The Shooting
Encyclopedia
The Shooting is a 1966
western film
directed by Monte Hellman
, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman
(using the pseudonym
"Adrien Joyce"). It stars Warren Oates
, Millie Perkins
, Will Hutchins
, and Jack Nicholson
, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her to a town located many miles across the desert. During their journey, they are closely tracked by a black-clad gunslinger
who seems intent on killing all of them.
The film was shot in 1965 in the Utah
desert, back-to-back with Hellman's similar western, Ride in the Whirlwind
, which also starred Nicholson. Both films were shown at several international film festivals but it was not until 1968 that the U.S. distribution rights were purchased by the Walter Reade Organization
. No other domestic distributor had expressed any interest in the films. Walter Reade decided to bypass a theatrical release, and the two titles were sold directly to television.
, returns to his small mining camp
after a lengthy absence and finds his slow-witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins
) in a state of fear. Coley explains to Gashade that their partner, Leland Drum (B. J. Merholz), had been shot to death two days before by an unseen assassin. The killing was possibly committed in revenge for the accidental trampling death of “a little person” in town, which may have been caused by Gashade’s brother, Coin. Coin had inexplicably rushed away from their camp moments before the shooting death. Gashade and Coley become increasingly paranoid
, and Gashade takes his friend’s gun away from him.
The following day, a young woman (Perkins) shoots her horse to death immediately outside of the camp. The sound of the gunshot temporarily sends the frightened Coley into hiding. Gashade examines the dead horse and notes that it appeared to be perfectly healthy. The woman offers Gashade a thousand dollars to lead her to a place called Kingsley. Although openly distrustful of her, he grudgingly accepts the offer. Coley, apparently smitten by the woman, accompanies them.
The young woman is rude and insulting to both Gashade and Coley. She refuses to tell them her name. The three stop briefly in Crosstree. Gashade learns that Coin was seen there only a day or two before. As they continue traveling slowly through the hot desert, Gashade observes that they are being followed by a stranger dressed in black, Billy Spear (Nicholson), who continues to keep his distance from them. Gashade sees that the woman appears to be signaling to the man. Coley makes attempts to talk to the woman but she continually taunts and insults him. She also repeatedly refuses to answer any of Gashade’s questions regarding the purpose of their journey.
At night, Spear suddenly walks into their camp and joins them. Hired by the woman as a gunslinger for reasons unknown, Spear is suspicious and hostile toward Gashade and contemptuous of Coley. He repeatedly threatens both of their lives. Gashade advises Coley to keep away from Spear.
The woman rides her horse hard. When it dies of exhaustion, Coley gives his horse to the woman and Gashade allows Coley to ride with him. Later, when Gashade's horse shows signs of fatigue, Gashade tells Coley to join the woman on her horse, but Spear forbids him from doing so. The woman says that the journey would be much easier without Coley. She and Spear demand that he be left behind. Gashade reluctantly agrees, and he tells Coley he will come back for him soon.
The three see a bearded man (Charles Eastman) sitting in the middle of the desert nursing a broken leg. The man tells the woman that the person she is seeking is only one day's ride away. She leaves him a canteen of water. Meanwhile, the bearded man's lost horse is found by Coley. He mounts the horse, and rides back to the group. He charges Spear. Spear shoots him dead. Gashade buries his friend in the sand.
All of the horses die. The group runs out of water, but they still keep moving. Gashade sees Spear growing weaker and attacks him. After knocking him unconscious, Gashade grabs a large rock and crushes the killer's gun hand. Gashade walks after the woman, who is now closely following a man up the side of a rock formation. The man turns around and Gashade sees that the man is his look-alike
brother, Coin. Gashade attempts to tackle the woman as she pulls out a gun and takes aim at Coin, but it is too late: Coin and the woman shoot each other dead. Gashade, lying next to the woman's corpse, whispers, "Coin." Spear stumbles aimlessly under the hot sun.
and Flight to Fury
, which were produced by Roger Corman
and filmed back-to-back in the Philippines
. After completing the films, the director and actor wrote a screenplay called Epitaph and presented it to Corman to produce. Corman did not care for the script but asked if the two would be willing to do a western for him instead. When they expressed an interest, Corman further suggested that they film two westerns, in a similar manner to the Philippine-shot movies they had just finished. They agreed, and while Nicholson started working on the script for Ride in the Whirlwind, Hellman asked their mutual friend Carole Eastman
to write The Shooting.
According to Hellman, Eastman's script was used almost exactly as written with no need for any rewrites. However, Hellman felt the first part of the script had too much expository material involving Gashade’s trip through the desert as he returned to the mining camp, so Hellman simply deleted it, noting that “Exposition
, by its very nature, is artificial.” After discarding the material, Hellman began shooting at approximately “Page 10” of the screenplay. He felt the story was “perfectly simple” and didn’t need any additional information to help the audience figure things out. Nonetheless, Corman insisted on Hellman inserting a certain amount of exposition that Corman hoped would help explain the story. Corman felt that if mention was made three times during the course of the film that Gashade had a brother, audiences would not be confused by the climactic sequence. Hellman reluctantly agreed.
After briefly considering Sterling Hayden
for Gashade, Hellman was shopping in a Los Angeles bookstore when he suddenly and simultaneously thought of Perkins, Warren Oates, and Will Hutchins for the main roles. Perkins was Hellman’s next door neighbor at the time, and she had known both Hellman and Nicholson for many years, having first met them while all of them were attending the same acting class. Hellman immediately telephoned Nicholson with his casting idea. Nicholson agreed that the three actors would be perfect.
Hellman and Nicholson scouted locations
for several weeks, and looked at such familiar locales as Monument Valley
before deciding on Kanab, Utah. They chose that area because it offered them both the “box canyon” needed for Whirlwind and the “desolate desert” for The Shooting.
Corman financed the picture, serving as the film's uncredited Executive Producer
. The budget was $75,000. Shooting began on April 15, 1965, with a production crew consisting of only seven individuals. During the first two days of the production, actual shooting was extremely limited due to near-constant rain which caused severe flooding in the areas they had planned to shoot. Hellman estimated that $5,000 of the already small budget was eaten up by the wasted time. Another $10,000 of the budget was for the horse wranglers’ salaries, the only union element
of the film, apart from the actors. Corman’s deal with Hellman and Nicholson was that if the film went over budget, any additional costs would come out of their own pockets. Despite the initial problems, the film was completed for the original budget estimate.
Because of the restrictively low budget, no light equipment was utilized during the shoot. Gregory Sandor shot the entire film in natural light. For the film’s many tracking shot
s, Hellman estimated the crew had only been able to bring along about eight feet of dolly tracks
.
After The Shooting was completed, production immediately commenced on Hellman’s Ride in the Whirlwind, a similarly mysterious western that also featured Nicholson and Perkins in the cast. Both films were completed in a total of six weeks of continuous shooting (three weeks per film).
Hellman reportedly spent over a year editing the films, then had them played at various film festivals throughout the world. In 1967, both films received excellent reviews at the Montreal World Film Festival
, and were shown out-of-competition at the Cannes Film Festival
.
No U.S. distributor expressed any interest in either film. Nicholson sold the foreign rights to a French film producer, but the producer went bankrupt, and the prints of both films remained in bond at the Paris airport for almost two years. After "considerable legal maneuvering", Hellman and Nicholson were able to get the rights reverted back to them. In 1968, Hellman managed to get both films theatrical showings in Paris, France, albeit without a distributor. According to Hellman, The Shooting was a sizeable arthouse hit and played for over a year in Paris. Also in 1968, the U.S. rights for both were sold to the Walter Reade Organization, a New York-based theatre chain that occasionally distributed films (they also handled the initial release of Night of the Living Dead
). They decided to pass on a theatrical release. Instead, both films were sold directly to television. In 1971, theatrical rights to the film were obtained by Jack H. Harris Enterprises Inc., who purchased the rights based "on the strength of Jack Nicholson's new-found fame." Although publicity materials were produced, the Internet Movie Database
shows no record of any subsequent release having occurred under Harris.
As The Shooting was never released theatrically, and had sparse television showings, it initially had a very limited core of fans. Those critics who did manage to view the film were extremely enthusiastic, and generally found it superior to Hellman’s companion western, Ride in the Whirlwind. Danny Peary
in Cult Movies (1981), after admitting that he had difficulties with the “puzzling” climax, noted “But while the end may ask more questions than it answers, the exciting journey that brings us to this point is one of the most rewarding sequences in the history of westerns.” Leonard Maltin
said it was an “…ultimately powerful film with an offbeat performance by Nicholson as a hired gun…and an incredible, unexpected finale.” David Pirie
in Time Out wrote, "Probably the first Western which really deserves to be called existential
....Hellman builds remorselessly on the atmosphere and implications of the 'quest' until it assumes a terrifying importance in itself...What Hellman has done is to take the basic tools of the Western, and use them, without in anyway diluting or destroying their power, as the basis for a Kafkaesque drama." Phil Hardy
's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
: The Western notes that "Hellman's calculated style, replete with disorientating close-ups and strange moments...confirm the detached fatalism of his story. This is a marvelous film." James Monaco
's The Movie Guide described the film as "[H]ighly effective, playing with various levels of character and ideas....it is a fine western stylization that should not be missed." Jonathan Rosenbaum
has referred to the film as the first acid western
, and cited it as an inspiration for Jim Jarmusch
's Dead Man
. The Shooting has a 100% favorable rating on the "Critical Tomatometer" at the Rotten Tomatoes
website.
In 2000, The Shooting was released on DVD by VCI Entertainment, and included an audio commentary
by director Hellman and actress Perkins. The DVD helped bring this once obscure title to the attention of a much wider audience.
1966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
western film
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
directed by Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman , was an American screenwriter. Among her relatively few credits were screenplays for Monte Hellman's The Shooting , Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces , and Mike Nichols’s The Fortune...
(using the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Adrien Joyce"). It stars Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
, Millie Perkins
Millie Perkins
Millie Perkins is an American film and television actress.Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Millie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Her father was a merchant marine captain...
, Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...
, and Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her to a town located many miles across the desert. During their journey, they are closely tracked by a black-clad gunslinger
Gunslinger
Gunfighter, also gunslinger , is a 20th century word, used in cinema or literature, referring to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation as being dangerous with a gun...
who seems intent on killing all of them.
The film was shot in 1965 in the Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
desert, back-to-back with Hellman's similar western, Ride in the Whirlwind
Ride in the Whirlwind
Ride in the Whirlwind is a 1965 western directed by Monte Hellman, starring Jack Nicholson, Millie Perkins, and Harry Dean Stanton. Nicholson also wrote and produced the film.- Plot :...
, which also starred Nicholson. Both films were shown at several international film festivals but it was not until 1968 that the U.S. distribution rights were purchased by the Walter Reade Organization
Walter Reade
Walter Reade Sr was the man behind a chain of theatres which grew from a single theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a chain of forty theatres and drive-ins in New Jersey, New York and neighboring states that lasted into the mid seventies. Known as the “Showman of The Shore,” his name was...
. No other domestic distributor had expressed any interest in the films. Walter Reade decided to bypass a theatrical release, and the two titles were sold directly to television.
Plot
Willet Gashade (Oates), a former bounty hunterBounty hunter
A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
, returns to his small mining camp
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
after a lengthy absence and finds his slow-witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...
) in a state of fear. Coley explains to Gashade that their partner, Leland Drum (B. J. Merholz), had been shot to death two days before by an unseen assassin. The killing was possibly committed in revenge for the accidental trampling death of “a little person” in town, which may have been caused by Gashade’s brother, Coin. Coin had inexplicably rushed away from their camp moments before the shooting death. Gashade and Coley become increasingly paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
, and Gashade takes his friend’s gun away from him.
The following day, a young woman (Perkins) shoots her horse to death immediately outside of the camp. The sound of the gunshot temporarily sends the frightened Coley into hiding. Gashade examines the dead horse and notes that it appeared to be perfectly healthy. The woman offers Gashade a thousand dollars to lead her to a place called Kingsley. Although openly distrustful of her, he grudgingly accepts the offer. Coley, apparently smitten by the woman, accompanies them.
At night, Spear suddenly walks into their camp and joins them. Hired by the woman as a gunslinger for reasons unknown, Spear is suspicious and hostile toward Gashade and contemptuous of Coley. He repeatedly threatens both of their lives. Gashade advises Coley to keep away from Spear.
The woman rides her horse hard. When it dies of exhaustion, Coley gives his horse to the woman and Gashade allows Coley to ride with him. Later, when Gashade's horse shows signs of fatigue, Gashade tells Coley to join the woman on her horse, but Spear forbids him from doing so. The woman says that the journey would be much easier without Coley. She and Spear demand that he be left behind. Gashade reluctantly agrees, and he tells Coley he will come back for him soon.
The three see a bearded man (Charles Eastman) sitting in the middle of the desert nursing a broken leg. The man tells the woman that the person she is seeking is only one day's ride away. She leaves him a canteen of water. Meanwhile, the bearded man's lost horse is found by Coley. He mounts the horse, and rides back to the group. He charges Spear. Spear shoots him dead. Gashade buries his friend in the sand.
All of the horses die. The group runs out of water, but they still keep moving. Gashade sees Spear growing weaker and attacks him. After knocking him unconscious, Gashade grabs a large rock and crushes the killer's gun hand. Gashade walks after the woman, who is now closely following a man up the side of a rock formation. The man turns around and Gashade sees that the man is his look-alike
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...
brother, Coin. Gashade attempts to tackle the woman as she pulls out a gun and takes aim at Coin, but it is too late: Coin and the woman shoot each other dead. Gashade, lying next to the woman's corpse, whispers, "Coin." Spear stumbles aimlessly under the hot sun.
Production
In 1964, Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson had made two films together, Back Door to HellBack Door to Hell
Back Door to Hell is a 1964 film concerning a three-man team of United States soldiers preparing the way for Gen. MacArthur's World War II return to the Philippines by destroying a Japanese communications center. It was produced on a relatively small budget and received lukewarm reviews, and is...
and Flight to Fury
Flight to Fury
Flight to Fury is a 1964 film starring Jack Nicholson, and Dewey Martin. The film was directed by Monte Hellman and filmed back to back with Back Door to Hell in the Philippines....
, which were produced by Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
and filmed back-to-back in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. After completing the films, the director and actor wrote a screenplay called Epitaph and presented it to Corman to produce. Corman did not care for the script but asked if the two would be willing to do a western for him instead. When they expressed an interest, Corman further suggested that they film two westerns, in a similar manner to the Philippine-shot movies they had just finished. They agreed, and while Nicholson started working on the script for Ride in the Whirlwind, Hellman asked their mutual friend Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman , was an American screenwriter. Among her relatively few credits were screenplays for Monte Hellman's The Shooting , Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces , and Mike Nichols’s The Fortune...
to write The Shooting.
According to Hellman, Eastman's script was used almost exactly as written with no need for any rewrites. However, Hellman felt the first part of the script had too much expository material involving Gashade’s trip through the desert as he returned to the mining camp, so Hellman simply deleted it, noting that “Exposition
Exposition (plot device)
At the beginning of a narrative, the exposition is the author's providing of some background information to the audience about the plot, characters' histories, setting, and theme. Exposition is considered one of four rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and narration...
, by its very nature, is artificial.” After discarding the material, Hellman began shooting at approximately “Page 10” of the screenplay. He felt the story was “perfectly simple” and didn’t need any additional information to help the audience figure things out. Nonetheless, Corman insisted on Hellman inserting a certain amount of exposition that Corman hoped would help explain the story. Corman felt that if mention was made three times during the course of the film that Gashade had a brother, audiences would not be confused by the climactic sequence. Hellman reluctantly agreed.
After briefly considering Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
for Gashade, Hellman was shopping in a Los Angeles bookstore when he suddenly and simultaneously thought of Perkins, Warren Oates, and Will Hutchins for the main roles. Perkins was Hellman’s next door neighbor at the time, and she had known both Hellman and Nicholson for many years, having first met them while all of them were attending the same acting class. Hellman immediately telephoned Nicholson with his casting idea. Nicholson agreed that the three actors would be perfect.
Hellman and Nicholson scouted locations
Location scouting
Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work that is shot outside of the studio, the search for a...
for several weeks, and looked at such familiar locales as Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...
before deciding on Kanab, Utah. They chose that area because it offered them both the “box canyon” needed for Whirlwind and the “desolate desert” for The Shooting.
Corman financed the picture, serving as the film's uncredited Executive Producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
. The budget was $75,000. Shooting began on April 15, 1965, with a production crew consisting of only seven individuals. During the first two days of the production, actual shooting was extremely limited due to near-constant rain which caused severe flooding in the areas they had planned to shoot. Hellman estimated that $5,000 of the already small budget was eaten up by the wasted time. Another $10,000 of the budget was for the horse wranglers’ salaries, the only union element
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
of the film, apart from the actors. Corman’s deal with Hellman and Nicholson was that if the film went over budget, any additional costs would come out of their own pockets. Despite the initial problems, the film was completed for the original budget estimate.
Because of the restrictively low budget, no light equipment was utilized during the shoot. Gregory Sandor shot the entire film in natural light. For the film’s many tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...
s, Hellman estimated the crew had only been able to bring along about eight feet of dolly tracks
Camera dolly
A camera dolly is a specialized piece of filmmaking and television production equipment designed to create smooth camera movements . The camera is mounted to the dolly and the camera operator and focus puller or camera assistant, usually ride on the dolly to operate the camera...
.
After The Shooting was completed, production immediately commenced on Hellman’s Ride in the Whirlwind, a similarly mysterious western that also featured Nicholson and Perkins in the cast. Both films were completed in a total of six weeks of continuous shooting (three weeks per film).
Hellman reportedly spent over a year editing the films, then had them played at various film festivals throughout the world. In 1967, both films received excellent reviews at the Montreal World Film Festival
Montreal World Film Festival
The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
, and were shown out-of-competition at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
No U.S. distributor expressed any interest in either film. Nicholson sold the foreign rights to a French film producer, but the producer went bankrupt, and the prints of both films remained in bond at the Paris airport for almost two years. After "considerable legal maneuvering", Hellman and Nicholson were able to get the rights reverted back to them. In 1968, Hellman managed to get both films theatrical showings in Paris, France, albeit without a distributor. According to Hellman, The Shooting was a sizeable arthouse hit and played for over a year in Paris. Also in 1968, the U.S. rights for both were sold to the Walter Reade Organization, a New York-based theatre chain that occasionally distributed films (they also handled the initial release of Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent black-and-white zombie film and cult film directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman. It premiered on October 1, 1968, and was completed on a USD$114,000 budget. After decades of cinematic re-releases, it...
). They decided to pass on a theatrical release. Instead, both films were sold directly to television. In 1971, theatrical rights to the film were obtained by Jack H. Harris Enterprises Inc., who purchased the rights based "on the strength of Jack Nicholson's new-found fame." Although publicity materials were produced, the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
shows no record of any subsequent release having occurred under Harris.
Cast
- Warren OatesWarren OatesWarren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
as Willett Gashade. By the time Warren Oates starred in The Shooting, he had become a veteran western character actorCharacter actorA character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
, having appeared in dozens of film and television series in the genreGenreGenre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
since 1957. When director Hellman first suggested Oates as the star of the film, co-star and co-producer Nicholson immediately agreed with the choice. But during the filming, Nicholson and Oates repeatedly clashed, with the two frequently ending up in screaming matches. According to Hellman, production had to shut down for half a day when Oates refused to speak a lengthy amount of dialogue in the way Hellman wanted, preferring instead to whisper the lines almost unintelligibly. Oates stormed away from the film crew in anger when the director insisted. After Oates finally returned late in the afternoon, Hellman allowed the actor to read the lines the way he wanted, as long as he also read them in Hellman's preferred manner. In the editing room, Hellman rejected Oates's version.
- Will HutchinsWill HutchinsWill Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...
as Coley. As Gashade's dimwitted friend, Hutchins was cast in the same burst of inspiration that Hellman had when he also thought of Warren Oates and Millie Perkins for the other lead roles in the film. Like Oates, when The Shooting began production Hutchins was already fully identified with the western genre, having starred for several years in the ABC-TVAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television series SugarfootSugarfootSugarfoot is the title of a TV western that aired from 1957 to 1961. The series featured Will Hutchins as fledgling frontier lawyer Tom Brewster and Jack Elam as sidekick Toothy Thompson...
, which ran from 1957 - 1961. Both Perkins and Hellman later recalled the actor as being a funny and charming man who never complained about the often adverse filming conditions.
- Millie PerkinsMillie PerkinsMillie Perkins is an American film and television actress.Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Millie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Her father was a merchant marine captain...
as The Woman. Former teen model Perkins was Hellman's next-door neighbor when she was cast as the enigmatic, unnamed woman who leads the search party to their doom. The Shooting was her sixth film, immediately followed by another starring role in Hellman's companion western, Ride in the Whirlwind. Although Perkins enjoyed working on both of Hellman's westerns, and became good friends with Warren Oates, she was dismayed that Hellman insisted on such realism that he allowed only the most minimal of makeup to be applied to the actors. She felt she was constantly filmed in an unflattering manner.
- Jack NicholsonJack NicholsonJohn Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
as Billy Spear. This was the young actor's 13th film appearance, and his fourth with director Hellman. In addition to playing the odious villainVillainA villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
, Nicholson had been asked by Hellman to co-produce the film. The director called that decision "the biggest mistake of my life." Nicholson was constantly worried about the budget and repeatedly argued with Hellman over minuscule budgetary concerns.
- Other cast: B. J. Merholz as Leland Drum, Charles Eastman as Bearded Man, Guy El Tsosie as Indian at Cross Tree, Brandon Carroll as Sheriff, Wally Moon as Deputy, William Mackleprang as Cross Tree Townsman, James Campbell as Cross Tree Townsman.
Response
Danny Peary
Danny Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.-Biography:...
in Cult Movies (1981), after admitting that he had difficulties with the “puzzling” climax, noted “But while the end may ask more questions than it answers, the exciting journey that brings us to this point is one of the most rewarding sequences in the history of westerns.” Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
said it was an “…ultimately powerful film with an offbeat performance by Nicholson as a hired gun…and an incredible, unexpected finale.” David Pirie
David Pirie
David Pirie is a screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist.As a screenwriter, Pirie has written numerous mysteries and horror-themed works, mostly for television, including recently the hit ITV series Murderland starring Robbie Coltrane . He was nominated for a BAFTA for his...
in Time Out wrote, "Probably the first Western which really deserves to be called existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
....Hellman builds remorselessly on the atmosphere and implications of the 'quest' until it assumes a terrifying importance in itself...What Hellman has done is to take the basic tools of the Western, and use them, without in anyway diluting or destroying their power, as the basis for a Kafkaesque drama." Phil Hardy
Phil Hardy (journalist)
Phil Hardy is an English film and music industry journalist. He was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1945 and studied at the University of Sussex, 1964-1969, during which time he was a visiting student at the Berkeley campus of the University of California . At Sussex he started The Brighton Film...
's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia is a multi-volume reference work on cinema, published in the UK by Aurum Press and edited by Phil Hardy. The first volume, devoted to western films, appeared in 1983, with eight subsequent volumes announced at that time as "forthcoming". However, as of 2007, only...
: The Western notes that "Hellman's calculated style, replete with disorientating close-ups and strange moments...confirm the detached fatalism of his story. This is a marvelous film." James Monaco
James Monaco
James Monaco is an American film critic, author, publisher, and educator.He has written seven books, including The New Wave : Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette , How To Read A Film and American Film Now , and edited four others.He founded Baseline in 1982, an early online database about...
's The Movie Guide described the film as "[H]ighly effective, playing with various levels of character and ideas....it is a fine western stylization that should not be missed." Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
has referred to the film as the first acid western
Acid Western
Acid Western is a sub-genre of the Western film that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s that combined the metaphorical ambitions of top-shelf Westerns, like Shane and The Searchers, with the excesses of the Spaghetti Westerns and the outlook of the counter-culture...
, and cited it as an inspiration for Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
's Dead Man
Dead Man
Dead Man is a 1995 American Western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum . The film, dubbed an "Acid Western" by its director, includes twisted...
. The Shooting has a 100% favorable rating on the "Critical Tomatometer" at the Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
website.
In 2000, The Shooting was released on DVD by VCI Entertainment, and included an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by director Hellman and actress Perkins. The DVD helped bring this once obscure title to the attention of a much wider audience.
External links
- Allmovie: The Shooting entry