THE HORSEMEN
US, 1970, 105 minutes, Colour.
Omar Sharif, Leigh Taylor- Young, Jack Palmer, Peter Jeffrey.
Directed by John Frankenheimer,
The Horsemen did not get favourable reviews when released. Critics had gone sour on director John Frankenheimer, who was seen as one of the potential greats in the 60's (The Manchurian Candidate, Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days 1n May, The Train, Seconds). Since he went to colour and widescreen in Grand Prix (1967), he is considered to have gone downhill. He has certainly changed style and interest (being praised only for 1968"s The Fixer, which was closer to his older style). But with Grand Prix he began an absorption with the world of daring, excitement and the flirting with death. This has sometimes been mixed with a probing of middle-age and ageing and its disillusionment. Thus we have Grand Prix, The Gypsy Moths (Burt Lancaster and skydiving), I Walk the Line (Sheriff Gregory Peck and infatuation with a young girl) and The Horsemen (Omar Sheriff and Jack Palance and hardship and endurance in Afghanistan), Soon we may have books praising the films of Frankenheimer’s second period and his probing of endurance and courage.
The Horsemen is spectacular Indeed and opens up the little-known world of Afghanistan, a society of ancient traditions and ways in the late twentieth century. The focus of attention is the Buzkashi, a sport of horsemen trying to retain possession of a headless calf, with no holds barred. There is a savagery about the film which is in keeping with its setting. Omar Sharif gives a strong performance as does Jack Palance. Leigh Taylor-Young? has to look attractive and be unsympathetic as a nomad adventuress. An absorbing film, a mixture of heroics and philosophising (script by Dalton Trumbo) and breathtaking photography by Claude Renoir.
1. How important to this film was the spectacular photography and the scenery of Afghanistan?
2. Did Afghanistan provide an essential environment to the film? The characterisation and plot depended on this nation and way of life?
3. What impression of Afghanistan and its people and their ways did this film give?
4. What contrast was the film trying to offer between modern ways (jets, cars, clothes, moral standards and manners) and the old (animals as man's friends and servants, customs, standards, morals and behaviour)? Was the contrast presented interestingly?
5. What way of life and values did Uraz 's father represent - his leadership, imperious manner, head of the clan, relation to the king, to his son, his past achievements and pride, decorum?
6. What kind of man was Uraz - at the camel fight, with his father, in the Buzkashi, leaving the hospital?
7. Why was he consumed with a passion for flirting with hardship, danger and death? (Death was his whore.) Was he simply proud or obsessed? What drove him on to get home? What drove him to succeed when he hurt his leg? (What role did his memory of his helping his father in the Buzkashi play?)
8. What impression did the Afghanistan sports make on you - the camel, ram and bird fights and, of course, the Buskashi? Were they too cruel? Was the film too savage and cruel in its presentation of these -themes? Why did the Afghanistanis love to gamble?
9. The blind scribe told a parable about the guilt of a man putting too much temptation in a poor man's way. Why was Uraz guilty? How guilty was his servant? Did Uraz admit this when he let the servant go free?
10. What role did the nomad girl play in the film? Why woe she untouchable? Why was she so greedy and ambitious?
11. What impression of Islamic religion did the film give?
12. What had Uraa learned by the end of the film? Had he faced the truth about himself? Was he going off at the end the best course of action?
13. What did the film have to say about courage, daring, pride, fear, death, age and the transition from an old world to a new?
