The Big Country

DVD, The Big Country (1958) film

This is not your traditional Western. Oh yes, it starts with an immediately exciting theme as good as any of the genre, or even of any film: stirring and soaring, rumbling and emboldened, a suitably triumphant opening, though it disguises a completely mundane beginning without threat or danger, it's simply a man riding fast across the land, which is, as the characters are fond of saying, big. This way of subverting audience expectation could well be the theme of the whole film. At first, it seems to be the usual kind of story - no-good scoundrels make an appearance before long and show Jim McKay, the man from back east, to be someone who isn't willing to put up a fight, seemingly. You begin to wonder why Gregory Peck wanted to play a character that seems so weak and wishy-washy, but even at this early stage a positive aspect of his character shines through in the way he doesn't get upset about the bullying and rough handling he receives. He bears no grudge and even expects to be treated like that since he's a greenhorn new to the ways of the west. This is the first indication the film isn't necessarily going to follow the cliches of the genre.

The pace is relatively slow, but this only serves to emphasise the regular intervals when something does happen - a fight, an argument, a personal triumph or some important plot point. The director isn't shy of lingering on an image, waiting for something to happen: the scene where McKay rides away from Julie's house then in the background three horses appear over the hill. Or when Julie is lying asleep on a bed in the Hennessey house and the door eventually opens behind her. Or when the Major rides into a canyon, grimly determined and alone, and gradually, in dribs and drabs, horsemen follow him. Such moments hold a greater tension than if the scene had cut to different views, and emphasises the danger of the situation or the resolve of the characters without need for words. The subtlety of the film strengthens it, my favourite example being Jim's look to Steve Leech at the end. We know they're both remembering back to another moment in the film, and we don't need any other explanation for the way they both feel at that moment.

Spread out over its almost 'The Lord of The Rings' length (and it might have been as long if there had been as many credits at the end), is an unfolding tale of hatred between two men. This is not what appears to be the case at first. It seems to be a simple case of the goodies and the baddies, and of course the family McKay is marrying into are the goodies. But it doesn't pan out that simple, as the true colours of each person are slowly revealed: Pat the fiance seems like the person to teach Jim the ways out west, but she learns more from him. (I felt she needed someone like Steve to knock her into shape and keep her fiery spirit in check - I imagine they would have bounced off each other better than she and McKay, though Steve was a bit of an over-presumptive sort). She was reeled in by the 'exotic' nature of this eastern man, but once out west he showed he wasn't quite the man she wanted or expected. Julie the schoolmarm, on the other hand, just a friend of Pat's, becomes the touchpaper of the powder keg between the two warring families. Pat's Father, the Major, at first a wise and tough old soldier, is shown up as a man that bears a grudge above all else, his personal vendetta against Hennessey fuelling a feud between communities. He's the 'goodie' who was only looking out for law and order when McKay first met him, but is a stubborn mule driven by hate, as bad as, if not worse than his enemy.

Hennessey appears to be a lying scaremonger, but we discover he's someone who sticks to his ideals rigidly to the last road, even when they hurt him, or when he does something against his own flesh and blood because he believes in fair play. Burl Ives won the 1958 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his excellent performance, holding anger, hatred, and violence with right upbringing and truth, a conflicted character, and a tragic one too. His own son Buck is the leader of the drunken rabble that assault McKay on his first visit, but his toughness is shown to be cowardice of the lowest kind, spat on by his own Father. His opposite is Steve Leech, raised by Major Turrel - a tough that'll do any deed if it comes from the Major, he learns what kind of a man McKay really is, and is shamed enough to speak out for him (not exactly for him, but he tries to dissuade the Major from a rash course of action, thanks to McKay's actions). He seems like trouble himself, but he does it for his master, who has some blame for the way he brought him up.

The most obvious character to change is Jim McKay - a greenhorn, like a reed in the wind, who is actually tougher than anyone could know. He doesn't really change, it's just our understanding of him that does. Everything he does is for his own self image, not anyone else's view of him. It turns out he's far stronger than we could have guessed because he truly doesn't care about other's opinions, only how he sees himself. McKay shows himself to be patient, persevering, merciful and modest, honest to himself and others, and not vengeful. Far from the coward others guess him to be before they know him, which is a good moral on judging people too soon.

From a technical point of view, the 2004 vanilla DVD release, which I was watching, was flawed - it made me wonder sometimes if the film would have been better in black and white as the colours are a bit washed out and there were occasional marks on the film. I imagine a restored and fully remastered edition would be useful for showing everything in better quality with a greater vibrancy, but it isn't a big complaint as the vistas are as wide and impressive as you could hope for, with the full widescreen ratio really used to great effect in a way that films of this time don't always make the most of.

The film ends abruptly, I was expecting a few minutes of that excellent theme to close out the picture, so it doesn't quite give you enough time to take in all that has happened. Then again, with such a long running time you have plenty of space to take it in as you go along! As I said, it's not the traditional western because the rules are turned on their head. McKay gets away with not doing the expected things until his choosing, their aren't goodies and baddies as such, but three-dimensional people that live by strong ideals, sadly driven by deep hatred at the centre between the two leaders. That the soft-spoken and unmoved outsider should be able to come between them is a mastery of storytelling, believable, and a slowly revealed joy of satisfaction. The bad are punished, the good win out. Perhaps it is a traditional western after all?

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