(no subject)
So I've had the theory that one of the vital motifs of the Western (and related samurai movie) mythos is the division of townspeople and gunfighters, of innocent and jaded, of being inside civilization and the law, or outside. You can't really be both at once. The townspeople need the gunfighters to do the things they can't do (kill people) without losing their innocence and protected status. Right now, I'm rewatching The Magnificent Seven. The brutality at the end, of the villagers rising up and basically massacring the bandits, is making me question my theory. These guys are doing plenty of killing themselves. (and they're going in with shovels and chairs and their bare hands. They don't have the distancing luxury of guns.) You know those videos of army ant swarms tearing apart spiders way bigger than themselves? This reminded me of that.
Many Westerns, of course, tend to gloss over the effects that killing people has on the killer. One of the reasons The Magnificent Seven is so great is that it instead highlights this and questions the glamour.
So are we supposed to assume that the villagers aren't going to be afflicted with some serious PTSD? That that girl who goes and buries an ax in some bandit's back isn't going to have nightmares about it for the rest of her life? At the end, the movie redraws the line between inside and outside. "The farmers are like the earth, and you (the gunfighters) are like the wind driving away the locusts, coming, and then going." The gunfighter who stays with the villagers, the first thing he does is take off his gun. You can't live on both sides of the line.
But is this actually an example of the two sides I spoke of merging? Now the villagers have lost just enough innocence to be able to defend themselves, but still have the benefits of community and order. Or is the point I should take home that the dividing line isn't being able to kill, but being able to live in a community?
Discuss.
Many Westerns, of course, tend to gloss over the effects that killing people has on the killer. One of the reasons The Magnificent Seven is so great is that it instead highlights this and questions the glamour.
So are we supposed to assume that the villagers aren't going to be afflicted with some serious PTSD? That that girl who goes and buries an ax in some bandit's back isn't going to have nightmares about it for the rest of her life? At the end, the movie redraws the line between inside and outside. "The farmers are like the earth, and you (the gunfighters) are like the wind driving away the locusts, coming, and then going." The gunfighter who stays with the villagers, the first thing he does is take off his gun. You can't live on both sides of the line.
But is this actually an example of the two sides I spoke of merging? Now the villagers have lost just enough innocence to be able to defend themselves, but still have the benefits of community and order. Or is the point I should take home that the dividing line isn't being able to kill, but being able to live in a community?
Discuss.