The MoFo Top 100 Westerns: Countdown

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George Stevens’ Giant is a three hour and fifteen-minute epic drama blockbuster adaptation of Edna Ferber’s best selling novel about ranchers and oilmen in Texas featuring an all-star cast of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker, Chill Wills, Sal Mineo, Dennis Hopper, and James Dean in his final screen role. Dean starred in three films before the car accident that killed him at the age of twenty-four: East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant. He died just a week after he wrapped on Giant (with the movie still in production) and one of his scenes had to be looped by another actor (Nick Adams) in post production. Those two years before his death were so full of work and promise that he became the first actor to get a posthumous Oscar nomination, first as Best Actor for East of Eden and then duplicating that the next year when he was nominated as Best Actor again for Giant. He won neither – Ernest Borgine won for Marty the first time (Spencer Tracy was also nominated that year for Bad Day at Black Rock) and Yul Brenner the second time for The King & I. Co-star Rock Hudson was also nominated as Best Actor. Giant was nominated for eight other Academy Awards including Best Picture and it won Best Director for Stevens, his fourth nomination and second win.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.

After seeing it several times, I began seeing the eponymous rifle itself being the lead character, haha — with the other characters filling in supporting arcs around the gun's journey (to an extent that's practical as a story, anyway).

The Winchester is framed in a way that goes beyond a typical MacGuffin plot device — where objects like Citizen Kane's Rosebud or numerous Hitchcock objects are mostly relegated to the background in a fog of mystique as the narrative plays out. Whereas Mann's Winchester is very much at the center of the action for multuple major sequences. Even something like Pulp Fiction's suitcase, which gets a good amount of screen time compared the aforementioned older examples, remains shrouded behind questions (e.g., what the object itself is, how it came to be, unclear relevance to narrative, etc).*

The Winchester reminds me more of things like the title object in Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame de.... Both of these, along with those Welles' and Tarantino's films, can be read as examples of Lacan's objet petit a concept — but films like Mann's and Ophuls' seem to distinguish themselves regarding the object's treatment.

The other films' objects come across as being intentionally loyal to the concept's "obscure" factor. But Mann and Ophuls go the other way, treating the rifle/earrings as more obvious symbols (allegories, even) referencing social experiences specific to history or a group of people; less universal and more observational.*

In the case of these two "distinct" film examples... The use of guns during the West's encroachment of first settlers' land, and the unintended adoption of them by the latter group that needlessly exacerbated social relations during that era. Or in Ophuls' case: a woman paralyzed by social expectation, trying her best to get rid of the earrings gifted by her husband, which are framed as a sort of "contract" for their relationship — the laws of which only seem to apply to her rather than both of them. The earrings' symbolic nature is so dynamic and inescapable throughout, even in casual scenes where they're not drawing any focus, that her "unattainable desire" manifests in indecisive behavior and ambivalence.

Didn't mean to type this much, haha. Just got carried away. The other post(s) in here dismissing Winchester '73 as perfectly typical (or a "meat and potatoes Western", as one user put it) motivated me to elaborate on these things more than I usually would. Lol. Not an attack on that user or others btw, just thought I'd offer another perspective for some variety.

After seeing it several times, I began seeing the eponymous rifle itself being the lead character, haha — with the other characters filling in supporting arcs around the gun's journey (to an extent that's practical as a story, anyway).

The Winchester is framed in a way that goes beyond a typical MacGuffin plot device — where objects like Citizen Kane's Rosebud or numerous Hitchcock objects are mostly relegated to the background in a fog of mystique as the narrative plays out. Whereas Mann's Winchester is very much at the center of the action for multuple major sequences. Even something like Pulp Fiction's suitcase, which gets a good amount of screen time compared the aforementioned older examples, remains shrouded behind questions (e.g., what the object itself is, how it came to be, unclear relevance to narrative, etc).*

The Winchester reminds me more of things like the title object in Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame de.... Both of these, along with those Welles' and Tarantino's films, can be read as examples of Lacan's objet petit a concept — but films like Mann's and Ophuls' seem to distinguish themselves regarding the object's treatment.

The other films' objects come across as being intentionally loyal to the concept's "obscure" factor. But Mann and Ophuls go the other way, treating the rifle/earrings as more obvious symbols (allegories, even) referencing social experiences specific to history or a group of people; less universal and more observational.*

In the case of these two "distinct" film examples... The use of guns during the West's encroachment of first settlers' land, and the unintended adoption of them by the latter group that needlessly exacerbated social relations during that era. Or in Ophuls' case: a woman paralyzed by social expectation, trying her best to get rid of the earrings gifted by her husband, which are framed as a sort of "contract" for their relationship — the laws of which only seem to apply to her rather than both of them. The earrings' symbolic nature is so dynamic and inescapable throughout, even in casual scenes where they're not drawing any focus, that her "unattainable desire" manifests in indecisive behavior and ambivalence.

Didn't mean to type this much, haha. Just got carried away. The other post(s) in here dismissing Winchester '73 as perfectly typical (or a "meat and potatoes Western", as one user put it) motivated me to elaborate on these things more than I usually would. Lol. Not an attack on that user or others btw, just thought I'd offer another perspective for some variety.

Huh, I didn't think that comment came across as dismissive - it was intended to reflect how consistently solid Mann's work has been (I even said it came close to making my final list). Have I been using the expression wrong the whole time? In any case, yes, I would agree that centring the eponymous gun is definitely a novel way of navigating the Wild West and defining the various characters who populate it in relation to this particular symbol of "civilisation"