Since it's been a while since I laid out my vision for this blog, I'll refresh everyone's memory. In posts filed under "On Second Thought," I've planned to re-watch a movie I haven't seen in some time and reflect on whether it's improved with age. For the inaugural "On Second Thought" post, I've chosen The Proposition, the 2006 hyper-violent Australian western directed by John Hillcoat.
I know, I know, this is a random choice and most of you probably don't even remember hearing about this movie. I'll try to pick more widely seen movies in the future.
I saw The Proposition only once. I actually remember a surprising number of details about the day I went to see the movie in the theater way back in the spring of 2006. But, when I re-watched it last month, I realized that I'd basically forgotten the entire plot. I remembered the movie as being extremely and brutally violent and a slow-burn thematic movie that succeeded more in terms of tone and mood than anything else. On that count, my memory wasn't far off.
However, one thing I'd forgotten about the movie -- or maybe I didn't recognize it the first time around -- was the performance of Danny Huston as the movie's central villain, Arthur Burns. He is simply outstanding in this role, a human monster the likes of Anton Chighur or Hannibal Lecter, but without the screen time. But, alas, I'm getting ahead of myself.
For those who haven't seen or even heard of The Proposition, it's a western set in the Australian outback circa 1880. The film opens with a gunfight that results in several deaths and the capture of Charlie and Mikey Burns (Guy Pearce and Richard Wilson respectively), two members of the infamous Burns gang wanted for the rape and murder of a local family.
It is obvious from the beginning that Mikey is too innocent and feeble-minded to have knowingly committed such a despicable crime. Indeed, it's obvious to everyone, which is why Captain Stanley, the local police authority played by Ray Winstone, makes Charlie an offer, a proposition, if you will: If Charlie can hunt down and kill his brother Arthur (Huston), he and Mikey can go free. But, if he fails, Mikey will hang for the crimes.
Arthur is a baddy on an entirely different level. The authorities are too scared to try to apprehend him, so his horrific crimes continue to go unpunished. Luckily, there had been a falling out between Charlie and Arthur, which the Captain thinks he can exploit. Charlie accepts the deal heads off in search of his brother. Along the way, he runs into a bounty hunter played by John Hurt and gets speared by aborigines, eventually waking up in Arthur's camp trying to recover from his injuries.
It's at this point that we meet Arthur. I don't know why I didn't pay enough attention to Huston's performance the first time I saw this movie, I really don't. His work in this film is subtle, layered, yet ultimately terrifying. Arther is not a psychopath, he's just unabashedly a bad, bad man.
Consider this scene which takes place soon after Charlie arrives in Arthur's camp. It's quite clear that Arthur suspects that Charlie intends to kill him, yet he pretends to believe Charlie's every word. This isn't revealed through lazy dialogue or exposition, it's revealed in the way the actors deliver the lines, the way they look at one another. By the end of the scene, they both know the conversation is a lie. Part of that is good writing, but, more than anything, it's superb acting.
In these next two clips, Huston conveys such cold, inhuman brutality that it's staggering. Most actors playing someone this horrific resort to chewing up the scenery, screaming their lines and waiving their arms. Huston does it here with quite efficiency, inhabiting his character instead of just reciting the lines.
WARNING: Both clips are pretty violent. If you're squeamish, you way want to pass over them.
So, yeah...this movie definitely pushes the envelope in terms of violence, and both times I've watched it I haven't been able to decide whether that's a good thing or bad thing in terms of telling the story. After all, violence is kinda what the movie is all about.
Captain Stanley, who is basically a good man, is trying to civilize and bring order to the territory, so he takes the step of letting a criminal - a killer - go free in order to achieve his goal. At the same time, he keeps his younger, more naive wife fenced up in a home that is far more luxurious than one might expect. Yet, at one point, even his innocent wife, angered by the crimes of the Burns gang, demands violence, insisting that Stanley given into angry mob and allow Mikey Burns be beaten and whipped, a punishment that was tantamount to a death sentence.
The idea that violence is inevitable, even natural is kind of the point. So, while The Proposition may be overly brutal, I don't know that I'd call it excessive given what's its trying to accomplish thematically. Indeed, if the movie pulled its punches, I don't know that it could convey such themes effectively.
Anyway, after seeing this movie a second time, I think my initial overall evaluation from 2006 was accurate, even if I did overlook some of the acting the first time around. This is a very good movie. It is by no means perfect. It drags at a few places, it occasionally goes overboard with new-agey music and mood, and they never seem to know what they're doing with Guy Pearce's character, so he sometimes comes off as a skinny, bearded blank slate. But, all in all, it is definitely one of the very best westerns made in the last decade.
In 2006, I'd have given it three and a half stars. In 2012, I think it deserves the same rating.
By the way, as I mentioned, The Proposition was directed by John Hillcoat. It was his first feature film and, since then, he has directed only two other movies. The first was the 2008 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, another wonderful movie whose only flaw is that it doesn't achieve the impossible task of being as good as its source material.
The second is out later this year and is one of my most anticipated movies of the 2012. It's called Lawless. Take a gander at the trailer:
And, finally, here's the trailer to The Proposition:
I'll have to revisit this one. I remember thinking it was interesting, slow, full of dread, and super violent. Danny Huston is a very good actor, and deserves some award attention one of these years. He was a great creep in "The Constant Gardener", too.
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