BARBAROSA

US, 1982, minutes, Colour.
Willie Nelson, Gary Busey, Gilbert Roland.
Directed by Fred Schepisi.

Barbarosa is Australian director Fred Schepisi's first American film. Schepisi, an advertising film-maker in the '60s and early '70s, contributed the Kenneally story The Priest to the 1973 Libido. His feature film The Devil's Playground won many awards and popularity in 1976. His excellent The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith was a well-made film of 1978 - perhaps failing at the box office because of over-advertising and Australian wariness of the aboriginal theme. Schepisi left Australia disappointed and worked in America. This film took a long time to make, was unsuccessful on release when billed as an action film, had more success when distributed on the art circle. However, the popular audience found it uninteresting and unlikeable.

Barbarosa is a cult western. It treats the themes of the West in an off-beat way: Willie Nelson as a seeming hero who has clay feet, Gary Busey as a farm boy who is moulded into the form of the legendary Barbarosa. Gilbert Roland leads a vengeful Mexican family. While the material is a short story presented symbolically, the style of the film is large: Panavision colour photography of sweeping and beautiful Texas landscapes (Ian Baker, Schepisi's cinematographer for his Australian and American films) and has an impressive wide-ranging score by Australian Bruce Smeaton.

The film is brief, has many themes, will probably take its place as one of the cult westerns of the ' 70s and '80s.

1. The impact of the film on the popular audience? American audiences disliking the film? Its being accepted as a cult film?

2. The background of audience response to westerns in the '70s and '80s? The traditions of the action film, expectations? Westerns and their convent ions being worked out by the '80s? The background of the TV series? The switch to bleak, non-heroic westerns? The lack of popular appeal?

3. Fred Schepisi's Australian background? The Australian filming in the United States? His view of the American West and its characters, myths? His own films and themes of myths, frontier, harshness and violence, law, relationships, mixed race, justice and the creation of legend? The relationship of Barbarosa to the themes and treatment of Jimmie Blacksmith?

4. The contribution of the beautiful colour photography, the landscapes, the environment, the harshness and the beauty? Survival in this West? The focus on characters, faces? The old, the young, the flora and fauna of Texas? The pace of the editing? Bruce Smeaton's score and its wide range of styles and instruments?

5. The introduction to Carl? The harshness of his travelling, blood? The insertion of the explanation of his wandering? Audience sympathy for him? Puzzle? His naively, love for horses, his appearance as the stocky farm boy? The sudden meeting with Barbarosa? The chasing of the armadillo? His lack of experience? Wandering the West? His gradually being changed by the environment and by Barbarosa? The decision to rob? The confrontation with the old couple and his inability to steal? The poetic justice of his being saved? The irony of Barbarosa's being correct about their wealth? His beginning to understand the laws and conventions of the West? The confrontation with the brothers sent to kill him? His being saved? Their deaths? . The capture by Morales and Barbarosa's escape? Burying Morales with the dead men? His understanding of Don Braulio and his family's vengeance? The companionship of Barbarosa and the change from innocence to experience? The film as Carl's story?

6. Willie Nelson and his background as singer and actor~ His appearance and style as Barbarosa? The initial impact? The confrontation? The killing of his pursuer and then kissing him? The villagers' reaction against him? His helping of Carl to survive, the chasing of the armadillo etc.? His wanting to rob the old couple? The capture and his being wounded, his burial and his deceiving morals, the escape - with the vengeance of burying Morales? His reputation and its travelling throughout the territory by song? The verses about Carl and his being the Gringo Boy? Barbarosa as embodying the styles of the West? His growing older? Being wounded? His dying?

7. Barbarosa and his story? The presentation of the Mexican family and Don Braulio's control, choosing of the vengeful pursuers of Barbarosa? The villagers' hatred? Eduardo and his choice? His pursuit? Don Braulio seen as missing his leg and the later explanation of his injury? His intensity? Barbarosa as pursued for so many years? Ambushes, confrontations, his taunting of Eduardo, the shooting, the death by knife?

8. Barbarosa's decision to help Carl? liking him? Training him? Sharing the experiences eg. the climbing of the cliff and Carl's climbing down again to retrieve the money? The sharing of the adventures - the exhilaration of the West? The effect of Barbarosa handing on his style and his legend to Carl?

9. The scenes at the hacienda? Barbarosa's love and fidelity towards josefina? Having her photo? His daughter? The hostility of the villagers? Rescuing Carl. from his daughter? The villagers receiving Eduardo at the success of his mission? The banquet and vindictive rejoicing at Barbarosa's death? The grief of Josefina and her daughter?

10. The parallel of Don Braulio's family with the vengeful father wanting to kill Carl? The sending of his sons in pursuit of Carl? Their deaths, burial? The father and his arrival at the picnic, his berserk shooting? Carl's return and the possibility of beginning a new life with the money, the horses? His father and his weariness? His sister and her hopelessness? Their reviving and the possibility of a new life in the West? The irony of the old man killing Carl's father? The final confrontation and shoot-out? So many deaths - and mistaken deaths in the West? Carl surviving?

11. Barbarosa's death and Eduardo's fear? Carl wanting to save Barbarosa's legend but being thwarted by the horse? His decision to re-live Barbarosa's legend and his riding in to the banquet? His effect? His becoming Barbarosa - even to marrying his daughter and perpetuating the love-hate between the Americans and the Mexicans?

12. What did the film have to say about the West? Its re-working of old traditions? The gunfighter hero? The young gunfighter and initiate? Racial antagonisms? Violence and pride, vengeance? Survival? The land of the gun? Myths and realities? The legendary heritage of the West?