Program

Women of the American Frontier

The Furies, dir. Anthony Mann

A film program on the occasion of an exhibition of Wyoming photographer Lora Webb Nichols (1883-1962) at BWA Studio Gallery in Wroclaw.

Lora Webb Nichols’ photography provides an extraordinary insight into the life in wide open Wyoming at the beginning of the 20th century. Lora’s female gaze, compared to studio portraits of the time is intimate and her photos tare taken spontaneously in the middle of the action. She was a strong woman who managed to follow her passion and business plan to become a photographer while having six kids and struggling with the poverty for most of her life.

This is also the key to the film retrospective. The women going their way in a beautiful but hostile nature, and a new world that was just beginning to take shape and create new laws and rules. Among other things, the West was an occasion to build a society from scratch. Wyoming was the first place to give women the right to vote as early as in 1869. In the West, women were allowed to get divorced and were not as stigmatized by that like they were in the Eastern states; the state didn’t want to take care of them. They could do business and become self-made women.

The women in the pictures in the program are finding their way: women in Meek’s Cutoff are obeying to the men’s decision of to go to the West but it’s them who are more intuitive and open to contact with the Native American culture.

Protagonist of Heaven’s Gate is based on a real character of Ellen Watson, who wanted to start a new life at the frontier and knowing her rights she didn’t want to sell her land to the land barons. Heroine of Johnny Guitar doesn’t want to sell her land either and stands by herself. The protagonist of The Furies wants to have the same power like men and she goes for it. Even fragile Marilyn is finding her strong voice of revolt against the men’s world in The Misfits.

The Furies (dir. Antony Mann, 1950)

Melodrama and western together, dark, psychological and stylish, inspired by King Lear, with outstanding performances by Walter Huston and Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck plays Vance, the headstrong daughter of a wealthy, confident rancher waging war against Mexicans who have settled the land in New Mexico. She is banished from the family ranch by a father in love with her future stepmother and decides to take revenge on her father.

Mann's interest in his westerns was not in history or the creation of American mythology like John Ford, but in existential dilemmas. His characters struggle so much more with themselves than with an evil antagonist.

Vance is, for the films of her time, a remarkably complex and strong female character: faithful and loving to his father, but also manipulative and lustful for power, whose women were renewed. Vance on the carriage says to the man next to her: “Do you mind if I take the reins? I like to know where I'm going.”

Johnny Guitar (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner outside a small western town. A railroad will run through the settlement and is expected to turn it into a boom town. A big rancher and a local banker covet Vienna's land and plot to drive her out of business and out of town. When a stagecoach is stopped nearby (and the banker's brother is killed), they falsely accuse Vienna's lover. Vienna then enlists the help of her former lover, former fast gunfighter and now fast guitarist Johnnyho (Hayden).

One of the most stylish westerns from classic of American cinema, directed by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause). Still within the Hollywood system, the film is a showcase exercise in style and film acting, especially by Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden. The dialogues here are more poetry and it is the emotions that move the action and plot forward.

Crawford herself bought the rights to the story and gave the script a rewrite to further nuance her character and make her the main protagonist.

The Misfits (dir. John Huston, 1961)

Roslyn arrives in Reno, Nevada to get a quick divorce. She meets two rootless outsiders, mechanic Guido and aging cowboy Gay, who take her to a house in the desert. Both men fall in love with Roslyn. Together with the weary rodeo rider Perce, the four of them go on a wild horse hunt. When Roslyn learns that they intend to turn the wild horses into dog food, she rebels.

A film that was ahead of its time, considered the first revisionist western, written with incredible empathy for all the characters. Elegant, extremely poignant, capturing the open spaces and magic of the desert, with the last exceptional role of Clark Gable and phenomenal Marilyn Monroe.

As Jonas Mekas wrote about her for the Village Voice: “There is a truth in her small details, in her reactions to cruelty, to false masculinity, to nature, to life, to death – everything that is overpowering, making her one of the most tragic and contemporary figures in modern cinema.”

 

Heaven's Gate (dir. Michael Cimino, 1980)

The film is inspired by true events in Wyoming in 1892, which is known as the Johnson County War. The mission of 52 armed men was to shoot 70 people named by one of the leaders in order to expel new immigrants from land that cattle ranchers had illegally monopolized. The invaders included some of Wyoming's most powerful cattle ranchers and hired gunmen. They were never tried. In the film, Sheriff Jim takes the side of the immigrants. His girlfriend Ella, who runs a local brothel, is also on the death list.

Ella’s character is based on the real-life character Cattle Kate. She was a cattle rancher who was lynched for not wanting to sell her land to the cattle barons. She was simply a woman who wanted to start a life on the frontier.

Michael Cimino's most ambitious project. An epic, full-blooded vision of American westward expansion that captures its price with emotional power. Once seen as a failure, today considered a masterpiece.

Meek's Cutoff (dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2011)

1845. the beginning of the Oregon Trail, through which the first pioneers go to the West Coast. Three families hire the experienced Meek to guide them. Claiming to know a shortcut, Meek leads them along an unmarked path through the desert but gets lost.

The pioneers are on the road for months and must face weather, unfamiliar land, disease and exhaustion, hunger and lack of water. On top of that, they also lack confidence in themselves and in the rightness of their decision. When they meet a Native American on their path, they have to decide whether to trust him, a natural enemy from a completely different culture, or stick with their failed guide.

Kelly Reichardt's female anti-western belongs to her best films. The director was concerned with maximum credibility and authenticity, so the actors on the set were in the same clothes all the time, like pioneers on the trail. In contrast to the western's myth-building, Reichardt focuses on the women's micro-world, their struggle with each day and its challenges.

Dominika Prejdová, curator of the retrospective and exhibition

The matrons of the section are Final Girls.

Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny is a partner of the section.

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