Jean Simmons and Gregory Peck's on screen chemistry. No need to kiss the girl, just eyeing each other is enough to get the blod boiling. Got to love the way Wyler places them in the screen during the Burl Ives' and Conner's conflict, both of them on a perfect straight line - eye to eye. Mise-en-scene was never better.
Good point. I recently came across the last portion of the film on TV. What struck me was that Simmons (whose abduction and attempted rape is the focal point of the action here) doesn't have a single line of dialogue. She's mute to the very end. It's the old objectification of the female. The woman who up to this point had been a real character is here reduced to the mere occasion of a shootout. Yes, it's all very well staged. But the script could have done some more characterization.
The music, I believe, is also messed up for the these scenes, thanks to post facto editing.
What struck me was that Simmons (whose abduction and attempted rape is the focal point of the action here) doesn't have a single line of dialogue. She's mute to the very end. It's the old objectification of the female. The woman who up to this point had been a real character is here reduced to the mere occasion of a shootout. Yes, it's all very well staged. But the script could have done some more characterization.
The music, I believe, is also messed up for the these scenes, thanks to post facto editing.
Don't you think though that the objectification is Hennassey's doing, since that is after all what rape is all about, and precisely why it's so evil, since the victim is humilated beneath her humanity? I think that contrast works well.
The 'Attempted Rape' cue was moved FROM the rape scene to the later shots of Burl Ives brutalising Buck and whipping him under the bed. I think it does work better there, since Moross's music always manages to heighten and romanticise action, and rape just isn't that sort of heroic thing. The 'Cattle by the River' cue was moved to the canyon fight, and the funeral march after the duel was cut out completely.
I've never understood the appeal of "Giant" or "The Big Country" (the films that is). Both are lumbering soap-operas.
I'll go along with you about Giant (Big Country is in an altogether different class, and definitely not a soap-opera). The sight of James Dean as an aging man is as ludicrous as Debbie Reynolds as an aging woman in How The West Was Won. Both films were extremely cheesy.
There must have been others before that too. Remember -- a lot of the silent films are now lost forever. Those lost treasures could ALL have used amputees.
Heck, I could use an amputee myself. And perhaps a midget.
Interestingly, Hugo Friedhofer's Oscar winning score for "The Best Years Of Our Lives" was orchestrated by none other than "The Big Country"'s Jerome Moross.
Recently read a Kindle edition of "A Wonderful Heart: The Films of William Wyler", which I highly recommend to anyone even vaguely interested in the subject. The erudite and highly intelligent author (highly intelligent because I concur with most of his opinions) states that if he had to be marooned with just one Wyler film it would be The Big Country, which is an interesting and refreshing change from the majority of authors and critics who generally name Best Years as Wyler's masterpiece. Personally I'd pick Ben-Hur, but that's only because I don't have the fine, discerning taste of most critics and thus make a typically gross, populist sort of choice.
Incidentally, I wonder if this author has considered that if he were marooned with any film at all he wouldn't have the means to watch it, thus making choice irrelevant.
Last night watching "The Proud Rebel" on TCM with a score by Jerome Moross. It definitely had a similar sound to "The Big Country". Has this ever been released in any form? Enjoyable western film with Alan Ladd, Olivia deHavilland, David Ladd (real life son playing Alan's son) and Dean Jagger.
Last night watching "The Proud Rebel" on TCM with a score by Jerome Moross. It definitely had a similar sound to "The Big Country". Has this ever been released in any form? Enjoyable western film with Alan Ladd, Olivia deHavilland, David Ladd (real life son playing Alan's son) and Dean Jagger.
There was a limited edition CD, but a bit pricey these days:
Are there two different Editions of "Proud rebel"? My Artwork is as it shows up at soundtrackcollector.com and differs from the cover art at Amazon marketplace.