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After rousing obliteration (High Plains Drifter), painful reconciliation. Bent over a plow, the Missouri farmer (Clint Eastwood) sees family and farm burned by Red Legs, face and soul scarred by a Yankee saber. Confederate guerillas welcome his wrath, the end of the war is just the beginning of "a time of blood and dying." The promise of amnesty gives way to the Gatling gun in the covered wagon, from renegade to outlaw is a lateral move, a note from The Wild Bunch puts the doleful turncoat (John Vernon) on his trail. Unburied corpses give the aftermath ("Buzzards got to eat, same as worms"), hope before despair is an elderly Cheyenne (Chief Dan George) with Lincoln's top hat and Twain's horned toad. "Endeavor to persevere," so it goes with the Navajo lass (Geraldine Keams) and the wizened pilgrim (Paula Trueman) and the moony maiden (Sondra Locke) as the ragtag national family. "Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast." Eastwood compresses the conflict with a Gance effect, rapid dissolves and blue filters under the opening credits, the better to tend to the fresh wounds of a battered land. Beyond the Texas desert is the saloon with no whiskey, beyond that is the abandoned ranch waiting for spring: "Manners at last, here in the wilderness." The baby-faced hothead (Sam Bottoms), a persistent figure (cp. Unforgiven), Pale Rider gets its title from the nickname bestowed by the Comanche brave (Will Sampson). The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid elucidates Philip Kaufman's original concept of the fable, for Eastwood the nascent community is the blessed oasis that tempers the solitude of his persona. (The taciturn avenger spits out tobacco to mark his bloody path, Granny makes him swallow it.) "I guess we all died a little in that damn war," mending is an ongoing process (Bronco Billy). Cinematography by Bruce Surtees. With Bill McKinney, Woodrow Parfrey, Joyce Jameson, Matt Clark, and Royal Dano.
--- Fernando F. Croce |