The Proposition
Hardened Western-watchers will have noticed that, after two fairly lean decades for the genre, it's back in style, with Brokeback Mountain, A History of Violence, Serenity, Don't Come Knockin', Four Brothers and The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada all drawing either explicitly or implicitly on the genre recently, and Andrew Dominik's big-budget, big-title The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford lined up for later this year. Given such fertile times, it might seem odd that The Proposition, John Hillcoat's startling Outback Western written by Nick Cave, should hark back to the 1990s. Whereas most critics have rolled out the - justified - comparisons to Sam Peckinpah, it could easily be argued that the film takes and builds on the themes, ideas and style of the three most remarkable and lasting 1990s Westerns.
So we have Guy Pearce standing in most ably for Clint Eastwood as an Unforgiven-style reluctant avenger, we have the picaresque - indeed, grotesque - cameo-stuffed adventure of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, and the strange, insinuating Gothicism of James Marsh's nightmarish Wisconsin Death Trip. What frees it from the weight of its influences - and if there's any genre that's tied firmly to its own past, it's the Western - is not the transposition of these ideas to Australia, but the passion behind it, the sense that Hillcoat and Cave really did have something to say, and the willingness of the actors involved to let them say it.
The performances are perfectly calibrated. As the brothers caught in the murderous deal of the title, Pearce, Danny Huston and Richard Wilson (no, not Victor Meldrew, a young Australian fella) are superb, striking variations off each others' characterizations while creating deep impressions on their own. Yet it's the supporting characters who steal the film. Ray Winstone shows unexpected pathos and sensitivity as Captain Stanley, the lawman caught between his sadistic superior (David Wenham, sporting a very odd accent) and his own sense of justice - I'd like to see more of this kind of thing from him. John Hurt's drink-pickled racist bounty hunter has two scenes and makes more impact than most actors can with a lead role. Yet the stand-out performance is given by Emily Watson as Martha Stanley, the Captain's wife, who in amongst all the violence and cruelty creates the most gut-wrenching and upsetting scene merely by sitting in a bath and telling a story.
The Proposition is unquestionably an extraordinarily violent movie, with several moments that will linger in my mind as long as A History of Violence's exploded face did. An unseen gunman responds to an Aboriginal spear attack by blowing half of the assailant's head open. An incompetent guard shoots his own toes off in a moment that is almost casually disregarded by his superiors. The degree to which bodies rot in the ferocious heat of the Australian outback is not disregarded. The most terrifying scene is a public flogging told not in graphic detail but in small, chilling observations, similar to the boxing matches in Raging Bull. The full extent of the damage to the victim's back is tactfully concealed, but we see clouds of flies gathering, attracted by the suddenly exposed flesh, we see the torturer wringing out the blood from his whip, and in the scene's final, wry image we see Wenham's bloodthirsty bueracrat, his suit smeared with the blood of the man he ordered flogged.
Yet even considering such diversions, it's the clarity and cohesion of Cave's script and Hillcoat's realization of it that shines through. This is history without the hindsight - the characters are all pursuing their own dreams of Australia's future with the strutting confidence of people living in a land whose destiny has yet to be decided. Winstone's character sees himself as the man to "civilize this land", yet the competition is fierce. Even the Aborigines, depicted in most films as saintly innocents, are hopelessly divided. Some work for the colonists, some choose to side with the outlaws, and inevitably it's the people who want no part in such a conflict who end up with the worst deal.
Hovering over the film is the Australian landscape itself, by turns beautiful and alien. Huston's charismatic psychopath Arthur Burns sees himself as the righteous inheritor to this land, his superiority complex perhaps informed by a misreading of Darwin (alluded to earlier by Hurt's bounty hunter). Arthur believes himself to be in touch with nature and family, yet after his two brothers are taken into police custody he has no qualms about assembling himself a new "family" with two other outlaws taking the place of his absent brothers. Even though it is a pose, Arthur is a lot closer to the truth of Australia than the other characters. The Proposition shares with Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man a desire to overturn the cliches of how we see nature and family, viewing both as combustible, dangerous and untameable, actively dangerous in its ability to overpower society and its higher instincts.
No discussion of The Proposition is complete without a mention of its final scenes, so if you don't want to be spoiled, do not click this link.
In the end, it is inevitable that the untamed family of Arthur Burns should face up against the Stanleys, and it is also inevitable that, for all his bluster about the beauty of family, Burns should show no mercy towards the perfect middle-class clan. In one of the most horrifying home invasion sequences ever filmed, the intruders start off by tearing their teeth into the daintily beautiful dinner Martha has prepared and end up forcing a bloodied and beaten Captain Stanley to watch his surrogate "younger brother" rape his wife ("Look at him put it in there!" he giggles, unforgivably).
At this point, Guy Pearce's Charlie Burns strides into the house, killing the men who've taken his place in the gang with the brisk, joyless severity of a surgeon amputating a limb. Charlie is scarcely an angel here, displaying his lack of care for the Stanleys by leaving Martha to free herself from underneath her rapist's corpse. Yet he displays a strange, warped tenderness in his execution of Arthur, using the same gut-shot method that Arthur himself preferred to use on victims to kill his brother.
As Arthur's life slips away, they go for one final look at the natural world. Charlie calmly watches the sun set over the Outback as the life bleeds out of his brother, yet it is Arthur that delivers the final blow. "What are you going to do now?" he whispers with his last breath. It is to the film's credit that it never tries to answer that question. With the death of his family, Charlie's connection to nature has been severed - and so has Australia's connection with its Aboriginal and natural heritage.
If you didn't click that link and you're now leaving a comment, I'll just create a bit of space at the bottom of the page here so you don't have to read the spoilers.
The Proposition is a very good film.
Maybe even better than Good Night and Good Luck.
Seriously, it's absolutely terrific.
I recommend it to anyone who thinks they can handle the violence.
See it, you clever people.
See it now.
So we have Guy Pearce standing in most ably for Clint Eastwood as an Unforgiven-style reluctant avenger, we have the picaresque - indeed, grotesque - cameo-stuffed adventure of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, and the strange, insinuating Gothicism of James Marsh's nightmarish Wisconsin Death Trip. What frees it from the weight of its influences - and if there's any genre that's tied firmly to its own past, it's the Western - is not the transposition of these ideas to Australia, but the passion behind it, the sense that Hillcoat and Cave really did have something to say, and the willingness of the actors involved to let them say it.
The performances are perfectly calibrated. As the brothers caught in the murderous deal of the title, Pearce, Danny Huston and Richard Wilson (no, not Victor Meldrew, a young Australian fella) are superb, striking variations off each others' characterizations while creating deep impressions on their own. Yet it's the supporting characters who steal the film. Ray Winstone shows unexpected pathos and sensitivity as Captain Stanley, the lawman caught between his sadistic superior (David Wenham, sporting a very odd accent) and his own sense of justice - I'd like to see more of this kind of thing from him. John Hurt's drink-pickled racist bounty hunter has two scenes and makes more impact than most actors can with a lead role. Yet the stand-out performance is given by Emily Watson as Martha Stanley, the Captain's wife, who in amongst all the violence and cruelty creates the most gut-wrenching and upsetting scene merely by sitting in a bath and telling a story.
The Proposition is unquestionably an extraordinarily violent movie, with several moments that will linger in my mind as long as A History of Violence's exploded face did. An unseen gunman responds to an Aboriginal spear attack by blowing half of the assailant's head open. An incompetent guard shoots his own toes off in a moment that is almost casually disregarded by his superiors. The degree to which bodies rot in the ferocious heat of the Australian outback is not disregarded. The most terrifying scene is a public flogging told not in graphic detail but in small, chilling observations, similar to the boxing matches in Raging Bull. The full extent of the damage to the victim's back is tactfully concealed, but we see clouds of flies gathering, attracted by the suddenly exposed flesh, we see the torturer wringing out the blood from his whip, and in the scene's final, wry image we see Wenham's bloodthirsty bueracrat, his suit smeared with the blood of the man he ordered flogged.
Yet even considering such diversions, it's the clarity and cohesion of Cave's script and Hillcoat's realization of it that shines through. This is history without the hindsight - the characters are all pursuing their own dreams of Australia's future with the strutting confidence of people living in a land whose destiny has yet to be decided. Winstone's character sees himself as the man to "civilize this land", yet the competition is fierce. Even the Aborigines, depicted in most films as saintly innocents, are hopelessly divided. Some work for the colonists, some choose to side with the outlaws, and inevitably it's the people who want no part in such a conflict who end up with the worst deal.
Hovering over the film is the Australian landscape itself, by turns beautiful and alien. Huston's charismatic psychopath Arthur Burns sees himself as the righteous inheritor to this land, his superiority complex perhaps informed by a misreading of Darwin (alluded to earlier by Hurt's bounty hunter). Arthur believes himself to be in touch with nature and family, yet after his two brothers are taken into police custody he has no qualms about assembling himself a new "family" with two other outlaws taking the place of his absent brothers. Even though it is a pose, Arthur is a lot closer to the truth of Australia than the other characters. The Proposition shares with Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man a desire to overturn the cliches of how we see nature and family, viewing both as combustible, dangerous and untameable, actively dangerous in its ability to overpower society and its higher instincts.
No discussion of The Proposition is complete without a mention of its final scenes, so if you don't want to be spoiled, do not click this link.
In the end, it is inevitable that the untamed family of Arthur Burns should face up against the Stanleys, and it is also inevitable that, for all his bluster about the beauty of family, Burns should show no mercy towards the perfect middle-class clan. In one of the most horrifying home invasion sequences ever filmed, the intruders start off by tearing their teeth into the daintily beautiful dinner Martha has prepared and end up forcing a bloodied and beaten Captain Stanley to watch his surrogate "younger brother" rape his wife ("Look at him put it in there!" he giggles, unforgivably).
At this point, Guy Pearce's Charlie Burns strides into the house, killing the men who've taken his place in the gang with the brisk, joyless severity of a surgeon amputating a limb. Charlie is scarcely an angel here, displaying his lack of care for the Stanleys by leaving Martha to free herself from underneath her rapist's corpse. Yet he displays a strange, warped tenderness in his execution of Arthur, using the same gut-shot method that Arthur himself preferred to use on victims to kill his brother.
As Arthur's life slips away, they go for one final look at the natural world. Charlie calmly watches the sun set over the Outback as the life bleeds out of his brother, yet it is Arthur that delivers the final blow. "What are you going to do now?" he whispers with his last breath. It is to the film's credit that it never tries to answer that question. With the death of his family, Charlie's connection to nature has been severed - and so has Australia's connection with its Aboriginal and natural heritage.
If you didn't click that link and you're now leaving a comment, I'll just create a bit of space at the bottom of the page here so you don't have to read the spoilers.
The Proposition is a very good film.
Maybe even better than Good Night and Good Luck.
Seriously, it's absolutely terrific.
I recommend it to anyone who thinks they can handle the violence.
See it, you clever people.
See it now.