The White Dawn (1974)

          With its colorful cast and impressive location photography—to say nothing of the admirable use of indigenous actors and language—The White Dawn should be engrossing. Set in the late 19th century, the story depicts what happens when three American whalers become stranded in Eskimo country, first assimilating into the local culture and then clashing with their Native hosts. The whalers are played by Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr., and Warren Oates, all of whom are interesting actors, and director Philip Kaufman—helming only his second big-budget feature—displays his signature interest in sociopolitical subtleties. Yet not even Kaufman’s ethnographic approach can enliven the dull and unmemorable storyline, which unfolds in a predictable way and suffers from a paucity of significant events. Very little about The White Dawn lingers in the memory except for a general wintry vibe, because while the cinematography is tough and vivid—director of photography Michael Chapman operates way outside his usual New York milieu, to impressive effect—the narrative lacks surprises.

          Producer Martin Ransohoff, who also wrote the underlying adaptation of the James Houston novel upon which the film is based, took a bold route by featuring extensive scenes of Inuit dialogue, and the fact that most of the cast comprises Eskimo performers gives The White Dawn authenticity other adventure pictures set in the Great White North lack. Yet one longs for a storyline as virile as those found in, say, the tales of Jack London. That said, it’s moderately diverting to watch vignettes of the white characters reacting to the strangeness of life in the Arctic Circle—as when they’re awoken by water from the melting ceiling of their igloo—and the picture features a few informative scenes showing Eskimo rituals. The White Dawn isn’t a bad film, of course, because it’s using the white characters as a means of exposing viewers to a rarely seen world, but the tone runs so close to that of a drably educational documentary that Ransohoff might have been better off just ditching the fictional contrivance altogether.

The White Dawn: FUNKY

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

          With the possible exception of Dirty Harry (1971), the offbeat Western The Outlaw Josey Wales is Clint Eastwood’s best movie of the ’70s, and also one of the most textured films in his long career. Blending a sensitive approach to character with Eastwood’s signature meditations on violence—a unique combination that resulted from Eastwood’s fractious collaboration with co-screenwriter Philip Kaufman—the picture delivers the intense action fans expect from Eastwood Westerns, but also so much more. Based on a novel by Forrest Carter, the picture was written by Kaufman and Sonia Chernus, with Kaufman originally slated to direct. Alas, Eastwood, who was the film’s de facto executive producer (though not credited as such), got into a disagreement with Kaufman partway through filming and fired Kaufman, stepping into the director’s chair himself.

          Eastwood had already helmed four features, so he was well on his way to developing a recognizable style—deep shadows, long takes, quick-cut bursts of bloody violence. Yet while it’s possible to watch the film and make educated guesses about which bits remain from Kaufman’s tenure behind the camera, the blending of two sensibilities goes much deeper than that, since Kaufman wrote a script he intended to direct and Eastwood followed that script. In any event, fused authorship gives The Outlaw Josey Wales more tonal variety than one finds in Eastwood’s other ’70s Westerns, especially because so much screen time is devoted to presenting idiosyncratic supporting characters.

          As for the plot, it’s fairly simple. Josey Wales (Eastwood) is a Missouri farmer whose family is slaughtered by a group of Northern bandits during the Civil War. Joining the Confederate cause to seek revenge, Wales annihilates several enemies but falls into conflict with the insidious Captain Fletcher (John Vernon). Once the war ends, Wales becomes a fugitive, with Fletcher his sworn enemy. Wales embarks on a long journey through the South, inadvertently gathering a surrogate family of frontier stragglers while preparing for his inevitable confrontation with Fletcher.

          As in many Eastwood pictures—notably Unforgiven (1991), which can be seen as a successor to Josey Wales—this picture investigates the question of whether a man can preserve his soul after succumbing to bloodlust. Wales is a decent, hard-working man when we meet him, but tragedy turns him into a ruthless killer. Then, once he’s out on the frontier, protecting and being protected by a strange band of friends, he becomes something more than a vigilante; he’s a strange sort of gun-toting patriarch, struggling to claim high ground while mired in moral quicksand.

          Simply by dint of the nuanced script, Eastwood’s acting has a broader range of colors here than usual, and the way his performance is decorated with weird details—like spitting tobacco onto nearly every living thing that crosses his path—makes Wales as indelible an Eastwood characterization as Dirty Harry or the Man With No Name. Vernon makes a fine foil, a craven sort who’s bold when backed up by a militia but pathetic when standing alone, and reliable character actors including Matt Clark, Bill McKinney, Woodrow Parfrey, and John Quade populate the movie’s sweaty periphery. Yet it’s the members of Wales’ surrogate family who often command the most attention. Sondra Locke, appearing in the first of many films she did with Eastwood, lends fragile beauty that contrasts the ugliness of Wales’ world, while Chief Dan George is dry, funny, and wise as Lone Watie, an aging Cherokee Indian who joins Wales’ entourage.

          Holding the movie’s potentially disparate elements together is slick technical presentation, courtesy of cinematographer Bruce Surtees and composer Jerry Fielding (both frequent Eastwood collaborators) and others. From its unique spin on gunslinger mythology to its colorful use of vivid Western archetypes, The Outlaw Josey Wales feels consistently interesting, literary, and personal.

The Outlaw Josey Wales: RIGHT ON

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

          The storyline of the 1958 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers is so tethered to the historical moment in which the film was made—a period of anti-Communist paranoia and rampant conformity—that it seemed unlikely a remake could update the storyline’s themes in a meaningful way. And yet that’s just what director Philip Kaufman and screenwriter W.D. Richter accomplished with their 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which equals the original film in terms of intelligence, social commentary, and terror. The premise, taken from Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers, is the same in each movie: An alien race arrives on earth, gestates copies of human beings in plant-like pods, and kills the human beings in order to replace them with the “pod people” who serve the alien race’s hive-mind. In the ’50s, the plot distilled the clash between jingoistic postwar Americans and the supposed radical element of domestic communists. In the ’70s, the plot crystallizes divisions between lockstep consumers and counterculture freethinkers.

          The hero of the 1978 version is Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland), a San Francisco health-department inspector who loves his co-worker, Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams), even though she’s romantically involved with an uptight businessman named Geoffrey Howell (Art Hindle). Geoffrey is among the aliens’ first victims, but since Elizabeth has no idea what’s really happened, she’s unable to explain disturbing changes in his personality. Concerned for Elizabeth’s emotional welfare, Matthew introduces her to his pal David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy), a pop psychologist with a predilection for catch phrases and turtlenecks. The Kibner angle is one of many clever flourishes in the 1978 version, because the film’s tuned-in characters initially believe they can solve their problems with talking-and-listening therapy—the very sort of human contact threatened by the aliens’ nefarious scheme. Yet Kaufman’s movie isn’t entirely preoccupied by sly observations of modern life, because the director is just as adept at generating excitement.

          The picture has a menacing atmosphere right from the first frames, with everything from shadowy photography to the weird look of the pods contributing to a frightful aesthetic. Kaufman stages a number of effective suspense scenes, like the scary bit at a mud bath run by Matthew’s friends Jack (Jeff Goldblum) and Nancy (Veronica Cartwright). Richter’s witty dialogue and Kaufman’s preference for naturalistic acting allow the actors to sketch individualistic characterizations, and Nimoy, in particular, benefits from the sophisticated storytelling—this is probably his best work outside the Star Trek universe. Watch out, too, for a just-right cameo by Kevin McCarthy, the star of the 1958 version—and do yourself a favor by ignoring the underwhelming later versions of this story, which include the Abel Ferrara-directed dud Body Snatchers(1993) and the Nicole Kidman-starring disaster The Invasion (2007).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: GROOVY