Classic Movie Review: The Shooting (1966)

The Shooting (1966) 

Directed by: Monte Hellman.

Written by: Carole Eastman.

Starring: Warren Oates (Willett Gashade), Millie Perkins (Woman), Jack Nicholson (Billy Spear), Will Hutchins (Coley), Charles Eastman (Bearded Man), Guy El Tsosie (Indian), Brandon Carroll (Sheriff), B.J. Merholz (Leland Drum), Wally Moon (Deputy), William Mackleprang (Cross Tree Townsman), James Campbell (Cross Tree Townsman). 

 

Monte Hellman’s The Shooting wasn’t really released in 1966, when it was finished – outside of a few film festivals and a stint in European art houses. It garnered more a released in the 1970s, when one of its stars – Jack Nicholson – became the biggest movie star in the world, and its reputation grew steadily over the years – despite the fact that it wasn’t easy to see. Now that it is easily seen, it can take its proper place as one of the best Westerns of the 1960s – and a key film in the genre as a whole. It is seen as the first Acid Western – combining classic Western elements from American films (Anthony Mann is a clear influence), with the surrealism of the Spaghetti Western. It is an existential Western – clearly a product of the chaos of the decade that produced it. It also somewhat predicts the Westerns of that Sam Peckinpah would start making with 1969’s The Wild Bunch (his earlier films were leading to what he did with that, and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia as well) and Clint Eastwood – about the dying Old West. Written by Carole Eastman – who would go on to write Five Easy Pieces – and directed by Hellman with a mixture of surreal and dread, The Shooting builds to a climax that you won’t forget – even if (or especially because) of its ambiguity.

 

The great Warren Oates stars in the film as Willet Gashade – a former bounty hunter, turned gold miner – who returns to his land to find one partner dead and buried, his brother on the run, and their simple minded employee Coley (Will Hutchins) scared and at a loss to describe just what happened – something about Will’s brother killing a little one – maybe a child in town – and the partner being shot dead out of nowhere. They are soon joined by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) – who offers them a lot of money to take her to a town a few weeks ride away. Will and Colely go along for the ride – Will is suspicious from the start, but feels he must see it through, and Colely mooning over Perkins. Will knows they are being followed by someone – and eventually, that someone will join them. It is Billy Spear (Nicholson) – a hired killer – who the woman has hired. Will figures out they aren’t really going to the other town – they’re on the hunt for someone up ahead – and when they take a turn into the desert, it increases the pressure on the group.

 

In many ways, The Shooting is structured like many a classic Western, and main characters are admittedly archetypes more than they are real characters. Hellman and Eastman are not really after the idea of upending the tropes of the Western, as much as they are twisting them. There is nothing glamorous or romantic about this film. There are strange, surreal touches throughout the movie – like Colely offering a dying man candy as he lays baking in the desert sun with a broken leg. Willet seems resigned to the journey – knowing it seems from the outset that only death awaits them, even as he says he’s along to try and stop the killing he knows the journey is for. It’s another great turn by Oates. Perkins remains an enigma throughout the film – while we will eventually learn who everyone else is, who they are chasing, etc. – we never really learn anything about her, not even her name, and certainly not why she’s on this journey – or why she seems sickly along the way. Had the film been released properly, perhaps it could have been the star making turn for Nicholson that Easy Rider would be three years later, although perhaps not. It is a great early Nicholson performance – but it’s a heartless and cruel one, with one glimpses of that dangerous charm he exudes. Here, he’s a killer – and not one you like.

 

The film moves on to its inevitable, yet still baffling, conclusion. You can probably figure out who they are chasing – even if you don’t know why – but the film isn’t really about that, not really. As the movie progresses, and this group turns on each other in interesting ways – and one by one, they end up walking through the desert instead of on their horses, the film turns more surreal and existential. What does this all mean after all? The movie is more powerful for not answering.

 

The Shooting is a great film – a key Western in the genre’s history (and on a side note, further proof that superhero movies are merely just modern day Westerns as some have argued – some me a superhero movie like The Shooting, and maybe I’ll change my mind). It’s one of my favorite genres, and it keeps surprising me with gems like this from its past that had somehow escaped me. It’s not quite the stone cold masterpiece that Hellman’s Two Lane Blacktop (1971) was – a kind of anti-Easy Rider that saw clearly the rot setting in, but it’s cut from the same cloth.