We already knew Taylor Sheridan could write. But what if what he really wanted to do was direct?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/09/05/qt3-movie-podcast-wind-river/
All right, Dingus, all right. I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. I’m so sorry that I didn’t want your rather bulbous head struggling to find its way through the normal-size neck hole of my finely knit sweater.
Excuse me…uh…Chris. I don’t want to get into a big thing here, but…I’m not sure if technically what you just said was actually an apology.
-xtien
Graham Greene cannot be in this movie because he died in 1991.
He was such a quiet American no one noticed that he faked his own death.
And they say there are no second acts in American lives.
-xtien
Good podcast! I was afraid that y’all would hate this.
I chuckled when Tom kept calling the coyotes “wolves” and the oil rig a “mine.” As noted in the companion topic ( Wind River (2017) Written and Directed by Taylor Sheridan ), I saw this in a theater in Wyoming where I was the only guy who wasn’t a Native American, and many of them clapped at several points…and also laughed at some parts where I didn’t observe anything to cause amusement. I think that Sheridan might have tapped into some cultural idiosyncrasies that my knowledge base has left me blind to.
Dude, we have coyotes here in Los Angeles. I’ve seen them. Scruffy looking things that you would mistake for mangy dogs if they didn’t have freaky big ears. Wind River had the kind of badass things that would eat Liam Neeson, James Badge Dale, and Frank Grillo. Smart, too. I mean, did you see the snow-ghillie suit Jeremy Renner had to use to fool those things? I dunno, maybe they got some kinda new-fangled superpowered bionic ubercoyotes out there. But at that point, they might as well just call them wolfs.
We also have oil rigs in Los Angeles. They look like this.
What was in Wind River was just a bunch of dippy little trailers. No way you can rig for oil outta one of those things. No way. It probably wasn’t even much of a mine. It was probably like the “mine” where Daniel Day-Lewis breaks his leg in the beginning of There Will Be Blood.
I mean, c’mon, this is all stuff I totally know because a) I live in Los Angeles, and b) I’ve seen a lot of movies.
-Tom
P.S. Loved your post in the other thread. Thanks so much for that.
He will always be remembered for writing about the time there was a blackout while he was watching that Ed Zwick movie about the Civil War.
-Tom
@tomchick, you are right to call out my lazy use of “torture porn.” Dingus said what I actually meant to say about it being a rape revenge movie. I think I used the word porn because I felt like the audience was presented a scenario that would infuriate them in way that they would then get off on the frontier justice meted out to the perpetrators. Something like that. Obviously not torture porn though, you are right.
I was also thinking about how suddenly the stakes were raised in what had previously been a murder mystery movie. Now it’s about violent rape and mass killings? Ok. I didn’t think it was justified in the context of what I had been watching, so the movie lost my investment into the story.
I meant to say all that in one sentence I dashed off in an e-mail before the clock hit midnight.
To Tom’s point about finding out the answer to why a woman would run herself to death in the snow, I think rape/violence is the most obvious, most realistic answer, but it’s not a satisfying reveal to a story that has presented itself as mystery. I think another listener also said something like that in his e-mail.
After rewatching Nocturnal Animals and then seeing Good Time the night before I saw Wind River I felt those movies did a much better job of portraying escalating tension. The key difference with NA is that the story within a story has a larger context than its trashy revenge story.
I also recently rewatched Manchester by the Sea, and I couldn’t help but think, “Leave dead children to the masters, Taylor,” anytime Kendall Jenner- No, um, Yul Brynner? Come on, tip of my brain… Anyway, Hawkeye. Anytime Hawkeye felt sad about his daughter the writer and actor just couldn’t quite get me to the intended emotional level. And I’m not a monster: Manchester had me stoically bawling.
Dingus now gets to bring up Seinfeld whenever he wants cause Tom used Fortified or whatever it’s called for his over/under. Justified? Anyway, Tom picked some TV show.
“A sitcom. Can you imagine? And he actually tried to use it to hit on me!”
Kelly pronouncing window as whine-doh. Very good.
–Chris Webb
I proclaim this The Summer of Dingus! I’m gonna watch a movie from beginning to end…in that order! Wait. Summer is almost over. And The Fall of Dingus sounds horrible.
I’ll wait for winter. The Winter of Dingus. I’m really gonna do something with those three months.
-xtien
“Time to taste the fruits and let the juices drip down my chin.”
I understand your overall point, but I’m not sure I get what you mean by “it was presented in a way that would infuriate the audience”. I don’t think there’s any way to present rape that doesn’t infuriate an audience. The enormity of rape is the easiest way for an audience to get off on frontier justice! It doesn’t matter if you wrap it in a mystery movie or a solemn study of clashing religious cultures (don’t click that link if you don’t want to spoil the upcoming 3X3).
But I do understand that you and Dingus felt it was cheap, or unearned, or…
…even a bait-and-switch. That makes sense to me.
Ha ha, you cried in a movie. I don’t get why you and Dingus would ever admit to such a thing. I have never cried during a movie, but if I had, a girl I dated would have made fun of me when we saw War of the Worlds and I got a teensy bit choked up when Tom Cruise’s son sacrifices* himself. I mean, that didn’t happen, but if it did, you’d never catch me admitting to it.
-Tom
* “Psych!” -Steven Spielberg, War of the Worlds, 2005
Tom is consistent across different types of entertainment.
Ok, that was a stinkin’ amusing read. But seriously, as a one-time oilfielder, I’m now going to refer to it as “mining” for oil. I mean it IS if you squint and think about it just right.
Also, I am glad that Kelly found my name amusing. It’s pretty rare and gives people the opportunity to see how original they can be. Usually it’s “not very.”
Somewhere in the podcast, after discussing Kelly Wand’s ‘simple plan’ issue, Tom suggested something akin to ‘may be the movie wants us to think that people who aren’t from this area became insane, turned into beasts’.
I think that was the case. Besides there was a dialogue between Jon Bernthal’s character and the girl:
- I thought they were staying in town tonight.
- I did too.
That implies that his colleagues came back for a reason, they set everything up, that’s why no one backed him up. I mean, it would escalate one way or another, no matter what.
This just popped up on Netflix. Overall a solid movie with a pretty tense, and brutal climax. Although I admit it’s hard not to see Hawkeye and Scarlett Witch hanging out again while watching.
Watched it on Netlfix too. While I was sold on the concept at first, the movie lost me by the end. I like to hear about the native point of view, but things like the faux-survivalism kind of got to me. So the mountainous terrain is so rough snowmobiles can’t go there in parts and you have to walk in snowshoes, but the victim ran barefoot for 10km? There’s a flash snowstorm so strong Elizabeth Olsen can’t drive, but one hour later it’s a clear sky and the tracks from the crime scene are still visible? So it’s minus 20 degrees celsius outside. Boohoo.
Renner’s stoic speeches are fun at first, but it gets heavy handed by the end too. Bla bla bla, “luck don’t live here” and stuff. So five cops are dead in the line of duty, but the movie takes the time to tell the female cop, who basically did nothing at all, how cool and strong she is. I’m mostly pissed they killed Graham Green and nobody says a single word about it, though. He’s a national treasure.
To continue the pile on, this movie would have been some much more effective without the gratuitous flashback to the murder. The protagonists never learned what happened that night, so why did the audience? Leaving any doubt in the viewers minds would have made the final scenes more impactful.
The knocking on the door transition alone justified that flashback to me.
Agreed on Graham Greene. You taught me his name (shame on me) but that guy was so likable the first second he was there. But I am softy and thought he had made it and was only wounded.
Don’t let appearances fool you. Malachi Strand is one nasty boy.