Pale Rider, 1985.
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, John Russell, Carrie Snodgress, Sydney Penny, Richard Dysart, Richard Kiel, Chris Penn, Charles Hallahan, Doug McGrath.
SYNOPSIS:
A mysterious preacher helps a small mining village against the onslaught of a major mining company trying to take over their land.
Having helped reinvent the Western in the 1960s with the Dollars trilogy, and also establishing his revisionist take on the genre in the 1970s with the likes of High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood began the 1980s in a completely different mode. Now in his 50s, Eastwood dabbled in comedy, action, drama and thriller, but he didn’t return to the Western until 1985 when he directed and starred in Pale Rider, the only entry to the genre he would make until 1992s Oscar-winning Unforgiven.
On the surface, Pale Rider is a traditional Western, telling the story of a stranger arriving in town and helping out ‘the little man’ against the bigger threat of the local gentry/authorities/corporations trying to take their resources. However, by this point in his career Eastwood was too smart a filmmaker and too canny an actor to simply make another formulaic Western based on a story we’ve all seen and heard dozens of times before; no, there had to be some sort of angle to make this a worthwhile project, and the trick with Pale Rider is that Eastwood uses his age and experience to direct himself in a way that uses his strengths to their best advantage.
And those strengths come in the form of his own mythology, and Pale Rider is a movie that thrives on mythology, whether it is Eastwood’s or that of the Western itself. Eastwood plays Preacher, a mysterious man who wears a collar and rides into a small gold prospector village after it is attacked by a gang of goons working for local mining company boss Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart). One of the goons shoots and kills a dog belonging to teenager Megan (Sydney Penney), and after burying her pet she prays for a miracle to help her family and friends, hence the arrival of Preacher riding his white horse which, if you know your Bible, should tell you all you need to know.
Preacher helps the village stand up to LaHood’s intimidation tactics, but all hell breaks loose when LaHood calls in corrupt marshal Stockburn (John Russell) and his gang of murderous deputies to wipe out the village. Preacher warns the village about Stockton, and Stockton seems very surprised when he comes face to face with Preacher, as if they have met before, leading to a violent showdown to the death.
Pale Rider has been interpreted many ways in the past 40 years, and although Clint Eastwood himself has confirmed who and what the character of Preacher is, the movie never states it outright, Instead, we get Eastwood mainly lighting himself from behind, which obscures his features, making him appear less human and more of a force of nature, just being present and rarely saying anything. The lighting as a whole is superb, with Eastwood sticking to his philosophy of filming in the autumn as you get better natural light, which this movie makes full use of.
Featuring a strong cast of actors, Pale Rider is not just about Clint Eastwood as Michael Moriarty gives an earnest and likeable performance as Hull Barrett, who is courting Megan’s mother Sarah (Carrie Snodgress). There is an awkward sub-plot involving Sarah, Megan and their feelings for Preacher which is there to establish his effect on people and the paths that they will take, but it does feel a little clumsy and uncomfortable, like it was shoehorned in as shorthand for an arc we don’t really see. Like a lot of the ideas present in the movie, it doesn’t payoff on the screen and its ambiguity is up to us to decipher, but it just doesn’t seem to fit as well as the others.
Of the three recent Clint Eastwood 4K UHD releases from Warner Bros., this one comes with the best extras. There is no audio commentary but Richard Schickel does appear as two of his documentaries are included, those being 2010s The Eastwood Factor and 2013s Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story. Both are worth watching for longtime fans, with the former being more expansive and covering Eastwood’s relationship with Warner Bros., his acting and directing styles, and his musical talents as well. The latter is a bit shorter and concentrates on his directorial credits, along with contributions from cast and crew that he has worked with, and both provide plenty of insights into how Clint Eastwood operates as a filmmaker. There is also the Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Reinventing Westerns documentary, which is also included on The Outlaw Josey Wales disc.
Overall, Pale Rider may not hold the same classic status as The Outlaw Josey Wales or Unforgiven, but it is a more than worthy inclusion into Clint Eastwood’s catalogue of Westerns. The story unfolds as such that you may not quite get everything on the first watch, with subsequent viewings bringing out more of the subtext once you know where the main narrative goes, and the ambiguous nature of the plot leaves it open for discussion which, as a quick scout of message boards will reveal, fans are still doing after 40 years.
The solid cast and beautiful cinematography add plenty of weight to the movie, but this is a Clint Eastwood vehicle and in a period when a lot of middle-aged actors were struggling to stay relevant amongst the muscle-bound tough guys who were taking over the action genre; the man looks magnificently grizzled and weathered but also confident and sure of his own legend, and that is what Pale Rider represents. 40 years later, it still works.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
