The Lindsay Brothers

Author: tristanlindsay

  • Stagecoach

    Extraordinary
    Adventure
    87

    It’s what they call a tracking shot. Not technically a zoom. The camera is mounted on a car on a track and actually moves in to get physically closer to the actor, which is the reason it goes out of focus when it happens approximately 15 or so minutes into number 87 on our countdown. The person who thought of it was a man named John Ford a journeyman director from the 20s whose specialty is/was westerns. The man it pushed in on? 32 year old John Wayne who spins his rifle midway through the shot, cooly cocking it (a move that Arnie would steal approximately 60 years later in Terminator II). This shot is about as iconic as it gets in movies, and even though The Searchers is sometimes held up as the best ford/wayne team up, my money is on Stagecoach.

    The makers of Stagecoach could not afford horses, so they told John Wayne to carry a saddle and followed him around banging two halves of a coconut together.

    It appears to be almost a mistake that John Wayne was even in it. He was already 32 years old at the time and was just now getting his breakout role. It was made at a time when Hollywood could do almost no wrong. It was not the only great movie to come out that year (1939) but it very likely could’ve been the greatest adventure movie of the year and it introduced us to both John Ford and John Wayne.

    Not to be confused with John Houston who was also a director at this time.

    Wayne’s character is named Ringo the Kid and he is an outlaw traveling through the old west. And like most outlaws traveling through the old west he is extremely useful in a fight. Still he is arrested by the marshall who is on the stagecoach in the position of  “shotgun.” Unlike the ceremonial position it is used for today, in the old west, the person riding shotgun literally had a shotgun and a lot of times he actually shot it.

    Though the position then was not the honorary position it is today, cowboys still had to “call it” if they wanted to ride shotgun.

    John Wayne has definitely called it and after this of course, he became a huge star appearing in over 5 million other westerns where he played pretty much the same role as he does here. Though he never claimed to be a great actor he was known to dispense some sage acting advice. In one case he advises “Talk low, talk slow and don’t talk too much.” His reasoning was that if you talk slow enough they can’t cut away from you. This is great practical advice the likes of which is never given to actors. Actors, as you may know, usually have to deal with people giving them advice about sense memory and emotional memory.  However the practical advice given by John Wayne is (almost) just as useless as the advice about Sense Memory. This is because the advice really only works if you are already John Wayne.

    In this movie john Wayne was not yet John Wayne and so he had to speak fast and rely on sense memory to save the day.

    Well, that and the cavalry. Which actually did save the day. Movies in those days relied a lot on conventional forms whereby the cavalry could in best Deus-ex-machina fashion come in and save the cowboys from the Indians at the last second. Today we might find that too trite or perhaps to self-aware, but back then it seemed like even justice.

    A link to the shot in question.

    Next up … #86!

  • The Empire of Blue Water

    Extraordinary
    Adventure
    89

    Aside from Attack of the Clones, one would be hard pressed to come up with a more pulp-inspired title than The Empire of Blue Water, but seeing as it’s about the true-life story of Captain Henry Morgan, it is (happily) extremely fitting. If you were to try to come up with a pulpier title, you might think about subtitling it “Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, The Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended The Outlaw’s Bloody Reign.” Which, believe it or not, is exactly what Stephan Talty subtitled it.

    The subtitle would've been longer too, but they couldn't find a smaller picture of a pirate ship.

    Unlike The Silmarillion, which is fake but seems real, The Empire of Blue Water is real, yet seems fake. Who would believe in a mad welsh pirate captain who was brought up from nothing to command what was called The Great Pirate Army? Even more preposterous was the fact that not only was it called “The Great Pirate Army,” but was done so with a straight face. Who would believe that after decades of mobbing and drunken debauchery, the Jamaican city of Port Royal would be all but wiped out by a massive earthquake a few months after Captain Morgan died, thus bringing not only the death of the man, but a seemingly supernatural vengeance on all of piratedom? Who would believe that this man Captain Morgan actually looked like the picture on the rum bottle that’s named after him? Who would believe that the rum Morgan actually drank was called Kill Devil?

    I hereby claim this barrel of rum in honor of my dear beloved mustache!

    Who would believe that when he returned to England a prisoner for violating the English treaty with Spain that he was acquitted and instead of imprisoned, he was knighted? That when he returned to Jamaica he was made governor and began hunting the very pirates he had helped make famous? You see Henry Morgan was technically a privateer: a private soldier of the seas given permission by the English to loot and pillage the Spanish. Much like Dean Koontz does to Stephen King in our present time. Also, much like Stephen King, actual pirates were awarded a bigger share of the booty if they lost a limb. Although in their case it was usually while trying to overthrow an enemy ship. This accounts for all the hooks and peg legs and is also coincidentally the origin of the phrase “it cost me an arm and a leg.”

    Also pirates were awarded extra booty if they spontaneously grew fish parts in the midst of a raid. This was apparently very common.

    The Empire of Blue Water is filled with action and fantastic naval strategy, especially Morgan’s attacks on Porto Bello and Meracaibo. Talty however does veer off on a few tangents, mostly due to the story of Roderick (an amalgamation of what a typical pirate would be), but his major weakness comes in telling us the origin of the word Buccaneer. Apparently it comes from the people who lived in the Caribbean who ate a special kind of barbeque called “Buccan;” thus “buccaneer.” This is not at all an interesting origin for such a cool word and is perhaps something that would have better remained lost to history.

    Next up … 88!

  • The Mission

    Extraordinary
    Adventure
    91

    If you were to just read the title The Mission you might assume that it’s about Jean-Claude Van Damme being forced to enter an illegal underground martial arts tournament and eventually triumphing to earn his glory. But you would be wrong. That film was titled The Quest, which is close. And in fact approximately 5 years earlier when it first came out it was called Bloodsport. Instead though, The Mission is actually just a story about a Mission. Like, mission as in a place.

    Forty Points if you can tell me if this is from Bloodsport or The Quest.

    The epic grandeur of the movie The Mission is due a lot to the ridiculous beauty of South America, but its watchability derives a lot of its power from the performances of Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. They are both master actors and it shows here. Too often master actors are bored and so they get what they like to think of as … “creative.” If you need an example of this, look no further than Johnny Depp’s post Jack Sparrow performances whereby he tried to play Willy Wonka as Michael Jackson.

    Or the time he played the Mad Hatter as Belatrix Lestrange.

    Its almost as if, for those whose talent comes naturally to them, they insist on their talent being something more than talent. In an effort to emphasize the level of hard work and determination they put into their jobs, Great Actors sometimes get a bit … how shall I say … weird. Both DeNiro and Irons have been known to do this. Because the script by Robert Bolt gives them both something to play, however, they don’t have time to create funny gerbil voices and the like. Both of them are “Method” actors but at least here it doesn’t hinder them this may also be due to the fact that it’s hard to make Jesuit priests glib and hip.

    Whatever you do, don't smile.

    Robert De Niro plays a character who (almost justifiably) kills his own brother and is so torn up about it (even though his brother kinda had it coming), that he becomes a Jesuit monk. This would seem like punishment enough, but as even further punishment he has to hang around with Jeremy Irons for the rest of the movie. Also because the titular Mission is located atop the stunning Iguaza falls, De Niro (again as penance for killing his brother–who deserved it) must climb to the top carrying a heavy bundle of supplies. Much like Santa must do every Christmas.

    One of the monks, played by the ever-awesome Liam Neeson, has pity on him and cuts it away from him as he struggles to climb the treacherous mountain pass. To his great astonishment De Niro just ties the bundle back on his back and continues to climb the mountain until he reaches the top where he is forced to enlist in an illegal martial arts tournament for the souls of the native children (not really).

    He eventually develops a great rapport with the children in the mission and all seems peaceful until a messenger from the Vatican arrives and plans on closing their mission because of a treaty with Portugal. De Niro does not like this and because he has a shadowy pre-Jesuit past of running guns, he plans to stage a fight for the mission. This is probably the extent of the action that can be found in the film.

    It was shot on location with stunning visuals supplied by the cinematographer Chris Menges who won an Oscar for his work. The music by Ennio Morricone is also one of the more well known pieces of film music out there if you get a chance give a listen to the track called “Gabriel’s Oboe” do so.

    Oh yeah, it also won the Palme D'or.

    Strong visuals, an excellent musical score, and the ever-awesome Liam Neeson are all well and good, but they can sometimes pale in comparison to two men atop a mountain waterfall in the middle of the South American jungle attempting to defend a mission that has saved both of their lives.

    Next up … ninety.