Posted on 08/14/2024 12:38:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Anyone who’s enjoyed a career as long as Clint Eastwood and been in as many great movies as he has during those seven decades in the limelight is inevitably going to notch a handful of masterpieces. Still, on either side of the camera, he’s never been better than The Outlaw Josey Wales.
The debate over which entry in Eastwood’s filmography can be called the greatest has raged for decades, which is understandable when he’s got Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, Dirty Harry, Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, Escape from Alcatraz, High Plains Drifter, In the Line of Fire, Pale Rider, and many more under consideration.
However, a combination of how Eastwood weathered the storm of production to emerge on the other side with a classic, what the film meant to both his career as a whole and the entire western genre, and the way it subverted traditionalism in favour of something darker, dangerous, and ultimately more compelling elevates The Outlaw Josey Wales to the top of the pile.
The man himself revealed that it’s the one movie people stop him in the street to talk about more than any other, an impressive accolade in itself, looking at everything he’s achieved. It’s both a successor to the Dollars trilogy and the progenitor of Unforgiven in a way, and that duality makes it intrinsic to the man, the myth, and the legend of Eastwood in more ways than one. Of course, it helps that it’s a masterclass in atmosphere, technique, confidence, performance, and execution, too.
If it’s good enough for Morgan Freeman to name it as Eastwood’s best, then who’s to argue? It even led to a shift in the complexion of mainstream filmmaking to further enhance its legacy, with the leading man not even planning to direct until he instructed producer Robert Daley to fire Philip Kaufman, instigating a ruling – colloquially known as the ‘Eastwood Rule’ – from the Directors Guild of America that prohibits an actor or producer from giving a director their marching orders and stepping in to replace them.
That’s beside the point, but it made The Outlaw Josey Wales a monumental production nonetheless. Coming more than a decade after Dollars and a decade prior to Unforgiven, the movie finds Eastwood at a pivotal moment in his career and in the midst of his Dirty Harry run. He’d starred in traditional westerns and popularised the spaghettified version, but it was here where his penchant for hard-boiled revisionism came to the fore.
A revenge story in a figurative, literal, and existential sense, the sins of the title character’s past haunt him in the present and completely alter his future when vengeful union forces murder his wife and child. In his quest for retribution, Wales signs up with the Confederate Army, already differentiating the film from the pack by having the protagonist fight on the side everybody knows ended up losing.
He refuses to surrender in the aftermath of the Civil War, only to watch the same man who killed his family massacre his fellow soldiers. With a bounty on his head, what follows is a quest for redemption plagued by the unrelenting necessities of violence, making Wales much more than the standard one-note western protagonist who shoots the bad guys and lives happily ever after.
The scene where he grieves his family was the rawest display of emotion Eastwood had ever projected in any of his films, with Wales reduced to a tear-soaked wreck. Not out of the ordinary considering the circumstances, but that heart-on-the-sleeve mentality goes on to inform the rest of not just the narrative but the main character’s journey.
After losing his real family, he even ends up finding a surrogate clan, complicating what he envisioned to be a single-minded thirst for blood that couldn’t remain unquenched. While many would point to Unforgiven as being Eastwood’s version of John Ford and John Wayne’s The Searchers given what it means to him as an actor, filmmaker, and persona, The Outlaw Josey Wales fits that billing better.
Whereas his Academy Award-winning favourite was a swansong to the genre that made him who he is, when viewing his career as a whole The Outlaw Josey Wales is the definitive connective tissue. It was one part Man with No Name, one part Harry Callahan, and one part William Munny, all soaked in the baggage of its leading man as a performer and personality, marshalled with a director who knew they had to pull out all the stops to ensure their reputation wouldn’t be ruined by the coup that put him there in the first place.
That’s an incredible amount of pressure, especially when it sought to deconstruct the essence of the classic western and Eastwood’s place in its history, all while telling a resonant and complex story that didn’t skimp on the action or shootouts, either.
It was a hell of a balancing act, and it’s because he pulled it off so effortlessly and timelessly that The Outlaw Josey Wales is the best movie he’s ever been in on either side of the camera.
Poor Len Lesser... he missed out on the stash of gold at the bank in Clermont, then ended up dead somewhere near Indian country with a squirt of tobacco juice on his forehead. Clint's movies could be rough on the supporting cast.
A sly nod to the real person that the Josey Wales character was based on, IIRC.
Thanks, those are some of my favorites quotes from the movie.
Thank you
When Josey Wales meets twin bears is perfect, it’s how we should treat each other.
Ten Bear that is,
The iron of one’s being is to powerful to be contained on only paper, it’s the power of a person’s whole being. If only we treated a man’s word as life or death.
If you give your word you are prepared to die to back it up.
“these old series had some deep writing in them”
That has really struck me about “Death Valley Days.” There have been a lot of racial (black, Indian, Chinese, early Californians [i.e., Mexicans]) themes that were treated very well and with dignity and respect. There have been a number of episodes dealing with women’s rights and careers. There have been some episodes dealing with government corruption at the local and territorial level. Many episodes address men and women in marriage on the frontier.
I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the deep themes addressed.
To hell with them fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as the worms.
You gonna pull them pistols or whistle Dixie?
Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’ boy.
“I am now more of a fan of the black and white seasons, and won’t watch if my husband puts on the later years, in color.”
It’s funny you say that, Mrs. L. “Death Valley Days” was originally filmed in B&W starting in 1952. I grew up with TV in B&W (born 1951). I like the episodes in B&W.
The first ten seasons were all B&W.
Then Season 11 (’62-’63) had 23 B&W and 3 Color.
Season 12 (’63-’64) was 16 B&W and 10 Color.
Seasons 13 to 18 were all in color. The show ended in 1970 after 18 seasons!
I kind of dread knowing that I’m going to be leaving the B&W episodes soon and watching it in color. It just won’t be the same.
Actually I think Donald Sutherland playing “Odd Ball” stole the show.
There were few real good characters played to the T that made the movie so memorable.
I am torn between Kelly’s heroes and OJW as my best KE movies of all time.
I think Gran Torino was the movie that Eastwood meant most and was revealing a lot of himself.
There were few real good characters played to the T that made the movie so memorable.
I am torn between Kelly's heroes and OJW as my best KE CE movies of all time.
FIXED
Oh So right.
Watched it many years ago, and while I laughed my ass off, I never had the desire watched it again.
You need to watch “Painted Your Wagon,” in my opinion ranks as the worst Clint Movie.
Nevermind ........ :)
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away”.
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