The Shooting

 *****

Monte Hellman shoots Utah as if it was this desert hell begging for water, shade, and humanity. Don’t find yourself here. Don’t wind up here. Avoid this at all costs. And I think that is why The Shooting, a little film made for like nothing (it’s a Corman film, whatta ya expect?), is such an impactful film. Four souls (for the most part) involved in a hunt for somebody, with a reasoning that remains enigmatic and distanced from us. Millie Perkins simply won’t tell us who she is after and why. Warren Oates wants to know and yet leads the way (or does he, really?) forward towards somebody that, you’d have to figure, wronged Millie. Then her “hired gun clad in black” (Nicholson), who had followed somewhat behind as this shadow figure, arrives to join Oates, his dim-witted but sweet buddy Will Hutchens, and Millie. Nicholson, when he becomes more than just an ominous figure in the background, is not that laughing, mad dentist visiting loon. He’s dangerous and assertive. He knows he good with a gun, flaunting his talents and goes unchallenged…until the end. Hutchens attraction to Millie, I felt, is obviously going to lead to his doom. She sets up like gangrene in him; Hutchens is totally infatuated and sweet on her. Oates, I think, conveys that he knows that if Hutchens doesn’t get away from Millie he’ll lose his friend. Nicholson overtly challenges Hutchens to a duel, knowing all too well he’d win if those guns were drawn. Oates keeps trying, futilely, to prevent this. There’s a time when a horse dies, Millie wants Hutchens to stay behind, and Oates achingly is okay with it because he felt that as long as his pal is distanced from Nicholson (and, most certainly, Perkins) he’d remain “safe” (if damned Utah didn’t devour him into the desert and hot sun). A broken legged mute with a beard loses his horse and Hutchens finds it…Oates just couldn’t blockade fate. Early in the film, there’s talk of tragedy and death. Hutchens sees a man die. Oates’ brother is mentioned, a guy named Coin. Coin doesn’t just go away. He’s mentioned a few more times. Not a lot about Coin, but enough. It is important. Oates not only appears to be trying to save his buddy but this journey he’s supposedly guiding is often questioned by him. Millie won’t give him the satisfaction. Oh she definitely appears to call the shots and there never seems to be a time where the guys dictate the rules…it’s her show and those among her obey. Even Nicholson, the hired gun, adheres to her wishes, although he’s handled a bit better than Hutchens (particularly) or Oates. Oates does bark and object, but it’s really all noise because the journey never ends. In fact, quite early Oates is defiant in taking the job as guide to Millie, only to sway after her persistence. Hutchens must come along with him is his main request, and certain monetary privilege. Eventually by film’s end, the water’s gone, horses are dead, and few of the small party we have been following remain. Oates tries to prevent the ending, but his efforts are in vain. He does, however, take away Nicholson’s prized possession…his shooting hand. But Millie is bound and determined to see her mission through…and the irony is that Oates allows her to, not realizing until it’s too late just who the objective is. And that conclusion, when the face of Millie’s victim is revealed, is the talk of cult film. Oates and Hutchens even often speak with dialogue that escapes away from the ears of us and those around them. They are words not meant to be understood, really; just talk under breath or wrapped in exhaustion and frustration. I kind of took this as speech regular to Oates and Hutchens, unfiltered gibberish that falls from the wagon and left behind for no real purpose. This is part of their characters, and both do that a lot. I like that. I like that they have their own ways of talking and similarly speak that language. Nicholson, of course, sneers that confidence and needles with his brash bravado. He has the teethy grin that speaks about what his talent has brought him in terms of ego. He’s pulled that gun from its holster and shot down many a gunslinger. He’s the gun; it is his identity. And Oates will take that from him…what will he be without that gunhand and the pleasures it brings? Well, it is a fair trade to Oates. You take his friend from him and that price comes with your gunhand. Eye for an eye. Millie, venomous in action, deed, and mouth, is the worst thing that ever happens to Oates. Through their meeting comes such loss. But she’s driven and tough as rattlesnake hide. And she rattles. Yes she does.

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I realize like many of us we all who write a lot go through the motions sometimes. Passions and fluidity don't always flow when writing. Fatigue and that missing thrill perpetrate us, and creativity simply doesn't always rise out of heart and mind. But for this review, it was flowing. Open faucet. I did very little editing. I think I feel this is the kind of film--written for the most part at three o'clock late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, thought about and reflected on throughout Saturday since I watched it one o'clock that morning--that hits all the right notes, has just this enigmatic, atmospheric quality to it that sets in, and characters caught in this existential entrapment within a godforsaken climate. These are the films that often jerk loose the gum in the works. I'm altogether appreciative of them.