Dish of the Day
Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Today’s “Dish of the Day” has a brief review of mine that was inspired by a post in one of the film related Facebook chat rooms. This includes the Cinema Cafe group (all readers are encouraged to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/902349343110685).
The following review is for one of my Top Ten Guilty Treasure runner ups. The complete set of entries for which can be seen here.
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
The Quick and the Dead is, first and foremost, a variational send up of western tropes served spaghetti style. Please don’t expect to encounter much deeper disclosure along the way. At the same time, the filmmakers (led by the vivacious director Sam Raimi) synergistically develop an impressive array of semi-serious interlocking plot and character threads while exercising an uncommon visual flair and authoritative oversight. The technical crew are all aces with an Italian marriage made in creative heaven between cinematographer Dante Spinotti and editor Pietro Scalia. Composer Alan Silvestri adds just the right amount of south of the border spice by perfectly complementing scenes both lively and sombre. And just look at that cast! We'll probably never see the likes of a group of big name stars joined together like that again (unless it's in one of those superhero films where the actors don't do much anyway but pose and look tough). The Quick and the Dead makes for an interesting comparison to The Hateful Eight (2015) which also directs the viewer’s attention to frequently employed genre motifs that nevertheless prove to be largely engrossing by the manner in which they unfold. At the same time, both sets of filmmakers share a carefree approach to mise en scène in that the audience need not take the portrayed events too seriously… and are better off if they don’t. * The Quick and the Dead’s storytellers succeed in extracting the fun from profundity by presenting their colourful characters in a setting that, although readily recognisable, still has enough tricks up its sleeve to fill viewers with that special joyfulness cinema done right can provide.
* There’s a lack of attention to establishing the gunfight competition that forms this film’s dramatic centrepiece. It seems scarcely credible that an event sponsored in part by Wells Fargo with such an enormous pay off of $123, 000 (the equivalent of over $3 million in today’s currency) has so few participants, little supervision, and is run by just one man (Herod, played by Gene Hackman). Herod even manages to change the rules later during the competition to a “life or death” match-up.
All responses are not only welcomed but encouraged in the comments section below.
Hope to see you tomorrow.
A.G.