're doing, like I'm going to go into town and get drunk. They kept cutting back to that and then you see this major difference between how they're carrying themselves and how Gary Cooper is carrying himself. They have a great conflict. When one of the guys comes into town to get alcohol and runs into Gary Cooper and kind of have like a mini scuffle, I guess I could see how today's woke universe would consider it to be toxic, toxically male or toxically masculine.
Speaker 3:They're not known for nuance, let's just put it that way. That takes a nuanced brain to say oh, there's men behaving immaturely. There's the Bobrick. There's Bridges character, who's the very definition of an immature male that's opposed against a sober, strong and strong-willed man. People don't make those distinctions anymore, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:I think probably one of the strongest males in this was Helen's character.
Speaker 1:Why do you think she's the strongest male?
Speaker 2:One of the strongest. I think Gary Cooper is the strongest male. I'm sorry, she's got more balls than almost everybody in that town. What?
Speaker 1:does, she do?
Speaker 2:Why does she say that she knows what she wants you get? First of all it's obvious like I guess her husband must have died, left her money. She opens up a saloon or shop. She is her own woman. She's taken up with Lloyd Bridges character, but he's kind of like a dalliance for her. The second that he shows his immaturity and stupidity. She basically shows him the door despite his trying to control her, like no, this won't happen. She's like yeah, don't, and slacks him she also.
Speaker 2:It's this great interaction I thought between her and Grace Kelly's character, where she basically she's telling Grace, if he was my man, I would stay and fight. They kind of like make peace in a bit of a in a way. There's like this jealousy thing that's happening and then they make peace. I think that she sort of gives her, she gives Grace Kelly's character the seeds for how she needs to stand up for her husband. I thought she was, and she knew she was like I'm getting out of town, it's not, you know, I don't think she was a coward at all, I think she was just very, you know, after her own interests. But she knew what she wanted to do.
Speaker 3:To me, what makes the movie good in that sense is that it's a war of virtues. It's not, like you know, amongst the main characters, grace Kelly's character is a Quaker because she saw her own, her siblings, murdered. You know, she saw, she witnessed that and she decided to abide by a principle and she's standing by that principle and it only her love for her man brings her back to save him. But to me, the other woman is Helen. Helen is just, yeah, she's a very powerful woman. I could see why the two of them Kane and she would be together. She is an independent, powerful woman who doesn't let herself get pushed around, so but so. So to me it's a juxtaposition of three virtuous people sort of contending with each other and in the end, you know, grace learns from the other. But I don't know that I would qualify her as masculine. I just I would, you know, qualify her as a very, as a very independent, bold woman. I could see why a man would love her.
Speaker 1:She's definitely independent. I mean she, to me, she I sent, came across as a little bit cynical because she's worldly and she's lived things. And she not cynical, not the right pragmatic, I guess, but like she's practical, she's trying, whereas Grace Kelly, amy's character was to be a match because she's so frustratingly stalled with her principles she has, whether you agree with her principles or not, she's that's the whole point Like they're, they're both clashing. Like he's saying no, he says like I turn around, you know he's at the thing. Like I got to do it, like that's it, it's done. Like it's it's, you know, an immovable object in an unstoppable force type thing. Like, like they are who they are. She comes up, she's very.
Speaker 1:Grace Kelly is, I think, a really interesting I'd almost call it boil in terms of her character, because she's so soft in in her, like her look to some degree, but she's very firm in her convictions and to me that's really an interesting juxtaposition for a contrast to him, whereas Helen is, you know, she is independent and she's like all right, I'm going to take a thousand dollars less. I got to go, I'm going to take it because I got to get out of here. Like it's just like. So she takes less than she, you know, could have gotten for it. She sees this thing happening. She was sleeping with the guy. I don't think she loved him, she was just trying to get her kicks and join it. She has every right to do that.
Speaker 1:But it's a different type of thing than what Grace Kelly's character, you know has, which is like this is who I am. I'm going to leave you now. You're not on that noon train, that's it. Now I think she comes to see something that Helen did teach her. I agree with that part, which is, if you know, when she says, like if he were my man, I'd grab a gun with him, and that's what she has to learn. It's like, yeah, you know the fighting for your values. Like she she's. Her convictions were wrong, his convictions are correct, but the fact that she's so stalledly behind her convictions in a story about integrity is admirable, in my view.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I really liked Amy a lot for that reason, but people with integrity could be the most frustrating people in the world Because of this thing.
Speaker 3:Well, when they're idealists and their ideals aren't necessarily integrated to reality, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:They're very frustrating, especially then. But, even if not. I just think there's something about like that solidness that you're always up against, in a sense, but I agree with what you're saying.
Speaker 3:I'd like to know examples of that because, I mean, I find people who think they're always right annoying, who never give order in an argument. That's annoying because they don't seem to be entertaining another side. But I haven't witnessed integrity that is rooted in principles that are, in turn, rooted in the context of our lives crazy making, it seems, you know.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say crazy, making the way I think about it is. It's more like you're bouncing against a wall and that wall could be firmly rooted. In reality it's good you may be having the problem. It is felt as a frustration because they're so stalled and unmoving Until you find out that oh the other good, or they're not like, they have integrity and a bad, you know, like in Christianity, and it's like, okay, this is not good, but, jennifer, you were gonna say something.
Speaker 4:I think. What I didn't like about Amy is she came across as so dependent, whereas Helen is independent. How is she dependent? Like because she's getting Well, just like she's just going from her husband back to her family, gonna get on a train and go back to her family. She doesn't seem like the person. Like Helen has made a life despite men. She's made a life and she's surviving and she's dealing with reality and I feel like Amy's just like yeah, anybody can do that. Get on a train, go back home.
Speaker 3:She's definitely a modern. Helen is definitely, in the eyes of, I think, modern women, more relatable because of her brand of independence. But Grace Kelly's character it seems to me to be very independent at a time when rejecting a man after marriage and saying this is it, this is my line in the sand, literally 10 minutes after they've been married what kind of that. At that time, terry, that separation, divorce or whatever that implied it was almost a death sentence for a woman back then. That's a terrible place for a woman to go and yet she was willing to do it because of her principles. And I agree with you, kirk.
Speaker 3:Juxtaposed with her soft or classically beautiful looks that are very feminine, it's a very interesting casting choice, because she is hard as nails and I actually when I was watching a movie and it makes me wonder if I would have the strength to go I gotta stay, I'm sorry because the love of my life is leaving me. Would I have the strength to actually say let this evil pass. Maybe I'll deal with it another time, maybe it'll pass over my head. I might crack.
Speaker 1:I might.
Speaker 3:She was so strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really stress about that.
Speaker 2:I thought it was so interesting, though, is she makes that decision after she hears the gunshot, and it's almost like an automated response for her. She hears the gunshot and she runs off the train in search of him, like understanding that the bad guys are in town, and so she just runs headlong into the danger and I thought that was and then she picks up a gun, which- and she kills somebody. Right, yeah, doesn't just pick up a gun, actually kill somebody. Saves to save Gary Cooper, and she does everything in a wedding dress.
Speaker 1:And remember, like one thing about her sticking on, the Amy thing is there's, she's in that hotel and we have to think of ourselves in 1850s or whatever. So this is a put together. She's a Christian-ish woman, right, she's Quaker, and she goes up into a dark woman's room, and what I mean by dark woman is this is a, the independent thing that is so admirable and I agree like living our life is wonderful, but at this time, not only when it was, you know, 1951 or 1952, I think, when it was filmed or produced but also with the time that it's about the Western. That's a big deal. And my knowledge about the genre is that the woman who's with the darker hair, the darker eyes, she's the sexually free woman. She's probably the head of a brothel of some sort, Like there's seedy things involved with this individual. For this woman to have the courage to go up those stairs into that room to learn the truth says a lot about her character. She wants to know what's going on with that. Well, so there's something-.
Speaker 4:You know what I think? I think you guys think she's pretty and so you're making her. No, I don't think so Making it I also think that's what it feels like I also thought. Helen-.
Speaker 2:I don't think so yeah.
Speaker 1:I like telling a lot. That's not my point, yeah.
Speaker 3:I also thought Helen was probably in a brothel or ahead of a brothel at one time and when the town was swinging and going crazy, you know that hotel was probably a center of business.
Speaker 1:She's associated with the villa. I don't remember the story, but she's very associated with it. She might have even dated him or something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 4:I'm just not giving Amy credit for going upstairs to talk to her, like that was a real hard thing to do.
Speaker 1:I think it was given the time.
Speaker 2:I think no, okay, I agree with her on it, though I think it was a hard thing for her to do that. I think it'd be a hard thing to do in today's time to go up and Go talk to the person, to a-. Yeah, go talk to the woman that dated your husband.
Speaker 1:Well, that's-, that was the girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the implication. Go talk to the woman that is heavily implied that was with your husband before.
Speaker 3:But it's more than that. It's more that there's the personal issue of confronting your husband's past lover and having it out with her. But at the time, what Helen represented and what's I keep forgetting, Grace Amy represented yeah, not only in the 19th century, but in the 1950s. It would be a very unseemly thing to do. So she's definitely walking, stepping out, has the courage to step outside of certain social conventions in order to figure stuff out, get to the truth, and that does say something about her character.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, I think there's more we could talk about it. I do want to say so, jax, you mentioned something Because I so there's something we mentioned earlier that I think is important is the character of Ayn the Marshall. He is an archetypal character. So one of the things that we no longer have in our era is the clear image of that archetypal Western hero that I think was killed off in the 70s essentially and replaced by the antihero.
Speaker 1:But when you were a 1950s moviegoer and you had seen all the movies in the 30s and 40s and leading up to it, in the Western in particular, you walk in, you have certain expectations and you have certain expectations of what's gonna happen, who's gonna do what, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy? The little boy saying, oh, who's the good guy? Oh, he's the guy with the white hat, he's gonna do the right thing, right, and that kind of moral clarity is a simple thing. And then what you do as a director and an artist is you could play around with that and we could. If anyone's interested in continuing the Western thing we can do, like, I think, oxbow Incident, which Mark has brought up as a really good example of that, the searchers a really good example of that.
Speaker 1:There's these great examples of playing with that archetype of the psychology, of what we had expected at the movie goer at that time, which we don't have anymore. So when we see this today, all of that context is lost and but it's a genre movie. So it's different. A Western genre is different than some like overall drama story that's trying to be like, I think, gone With the Wind could be seen at any time and it's fully encapsulated. But a genre movie is playing on particular tropes and so we have to kind of take that into consideration, I think.
Speaker 3:I think they harken back to that in movies like Tombstone though. Yeah, yeah, so we did lose it for a while, maybe with the Wild Bunch and movies like that, but I think they're-.
Speaker 1:I Plains Drifter.
Speaker 3:I Plains Drifter. Yes, I'm into Sergio Leone films, but we got it back in movies like Tombstone, where you see those archetypes and you do know what to expect.
Speaker 1:But it was Clint Eastwood was the High Plains Drifter director, but so anyway. But I agree with that for the most part. I think this is a discussion for genre. I only bring it up because this actor and this character is so simple in a way, If you think about how encapsulated the story is, it starts literally on his wedding day and I do have to say they don't say husband and wife. I noticed this in a review I was reading. They don't say husband and wife, they say- and man and wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and they do that a lot, where it's like they refer to the man thing over and over and over again, which again is a good artistry, it's a good focus on the thing, but it's like it starts at the wedding. The action sequence is two minutes and 30 seconds, Like it's not that exciting. It's and it's not, but it's all about the buildup. You have the clock going so slow and that ballad of high noon is a great ballad. Dun dun dun. Like I thought that was so epic, that song. It was so simple.
Speaker 1:He's walking down by himself, walking down Like just that imagery of the Marshall walking alone. You know, there's lots of imagery like when he's the women are going by, Helen looks back and he's just standing there by himself and there's, he's just like this salt. And especially Gary Cooper is like tall and he's got that like he's like a pillar, right. It's just. I thought all that stuff was so the imagery along with everything was so wonderful. I don't know what you guys thought about some of these other elements. And then I want to talk about acting as well.
Speaker 2:I loved how they kept going back to the train tracks. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. You said that was really great artistry. You're just standing there and like the long train tracks and you don't, you know. Then, finally, you see the. I think we hear the horn first, I think we hear the train horn first, and then they go back and you see the train coming. I thought, yeah, I really enjoyed that kind of imagery.
Speaker 1:It's like the devil coming into town, Right the devil's coming to town, right, it's like it's vanishing point and it comes into you, into your purview. Anybody notice how everyone was sweating? Everyone was sweating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been really hot on that day that we were shooting that I think it was purposeful and I don't think it was just like it's hot.
Speaker 1:I think they were doing that purposefully and there's something that's happening with that.
Speaker 3:It's just another way to me. Like you talk about the devices that's been used to heighten the tension, you know the going back to the clock and there's just this dread of this thing happening and you hear the ticking.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I'm trying to pull people in and people are getting hotter and sweatier and more agitated and more confined and, you know, more claustrophobic, yeah, and as the movie goes on, so yeah, that the pressing heat and the trapped feeling just keeps pressing in on you. So I agree with you. I don't know that it was a concession to an actual environment. It seemed like an artistic choice.
Speaker 2:That is true, because they were getting like sweatier and sweatier.
Speaker 1:Yes, they were yeah.
Speaker 2:Although. So something else interesting that I read is that one of the things that we noticed about Gary Cooper in this is just kind of like this look of like agony and torture that he has on his face almost the entire film and apparently, apparently he had a bleeding ulcer while shooting this and was in actual physical agony the entire time that he was going out.
Speaker 1:OK, hold on. I want to talk about the acting in one second. I want one last thing about this, because yeah, I mean, maybe that's true, but I don't know if I don't know what. Anyway, because because to me that would ruin everything if that was his decision, because I think he was doing certain things purposefully, but I don't know. But I did want to say, like one thing that I thought was interesting about the sweating, the way that they shot everything, the devil, the clock countdown, all that kind of adds up to is a kind of judgment day idea of like that you know the devil's coming to town, that you know.
Speaker 1:I heard some people talking about it as like in reference to the, that movie, joker in a sense, where it's like chaos is coming, evil, madness, something. They talk about him as mad. There's even that scene with the chair where they look at the chair and then an offscreen. Is that maniacal? Like the guy's voice must have been crazy to do that. That's not how a normal person talks. But it's a great effect of like I'm going to kill you, you know, mr Kane, or whatever.
Speaker 1:And all that adds up to like this judgment, and the question is, what are they judging? And I think the best answer that I've seen and I agree with is, like, you know, where are all the men? Who is the men going to be to face this madness? And it is very. There's a kind of like a symbolism, an abstractness, because, again, when you look at the action scene, it's not that big a deal, it's like a couple of minutes. It's all about the build up to this horrible thing, and really the horrible thing just means evil in and of itself. So, yeah, I do want to talk about acting, but if anybody had anything else to add to that, you know, I want to talk about what Jack's just mentioned, which I hope is not true.
Speaker 3:I agree, I agree it was all about the build up and that that's, that's part of the artistry of the film for me. Yeah, it holds tension, it holds your tension, it holds your tension. And you, you are on the same quest as as Kane is on. You're looking for the real man. And every time he, you know, goes to somebody, especially when he goes to his best friend who finally, on Cheney Junior, finally refuses him, it's, it's, it's a, it's a dramatic turning point for you as the individual watching it, just as it is for him, because all of his options are gone. Now you know he's alone.
Speaker 1:OK, so let's talk about the acting I you know, just to launch you guys off. I want to hear your thoughts. So there's the scene that was. There's a lot of scenes that I thought Gary Cooper did phenomenal for me, and one of them was the subtlety of the scene. When he goes to I don't remember who it was, but he goes to someone's door as the white guy is in the room, he's like don't tell him here, don't tell him here. And he goes in the back room and then the wife has to lie for him and just like the subtle realization you know he's like, is he? He went to church without you, Right, Like, and it was just like just that line and the way it was delivered and I was, and he knows what's up, right, and it's super clear. He knows what's up, but he's letting them get away with it and it's I don't know. Mark Jacks, Jennifer, what did you think of that?
Speaker 3:And then other things related, I'll go last, but OK, I definitely want to talk about that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Anybody else want to talk about that, and then again you can talk about other things.
Speaker 2:But no, I mean I thought that was, I thought that was a great, I thought that was a great moment, that I mean it just showed, you know, the husband's cowardice and Gary Cooper's strength and and and to have to, and, and you know, there's, there's not, there's no greater coward than you know, the one that hides behind his wife, I think, and kind of puts her out there to be the go lie for me. That actor, by the way, I recognize him and I can't remember his name, but he was on MASH who played the husband. I think he was Potter on on MASH was a lot because I recognize his voice. He has a very distinct voice.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Very, very different character that he played on MASH. But but yeah, I mean just the. I thought Gary Cooper did a really good job in, in portraying his just utter disappointment, just by saying, you know, like, oh, why didn't you go to church with? He went to church without you, and you just see it on his face and in his eyes that he's just bitterly disappointed. But there's, but he has to accept that reality, right? He can't, he can't and maybe this goes toward, jennifer, maybe one of your critiques of you. Know, he's not like trying to convince them or use like negotiation skills or, and you know, trying to, you know, I guess, trying to win people over. But I guess, maybe back to what Mark had said about it earlier, I think he's kind of realized well, shoot, if these people aren't with me now, after everything I've done for them, they're never going to be with me. And and so it's, it's a, it's a hard truth that he's having to accept, at the same time, that he's having to make plans to fight these people, Jennifer.
Speaker 4:So, what you said, kurt. That moment, I think, is one of the near perfect examples of subtext. You know the writer writes one thing and the actor's thinking another. So they're what they're saying is not what they're feeling. So glad you pointed that out. That was really good and I hadn't thought about it until now. I think the what you say, jack's about the convincing. Probably I'm influenced because I just read Chris Boss's Never Split the Difference, which is an phenomenal book about negotiating in a pragmatic way, not a theoretical way, and it's based on hostage negotiations and there's all these great tools that you can use to and I think if you, if you use them properly, it just shows good leadership skills. To me it's. It would make him a more three dimensional character to me. The fact that he just doesn't have those tools is just less impressive to me.
Speaker 1:That's just, I don't think that three dimensional.
Speaker 4:I agree with you.
Speaker 1:He's not a three dimensional character and I think a lot of the early Westerns I think stagecoach is a great example of it's basically a lot of the genre Westerns at this time. Even Shane, on a level, is very like. They come out of the mist, they do their thing. There's maybe a dilemma between civilization and the savagery and they have their white hats and you know the the directors and the writers are kind of playing with this archetypal character. But yeah, I mean this. Even I ran gave this criticism of it, of the Western, and so I think that's a great example of and so I think in general, you just have to accept, if you're going to watch this, that you're going to see a genre or an archetypal not three in this era in this area, except John Wayne's rebuttal and Rio Bravo, I don't think the main character is as cardboard, one dimensional, OK well we get to, I will be a problem is my favorite movie, so we could definitely do that one.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. I love your bravo, so interesting, but OK, so anyway, let's. But. Mark, I would love to hear starting with that scene and then other things that you might have on the acting, because I have other things to say, but I'm very curious of your thoughts.
Speaker 3:That, yeah. So my comments on that, that scene will probably bleed over into pretty much every every day. Yeah, paul Newman was asked about his early work, and Paul Newman, of course, is a prominent actor. He's one of the best actors that Hollywood has ever produced. When he was asked about his early work, what did he see? And he said I see a man doing too much and, given given the body of his work, it's it's an. As a trained actor myself, even in his early work, it's super hard to see him doing too much, but according to his standard, he was, and as he got older and more confident in himself, you definitely see him resting in himself and and not indicating anything, which is what doing too much means. You compare it, let's say that scene that you're talking about to the scene and on the waterfront where Marlon Brando's character and Eva Marie St confront each other across the table and he's struggling with the moral dilemma as to whether or not to be to be a rat because he loves her, you will see completely different phenomena.
Speaker 3:What I saw in that moment was a man indicating that he he knew what was going on. Brando understood that the act, the audience does 95 percent of the acting for you. They're in the audience, they're suspending disbelief, they believe the story. All you have to do is a very little bit and they follow. Now, that's tremendously liberating for an actor working and that should that should tell you. I don't know you. All I have to do is know what I'm doing and how I feel about it and be in the moment and whatever happens, it's likely going to be interpreted by the audience in the way it needs to be interpreted, because they understand story, even intuitively. So what I see throughout the movie is pulling faces and melodrama. And but this is the time, I mean, this is a time when melodrama inspired that kind of acting. It wasn't until Montgomery clipped him out, it wasn't until Marlon Brando and James Dean that people saw that there was another way to approach the work, another way to do scenes, so that.
Speaker 3:So Gary Cooper sort of falls into that old school for me where he's not even, I mean, like a Jimmy Stewart. Never, from what I understand, I don't know that he took any acting, but he always, he was always believable to me. There was never a moment where I thought he carried, that he pulled a face or did something false. He was completely committed to what he did. I always believed every word he said. I can't say the same thing for Gary Cooper. Now, that said, it's very possible that a personal story that I know might have interfered with my experience between Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper, because I do know that they had a torrid affair while they were having that where they were doing that movie, and that he was married and he had affairs with every single one of his leading ladies, which has completely paled my, contaminated my experience of Gary Cooper from here on in knowing that two people representing the most virtuous people in the in the movie were probably two of the least virtuous people on the set.
Speaker 1:Sorry, no, it's yeah. Well, that's very similar to what Jax was saying about the. What was it?
Speaker 2:And yeah, he was, yeah, he had. He suffered from. Gary Cooper suffered from ulcers His whole, like a great part of his adult life, and he, I think he ended up dying of cancer. But he, he had a very serious bleeding ulcer during the filming but he used it, he, he.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm not even. It's not like the ulcer Kirk, because I'm saying if they were, if they were in life, morally reprehensible, playing morally admirable human beings, that's actually quite an acting feat, you know, that's, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is like there's, they're similar to me in the sense that it's something outside of the movie that is affecting the internal or our interpretation of what's actually going on. So that, yeah, that you know, is it the art of the artist type thing, and can you, can you, separate those?
Speaker 3:things, but I knew this when I saw Mr Deeds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know that one.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, he's great at it. I mean, I saw it and it didn't affect me in the slightest. This it did, because when he's pulling a face, he's pulling me out of my audience seat and into my judgment seat and I can't, really, I'm not with him emotionally anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so. Do you guys see, because I'm struggling with this one a little bit and pulling the face idea, like so, because when I saw him, what I was going through is that he is an archetype. He is like just the hero. He just I got to do it right now. Why? Because I got to do it, because I'm a man, that's what I do, and Helen says the same thing. He's going to do it. Then nothing can stop him.
Speaker 1:And but the thing that I thought he portrayed, without a lot of dialogue, without a lot of things, like things were being done around him, was that he was suffering internally between from like a desire to run away, and he was scared and there was, there was anguish and the fear and the uncertainty and all that stuff. But it didn't come out in. You know, I had to have a speech and all this dialogue and debating stuff. It came out and when he was walking down and they had, and then they moved into a close-up, you could see he was like he looks around and maybe that's what you mean by Pauline Faye's like.
Speaker 1:He seemed like he was concerned and he doesn't want to do this. So he's sitting in his chair and he's talking to that guy that comes in and he's like I didn't know I was going to do this alone. I have a family. And he's like go to your family then. Right, he doesn't say he's a better actor than I am, but he's like go to your family then. And again, he wasn't yelling, wasn't mad, but you could tell there was like a lot of turmoil within him. That's how I felt about.
Speaker 2:What did you guys think about that? The end of that scene where the he sends the, he sends the deputy away, basically that who realizes, oh, nobody else is helping, I can't do it. But at the end of that scene he puts his head on the table and it's, and it looks like we're we're meant to believe that he's crying. And then the boy comes in. But what did you guys make of that? I definitely was that I mean okay. So I will say that that was that. That actually popped me out a bit.
Speaker 1:I was like really so you thought it was too much? Yeah, I thought it was too much, okay, okay. So maybe that's what Mark is now what you're talking about, like the mean, we're doing it because I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3:I didn't think he was crying, I thought I thought he was just at the end of his rope and he was just sort of tired, exhausted, and that's what I thought. There was nowhere to turn. Right, that's just. That's actually good writing, right? Because the, the, the, the hero has to be brought to the point where you think there's just no way he's going to get out of this problem.
Speaker 2:That's his point of no return.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it comes. Yeah, I think, I think, I think so. I think that was the. You know, the. You see him give up hope in a way in that moment, and I never interpreted it as him crying, you know, by pulling a face, I mean, let me try to pull one, and I'm sort of get close, like if I'm here and I'm like oh, I see.
Speaker 3:Okay, I realize. I just I just indicated that I realized something. I don't have to indicate that I realized something If I just look at you and you realize it don't say anything. But I know you're lying to me. I don't have to. My face doesn't have to pull back, my eyes don't have to bulge out. Something like that has to happen. I actually realize and the story you as the audience member are saying fucking knows. He knows. I said so, you do.
Speaker 3:The actor. The actor has a very difficult task. The actor has to be very deliberate and at the same time in unconscious about what they're doing. So they have to automatize the values of the script to such a degree, the way a fighter automatizes a left hook and a right cross, so that in the moment it's reactive, it just happens, it's not pushed or forced, it's all just in the moment. That's when you watch Brando in that scene with Eva Marie St, when she's holding his feet to the fire watching on. I saw it on at the Cinerama Frickin Dome, which is this massive screen the size of Wisconsin. If you are lying at all, it's 12, 30 stories high and right in your face. Not one second was their dishonesty. But when Cooper does stuff like that. He's dishonest and I get pulled out of it.
Speaker 1:I mean that's really interesting. That's something I'm going to have to process over time because that's very.
Speaker 3:There's another way an actor does it. They stress their voice yeah, love, you know, or your emotion but they're not really feeling it's pushing out of them and and that has the unconscious effect of making you, as the audience member, tense. Now, if you have absolutely no idea what acting is, what good acting is, and you go in there just with a suspension of disbelief, you're going to be far more accepting than somebody who does know what good acting is. But if you, once you understand some of the principles of acting, it's going to be hard to watch that and yeah, it pulls you out of it for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2:Mark, who do you think was the best actor in High Noon?
Speaker 3:Well, that's hard to say because I think the director had this. The style sort of went through every character, even through Thomas Mitchell. Now Thomas Mitchell who played the mayor of the town. You watch him in stagecoach and he is flawless, like I look back at stagecoach. When was stagecoach done? In 1939?, 1939. Okay, so we're still in the.
Speaker 3:It was still in the era of of a very broad acting where, you know, silent movie types and theater types are coming into the film world. So the acting is broad, it's big. And here comes this, this guy who's drunk. He's so good, he's so subtle, he's so simple, it's poetic, there's not a wasted move in him, it's all honest. Whenever I see somebody in a movie from that age, spencer Tracy would affect me that way. The tons of tons of people from that time hit me like, oh, they're extraordinary because they're not this style, they're rejecting that style or they're just geniuses in their own right. But even Thomas Mitchell, when he makes his speech, there's something. There was an artifice about it. There was an artifice to the whole film and to all the acting. Even Rich's, you know, who's normally a very good actor and he's produced good actors, amazing actors. His son is Jeff, is like a genius. I've worked with the guys. He's a genius.
Speaker 1:But he even stuck his head in toilet.
Speaker 3:I stuck his head in the toilet. I mean, I questioned him about acting. Whenever I get with really great actors, I talk to them about acting and most of the time they're really, really open with me. I should write something about what all the actors have told me. Yeah, that'd be very valuable. So that's my. You get where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think this is something. Hopefully we'll continue and have other conversations about some of the movies you just mentioned and talk about the acting, but okay, so let's wrap up high noon. So if you have anything to add, we could do that. But I did want to just close out with the interpretations that John Wayne and others had about it being communist, and we kind of mentioned that thing at the beginning, but we didn't, you know. So it's like there's the toxic masculinity there's, you know what's the story about? What is a man? You know all these types of things, but it was accused by John Wayne and Howard Hawks of being a communist story. I don't really see it.
Speaker 4:I don't see it, I don't puzzle to me.
Speaker 2:But it can be seen. I think they're also reading into. They're reading into a lot especially Stanley Kramer was the producer and he was yes he was.
Speaker 3:He was actually a communist, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he was actually like questioned later and I think maybe even the writer of the film was. They were all questioned by the House of Un-American Activities and this was seen as a movie that decrying or basically accusing Hollywood of rolling over for rolling over in the face of McCarthyism, and nobody in Hollywood was standing up, and so that's why it's sort of seen as this analogy like Gary Cooper is the only person standing up and the town is supposed to be Hollywood not doing anything to stand up to these horrible things being done to people. So I think. But then at the same time it's also seen as an amazing treatise for law and order as well.
Speaker 1:Well, but OK. So one thing I can imagine critics thinking that and that does actually make sense. Here's my view about the art. Artistry of it is, I think, even if that were true, so even if he is a communist, like an actual communist and I'm going to defend the communists for a second here and he is a communist and he's writing something universal about the experience of not being defended, that that's if that's what he's doing, then that's still art and that's probably still could be very great. I agree. I mean, dostoyevsky took, like a lot of people wrote some amazing art and they did not have good ideas, but they could still create good art. So yeah, maybe he is a communist.
Speaker 1:I don't see this as like a communist story. If you want a really good example, this is a great book called I ran in the song of Russia, where she analyzes the movie Song of Russia. She goes to Huac and she talks about it and her arguments are a little bit different than I think here. They're ideological, but there's other things. So anyway, I don't agree with John Wayne.
Speaker 2:I don't agree that it was no, but he may have a personal grudge, and that's different.
Speaker 1:That's what I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's a personal thing like this guy's a communist, you know, without looking at the actual movie, because you've got this great theme of pacifism and that is represented through Grace Kelly's character. And when, at what point does this philosophy no longer work? At what point does this philosophy of pacifism no longer work? And it's the point at which your life is threatened. It's the point at which you either have to fight or die. And I thought that was a much better theme than just overall communism.
Speaker 1:I mean, here's the only argument I can think of that it could be communistic, and I have to think about this more. Is that it? So? If we think about communism from its most base idea, that the most basic idea, that it's, you know, the society over the individual type thing, I guess there could be something where it's like the society is saying we need this sacrificial person, we need to have them sacrifice themselves. Now I think it's Hollywood, so they decided to have some, maybe, but that it doesn't. I saw it differently.
Speaker 3:I saw it when you guys told me this. The way I tried to integrate it was well, what was the main complaint about the guy? He hurt business, and a business was great when these crazy people were in town, home was hopping, you know, and he cut into their profits and so one of the reasons they're not really going to go help them is because he screwed their businesses up. So it's there's, that's the only integration I could could make. When you told me that, like, oh, it's profits over people and that's what that's, that's how they're, how they're trying to show how evil capitalism is. Let's say it embraces these crazy characters because it brings lots of people into their hotels and brothels and shops and now that they're gone, you know remember what the mayor says.
Speaker 1:So that's what the bad guys say. But the mayor says we can't have one shooting right outside here because all this investment from the north that's coming in is not going to come in if that happens and we're going to lose five years of progress in this town.
Speaker 1:So there's a so that's like a pro capitalist argument, is like getting all this capital come. They want the capital to flow in and so, like I, yeah, I just don't see it. I guess, like the only thing I could see is the individual. You know that he has to, he has to sacrifice himself as the individual to this, to the society, whether they want him to or not. That's his duty in a sense, and to that degree, yeah.
Speaker 2:But in the end, I mean, that's an interesting, that's an interesting thing to bring up, but in the very end he doesn't do that Exactly. He does what he needs to do as a man and he stands up for what he knows is right. And when he's done, he takes his 10 star and he throws it on the ground Like I'm out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's a force. So it's a real force. Yeah, I see the point, but you know, critics have very big imaginations to frustrated writers and actors themselves. They have to. They have to make the thing bigger than it actually is. It's really a story about being a man.
Speaker 1:I think so.
Speaker 3:Final thoughts from everybody.
Speaker 1:Mark, do you have final thoughts, since you just spoke and we can move?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, look, I would recommend that people see it today. I think it should be read, I think it could be remade, I think it's doing the less melodramatic I mean they made they remade 310 from Yuma and I think that was a very interesting movie. You know, you had great actors like Russell Crowe in it and they could do the same thing with this and have a heroic but better actor in the part and their actresses in the other parts and and update it and it would be a movie that kids could see, because they would see virtue on display and that would be a very good thing for modern kids.
Speaker 1:I like that. All right, Jennifer Jax. Final thoughts.
Speaker 2:I think I think people should watch it. I actually think it should be part of like film school, if it if it isn't already, because I think it brings up so many interesting discussions about acting in artistry and acting in the of the time. I think it'd be an interesting movie to remake in a in a completely different setting, like almost pull it out of the Western setting it might be. That might be an interesting way of kind of reframing that, that question, by bringing it into kind of modern day times or even like futuristic times. That's what I think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't have anything new really to say, other than I mean I think it was like you guys today. It's a good piece of art. It's universal themes of integrity would be interesting to remake, very thought provoking. I think it should be seen with maybe also comparing to Rio Bravo, just so you can get this other angle to it. Yeah, but I still don't like this. It's not a thumbs up for me.
Speaker 1:It's totally fair. Art is very personal. I'm with you, okay. Well, I think I already said my final thoughts. I think it's a very good movie, well made, and it's so concise that it's it's easy to hold up to your before your mind and have some good thoughts on it. So thank you everybody for watching the viewing room and we'll tune in next time.