Joe Kidd; the Movie
I like old westerns because I like horses and wide open spaces. I am also intrigued with the question; why would any human being want to live in a land of rocks and sand and tumble weeds and especially why would anyone fight over it.
Slowly it came to me that very few people had ever seen this rugged territory in the early days of movie making and the writers had the freedom of saying anything and projecting any image that they chose to and no one would ever be the wiser.
Joe Kidd [ Clint Eastwood ] made this movie in 1972 and that was late enough that the technology was good and so was the color.
As I have grown older I have begun to suspect that we the America people have learned a lot from cowboy movies and most of is bad stuff.
In this movie there was smoking, drinking to access and treating people with disrespect, there was injustice and plotting to take advantage of ones fellow man. Only years later did we learn that the cigarette companies and the whiskey companies paid the studios to include their products. The gun companies would later learn that the movies was a great promoter of guns and thus created an ever deepening of our gun culture.
There was not an admirable man in the whole movie, including the priest. Kidd was himself bad but gradually emerged as having slightly more courage and character than the others. None of the scenes made any sense; in fact we would all be surprised if any western had a sensible plot or if any of the characters showed common sense and logic.
For instance we see men riding for days in a land so desolate and barren that there was no water and no food for the horses, yet they remained in perfect condition.
One can only conclude that life in the real west was almost never like this. In the real west men sought fertile places to live where there was water and food for themselves and for their animals. There might have been a gun available per family but likely not one strapped to every waist. There was work to do building up the west... lots of work and it did not make sense to spend ones time shooting up other people.
Slowly it came to me that very few people had ever seen this rugged territory in the early days of movie making and the writers had the freedom of saying anything and projecting any image that they chose to and no one would ever be the wiser.
Joe Kidd [ Clint Eastwood ] made this movie in 1972 and that was late enough that the technology was good and so was the color.
As I have grown older I have begun to suspect that we the America people have learned a lot from cowboy movies and most of is bad stuff.
In this movie there was smoking, drinking to access and treating people with disrespect, there was injustice and plotting to take advantage of ones fellow man. Only years later did we learn that the cigarette companies and the whiskey companies paid the studios to include their products. The gun companies would later learn that the movies was a great promoter of guns and thus created an ever deepening of our gun culture.
There was not an admirable man in the whole movie, including the priest. Kidd was himself bad but gradually emerged as having slightly more courage and character than the others. None of the scenes made any sense; in fact we would all be surprised if any western had a sensible plot or if any of the characters showed common sense and logic.
For instance we see men riding for days in a land so desolate and barren that there was no water and no food for the horses, yet they remained in perfect condition.
One can only conclude that life in the real west was almost never like this. In the real west men sought fertile places to live where there was water and food for themselves and for their animals. There might have been a gun available per family but likely not one strapped to every waist. There was work to do building up the west... lots of work and it did not make sense to spend ones time shooting up other people.
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