THE OUTRAGE
US, 1964, 97 minutes, Black and white.
Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson, William Shatner, Howard da Silver, Albert Salmi, Paul Fix.
Directed by Martin Ritt.
The Outrage is a Hollywood remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950). Rashomon has been hugely influential because of its structure: an event shown from the perspective of the different participants, different perspectives on the truth, leaving it to the audience to try to understand what happened, motivations, the truth behind the events and the characters. In the original, the Samurai setting was important, with a Samurai confronting a husband and wife travelling through the Japanese countryside. In the remake, the setting is Mexico. Paul Newman appears as a Mexican bandit who confronts a couple travelling through the rugged countryside, he intends to rape the wife and rob the couple. Other characters include a preacher (William Shatner) and a snake-oil salesman (Edward G. Robinson).
Paul Newman is interesting as the bandit, relying on his charm, but communicating an offbeat sinister atmosphere? Laurence Harvey has little dialogue but has to be bound and gagged as the victim of the bandit. Claire Bloom has a stronger role as the wife.
The film takes ordinary western conventions but explores them in a European/Asian kind of way – also in the black and white photography, and the bravura style of James Wong Howe’s camerawork.
The film was directed by Martin Ritt, many of whose popular Hollywood films were much more serious-minded than the average. His earliest films was the John Cassavetes-Sidney? Poitier, Edge of the City. He directed Paul Newman in a number of films including The Long Hot Summer, Paris Blues, Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man, Hud, Hombre. He also directed Joanne Woodward in The Long Hot Summer and No Down Payment.
Other interesting films include The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, a film about Irish miners in the United States, The Molly Maguires, race themes in Sounder and Conrack. He also tackled social justice issues in Norma Rae and a film about the Black List, The Front, because he himself had experienced blacklisting.
Other remakes of Kurosawa films in the United States included The Magnificent Seven (The Seventh Samurai). Sergio Leone also drew on Yojimbo and Sanduro for his Clint Eastwood Man With No Name westerns.
1. The meaning of the title? Its presentation in the storm?
2. How much did this film depend on style for its impact? Black and white photography on wide screen? The fable overtones of the film? The changing tones of the film from solemn through questioning of human behaviour to rather preposterous presentation of behaviour? The film was based on a Japanese original. How did the Western try to show the Japanese style? In the make-up of the characters? In their gestures and movements? In the stylistic presentation of the scenery, especially where the outrage took place?
3. The film was a Western. What conventions of the Western did it rely on? The bandit, sheriff, posse, justice etc? How were these conventions used for fable purposes?
4. How successfully did the film use flashbacks? For the variety of stories? For communicating the subjective aspects of the stories?
5. How was the preacher a focus for the audience of the values of the film? How was he a symbolic type of character? The fact that he was almost too good? Yet his running away from reality and then returning to reality disillusioned? Was this what happened to the audience?
6. Or was the audience meant to identify with the cynical passer-by (Edward G. Rcbinson)? His dampening of the enthusiasm of the story-tellers? The ironic and humorous remarks that he made? His scepticism about the stories and the truth? And yet he was continually surprised by the stories? How successful a device was it to have the preacher and the stranger confronting each other?
7. How important was it for the old man to be there? In the station? The fact that he also told lies and later told the truth? How significant was this? The fact that the audience knew the stories from the old man and the preacher? (Could they be entirely trusted? The old man telling stories to conceal the truth about himself? The preacher telling stories and presenting the characters too nobly?
8. Compare each of the stories and try to work out what actually happened. Note the two stories that the bandit told. The fact that he had nothing to do with it? The story with him as hero? What kind of person was the bandit? How did he present himself? How heroic? The fact that he was the best of bandits? (How did this compare with the sheriff and his story - of his capture of the bandit, and the big posse and the film showing the enormous posse chasing the bandit etc;) What attitude did the bandit have towards the wife and the husband? How did the wife's story differ? as disdaining her? Her attempted self as the forlorn lowly person the husband's story vary from this? (Did it matter? The fact that the wife was still alive?) Her picture of the husband’s suicide? Her picture of her trampled by everyone? How did if the seemed far-fetched, that he found him still The attitude of the husband towards the bandit? How did this contrast with the old man’s story? that each of the characters seemed quite ridiculous?
9. Why did each of the characters try and say the best about himself or herself? Is this human nature? Even the old man telling the story to present himself in the best light?
10. What did the film have to say about truth? About objectivity? About subjectivity?
11. What did the film have to say about human nature and the truth? The human inability to tell the truth? With the fact that people do not see the truth but only what suits themselves?
12. How significant was the ending of the film? The effect of the variety of stories on the stranger? On the preacher? Why did he go back then to the town? Did he go well or was his disillusionment too strong?
13. What is the value of a fable like this?
14. Some people say that this is a masterpiece. Others say it is ridiculous. What would the popular audience think of a Western like this?
