Bridge Scene from McCabe and Mrs Miller
SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS 51-YEAR-OLD MOVIE.
So why does Kid kill Cowboy on the bridge? I get they're foreshadowing how McCabe tries to evade death but can't. But in the context of the movie, do they give a reason for killing Cowboy that I missed, or was it for nothing? |
I don't remember there being a specific reason for it, I think the Kid did it just because he could (though it does show us how casually he can kill someone, of course).
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I think he does it because he can. He does it for fun.
And he totally gets away with it, even though several people understand that he cheaply staged the whole thing. It's a brutal reminder of the kind of setting it is, and a reminder not to think that just because we like characters they will have any kind of a chance of surviving. |
It’s very similar to a scene from Shane, where the villain picks a fight simply to send a message.
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Originally Posted by Wyldesyde19 (Post 2306134)
It’s very similar to a scene from Shane, where the villain picks a fight simply to send a message.
It's been long enough the exact particulars aren't cemented into my brain, but I think it was more the idea of the kid acting tough, picking a fight, to prove his manliness. In a bully sort of way, but more lethal. But also boredom. e.g. IIRC him and his companions were having a competition shooting bottles on the ice beforehand. So it's kind of a, someone inexperienced coming along with a gun, let's pick a duel with them to assert themselves as a manly marksman. Granted, my recollection is also thinking they had just asked him where he came from, so him coming from the brothel with a gun, may have also signaled the possibility he could have been a hired mercenary, or maybe it was more just a message of shooting the clientele of their target (which I think was closer to the Shane example). Most of the variations though have a nuance to them that mostly does get summarized with, "because he could." While know the soundtrack is a famous Leonard Cohen song, that one scene does make me think of Johnny Cash's Don't Bring your Guns to Town. |
Originally Posted by Little Ash (Post 2306283)
While I know the soundtrack is a famous Leonard Cohen song...
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Originally Posted by Holden Pike (Post 2306284)
Three Leonard Cohen songs: "The Stranger Song", "Sisters of Mercy", and "Winter Lady".
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Re: Bridge Scene from McCabe and Mrs Miller
That one does serve as sort of McCabe's theme, "Winter Lady" as Constance Miller's, and "Sisters of Mercy" the whores'.
Here is Roger Ebert's take on the bridge scene...
Originally Posted by Roger Ebert
Life is cheap here. The film shows one of the most heartbreaking deaths in the history of the Western. A goofy kid (Keith Carradine) has ridden into town and visited all the girls in the house. Now he has started across a suspension bridge. A young gunslinger approaches from the other side and cold-bloodedly talks him into being shot to death. The kid knows he is going to get shot. He tries to be friendly and ingratiating, but the time has come. The town looks on, impassive. You don't want to be caught on a bridge facing a guy like that. We realize at the end of the film that this episode on the bridge is the whole story in microcosm: Some people are just incapable of not getting themselves killed.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/g...rs-miller-1971
Originally Posted by Wyldesyde19 (Post 2306134)
It’s very similar to a scene from Shane, where the villain picks a fight simply to send a message.
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Originally Posted by Holden Pike (Post 2306289)
That one does serve as sort of McCabe's theme, "Winter Lady" as Constance Miller's, and "Sisters of Mercy" the whores'.
Here is Roger Ebert's take on the bridge scene... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDI9o67o7bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWnDVW07_1c (Despite the embarrassing gaps in my memory of the film, I do consider McCabe & Mrs. Miller as my favorite western. Admittedly, a genre that I'm not probably not as big on as other people). |
Originally Posted by StuSmallz (Post 2306117)
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(...it does show us how casually he can kill someone, of course). |
I think that there's one more thing that the scene does, which is to show that you can't necessarily "play fair" in this environment and expect to survive. Characters sometimes have to be selfish or even "cheat" to stay alive. I think it makes you a little more empathetic toward some of the choices made by the main characters.
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