Sunday, April 25, 2010
Death of a Cowboy
After an extended stay in McCabe's whorehouse, a cowboy is ready to return to his cattle, but first wants to buy a pair of socks. The cowboy, not much of a shot, is accosted by a ruthless gunman at the bridge and shot dead as he reaches for his gun (so the gunman can "fix" it). Many of us in the audience gasped or shook our heads at this scene. What purpose, if any, is there to this scene? Or is it's lack of meaning itself meaningful? Is it an effective scene? What does it convey, if anything?
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I was definitely one of the people in the audience to gasp at this scene just because I thought it was so unexpected. I think the purpose of this was to show just how ruthless the gunman really was. He was extremely young compared to the rest of the men that were with him at the house he was staying at. During the entire scene, as the gunman was talking to the cowboy, the gunman kept looking back at the older men standing on the front porch outside of the house behind the gunman. This can be taken in several ways but the way I took it was that he was trying to look "tough" to the older men who were watching him. I think that this is a somewhat effective scene except I also feel that it was unnecessary for the innocent cowboy to get shot when all he wanted was a pair of socks.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah that this scene definitely came as a surprise especially as it is the first person to really be killed in the movie. In this sense it symbolizes the beginning of the violence and the hunting scenes to follow. I think that the purpose of this scene was one to prepare the audience for the coming events and two the younger man wanted to prove himself to the older gunman. It comes as a shock especially because we know that the cowboy was completely innocent in his attempts to cross the bridge. His character has a goofy personality that allows the viewers to laugh at him in earlier scenes. This causes the audience to feel more shocked and sympathetic for the cowboy. The man who shot the cowboy looks childish and immature as he walked onto the bridge. When he keeps looking back at the other two gunman standing on the porch this signifies his attempt at trying to show them he is tough enough to be part of their group. He is making them see that he is worthy of the job on the hunt and that he can kill an innocent man without having his emotions overcome him. As the main bad guy referenced earlier in the movie by saying that McCabe had never killed anyone, some men just are not cut out for that kind of work. They get too tied up in the morality of the event and then they cannot perform the duty. Overall this scene is meant to build up the younger man’s character into a strong, tough guy that people should fear.
ReplyDeleteThis scene, to me, was completely unexpected and came as a complete shock. I agree with Sarah that this scene was meant to show how ruthless the gunmen were, and that they weren't messing around and really wanted to kill McCabe. The fact that the gunmen killed the cowboy for no reason is so shocking, and shows that they don't care who they kill along their mission to kill McCabe. This scene also shows the viewer how experienced the gunmen are, opposed to McCabe, who had never killed a man. The gunman killed the cowboy without a flinch or question, whereas the unexperienced McCabe didn't know what it was like to kill a man. Last, this scene shows what a disadvantage McCabe is at, because the gunmen know what they are doing, whereas McCabe's experience is completely made up.
ReplyDeleteLike I said in my previous posting, when you look at the other Hollywood Westerns of the time, they were all very dramatic and formulaic. You would have a star actor ride into town and chase off the bad guys, usually culminating in a big shootout where his sidekick gets wounded, probably leaving just enough time to impart some wisdom to his mentor before dying. I think McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a direct (negative) reaction to those kinds of films. Rather than romanticizing the West, Altman showed what it was really like. Even though the cowboy being killed might seem meaningless to us, it has meaning in the larger sense of Altman's vision. That is: not everything was neatly packaged or happened for some greater purpose, it was a tough place and occasionally bad things happened for no apparent reason. When you view the scene with that perspective, I think it makes alot more sense. That cowboy was one of the vast majority of people killed in the real west who didn't die for some noble purpose or in some drawn out and dramatic gun battle. So, in that sense, the scene is very effective.
ReplyDeleteI believe this scene was very important in describing the representation of these hired gunmen. The man who shot him was working for the corporation who wanted McCabe's land. So this random shooting shows their violent and aggressive attitude. Even if some weak or random person can be seen as a threat to a large company in today's world, they will remove it by any means necessary. And if you noticed, the lead man didn't want to get involved, but he didn't want to stop it either. This could represent the fact that CEO's of corporate America don't want to get their hands dirty with dangerous or controversial affairs, but they don't lift a finger to stop it. If it gets them more power or money or even less competition, they are content with the outcome. So this ruthless and cruel behavior isn’t all that surprising as it is upsetting, but it is very important in the theme of this movie. That people must be careful about the bigger people in society. When it’s beneficial to them, they can be dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI think this scene is a very valuable scene because it shows us how ruthless the three "bounty hunters" are. If they are willing to kill a man for merely asking for socks then they are for sure going to be willing to kill McCabe if their boss asked them to. I don't know about McCabe but when I heard that those three men who were clearly there to kill him killed that man for no reason (which is most likely did because the town was so small) I would have skipped town within seconds. These men meant business and they wanted everyone to know it but that may have been there purpose because if McCabe did in fact skip town then the oil company probably could have taken his land for free which would have been even better for them. In all this scene conveyed a lot about the bounty hunters and maybe even more about McCabe because he had the guts to stay even when he heard they killed a man because he asked for socks.
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