Do Not Forsake Me O My Darling

[moon_custafer]

 Andrew decided to put on High Noon, which we’ve both watched before, but never together.

What strikes me this time is that the Thomas Mitchell character’s suggestion — that Kane get out of town, since he’s the one Miller is looking for, and in his absence Miller won’t know what to do and will likely be an easier arrest for the new marshall — is presented as one of the cowardly options; but “confusing the attacker by not following the script he expects” is really a pretty good strategy, even if it requires the hero to swallow his pride. But I guess that wouldn’t have fit with the “most humans are weak and a man’s gotta stand alone” theme.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

Also, now that I think about it, the scriptwriter was under investigation by HUAC at the time, and so for him it was important that the villains be *openly* defied, rather than outwitted.

[sovay]

the scriptwriter was under investigation by HUAC at the time, and so for him it was important that the villains be *openly* defied, rather than outwitted.

If we're talking Doylistically, I suspect it was important to Fred Zinnemann as well. (I know he made all sorts of movies, but High Noon really played like a mirror-flip of Act of Violence for me: what people will stand up to, what they'll stand up for.) But I do think it works on the Watsonian level, which is probably more important.

[moon_custafer]

I suspect it was important to Fred Zinnemann as well

Yes, that occurred to me just after I posted my previous comment — Andrew was playing the documentary included on the blu-ray, I heard the director’s accent and the penny dropped.

[sovay]

I heard the director’s accent and the penny dropped.

Most of his films were American, but in Germany he was part of the explosion of talent involved in Menschen am Sonntag (1930). He was Austrian himself. Both of his parents died in the Holocaust. I don't know about the rest of his family.

What was he saying in the documentary? I have never actually heard Zinnemann's voice; just read interviews with him.

[moon_custafer]

He claimed the picture didn’t have any political subtext, but I took that with a grain of salt.

He also had an anecdote about himself and the cameraman almost getting run over when they lay down on the tracks to get a shot of the train arriving, and thought the driver’s attempts to signal that the brakes weren’t working was just particularly dramatic and camera-friendly clouds of smoke....