Last March Steven Spielberg told a SXSW fanboy audience (is there any other kind?) that he was developing a “kick ass”, cliche-free western, etc.
Except there’s truly nowhere fresh to go with an oater these days. Okay, there’s one idea that Billy Bob Thornton shared at a party a few years ago: The first-ever Old West psychiatrist sets up a small practice in Tuscon or Tombstone or Dodge City. But this is an inherently humorous idea, and certainly an eccentric one. Spielberg hasn’t the character to address such a premise with dryness or subtlety.
The only half-intriguing possibilities for Spielberg would be classic western remakes.
He’s probably too old for the rigors of remaking Howard Hawks’ Red River (‘48) — a film that would have been even grander if it had been shot in good old luscious Technicolor — but what about remaking Martin Ritt’s Hud (‘63)? Or dusting off the script of Ritt’s Roadshow, a modern-day cattle-drive flick that was never filmed?
How about Beardo directing a more believable version of John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (casting lead actors who aren’t 25 years too old, no sound-stage echoes, realistic aging makeup, no cigar smoke summoning a flashback, no over-acted comic relief perfs from Andy Devine types or overly colorful, tediously eccentric supporting perfs from Edmond O’Brien-level veterans)?
The last truly great feature western, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, happened 33 years ago. Before that was Sam Peckinpah The Wild Bunch in ‘69, and before that came Hud, you bet. William Wyler’s The Big Country (‘58), Don Maguire’s Johnny Concho (‘56), Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (‘54) and Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (‘52) were the big 1950s stand-outs.
If and when Spielberg shoots a western will he have the political courage to stand up to Tony Kushner and other progressive colleagues by not inserting woke presentism? Doubtful. Remember that ridiculous Lincoln moment in which David Oyelowo, playing a Union infantry soldier, tells Daniel Day Lewis’s Great Emancipator that he’s disappointed that men of color aren’t allowed to serve as officers?