>Boetticher is highly underrated as a major directing talent >of the last 100 years - I was privy to a complete >retrospective of his work about 2 years back...
It's true. He needs a bit more attention directed his way. I would also say that people need to take another look at Anthony Mann, Henry King, and King Vidor.
Just thought I'd throw that in there.
>The ambiguity of good and bad/evil residing in >the same individual far more resonates w/ what 1 encounters >in reality versus the hard-and-fast/black-and-white >dichotomy championed by today's Hollywood...
Yes indeed. They make all the characters very obvious now. They're either bad or good. They make it real clear so we can get right to the sex and explosions! No dialogue either please.
It's a shame.
But you know there's certain elements (political elements if you will) who like to promote this kind of thinking in reality as well.
Like I was just watching this little documentary on that Steve Earle song "John Walker's Blues". All the right-wingers got so mad because Earle decided to paint this guy as a human being; a ball of confusion. But not just a "bad guy". Not just an evil traitor to his country.
They got mad because if he's not just pure evil, then there has to be a reason for why he did what he did. An explanation for how he turned out.
Then we'd have to look for answers. And that's hard.
It's much easier just to say something is evil. Because then you can just point your rockets and your guns at it and fire away. But you'll never understand anything.