As the narrator intones, some people are born into the wrong times. That’s Albert Stark (Seth Macfarlane), a sensitive, psychology-aware sheep farmer who finds himself in Arizona in 1888. His modernity inflects everything else in this splendid parody of the classic western, especially the profanity, the historic awareness, the struggle to sustain moral codes, and the surprise cameos (e.g., Bill Maher as a frontier standup comedian, etc.). Stephen Foster meets Freud in the barn dance valorizing of the moustache.
The situations are everywhere informed by modern understanding. “Why are the Indians so mad?” one character asks, “We’re splitting the country with them 50-50, aren’t we?” A shyster’s magic elixir contains cocaine and red flannel. The hero discovers The Way through an Indian drug.
The film’s basic premise is the essential absurdity of the human condition, seen most clearly in the short but constantly threatened life span on the 19th century frontier. The film draws laughs from the variety of deaths to which our flesh is heir. Hence our nobility in carrying on, whether in the adjustments we make to our romantic failures or in marshalling courage under pressure.
On the romantic side, Stark suffers from being dumped by his unworthy girlfriend Louise (Armanda Seifried) but finds true love in the unlikely arms-training of Anna (Charlize Theron), the wife of the vicious gunslinger Clinch (Liam Neeson). She married at nine to avoid being a spinster at 15. So too the pragmatic propriety (aka hypocrisy) in the Christian relationship between the whore Ruth (Sarah Silverman) and her fiancé Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) from whom she initially withholds all sex until marriage.
On the courage side, the sheep farmer tries modern negotiation strategies to make up for his inabilities in the classic macho skills. Those having failed, he succeeds through the arcane knowledge he collects both as a nerd and as a friend of the natives.
The film is very clever in its comic invention and in its replication of the classic Western’s tone. The music evokes the Dmitri Tiomkin scores. The Monument Valley setting recalls John Ford, with the further hint of a raised third finger here and there on the horizon. Alan Jackson’s rousing ballad at the end articulates the film’s theme with the spirit of Frankie Laine in Blazing Saddles, this film’s true muse.
I expect that for some viewers Seth Macfarlane is, like Mel Brooks, an acquired tastelessness. For me he, like Brooks, epitomizes sophisticated wit. Here as in Ted Macfarlane’s project is to let his well-meaning, put upon hero make it as a man by sustaining his sensitivity in the face of overwhelming coarseness (the West here, like the teddy bear in Ted). Finally, it’s fun.
The situations are everywhere informed by modern understanding. “Why are the Indians so mad?” one character asks, “We’re splitting the country with them 50-50, aren’t we?” A shyster’s magic elixir contains cocaine and red flannel. The hero discovers The Way through an Indian drug.
The film’s basic premise is the essential absurdity of the human condition, seen most clearly in the short but constantly threatened life span on the 19th century frontier. The film draws laughs from the variety of deaths to which our flesh is heir. Hence our nobility in carrying on, whether in the adjustments we make to our romantic failures or in marshalling courage under pressure.
On the romantic side, Stark suffers from being dumped by his unworthy girlfriend Louise (Armanda Seifried) but finds true love in the unlikely arms-training of Anna (Charlize Theron), the wife of the vicious gunslinger Clinch (Liam Neeson). She married at nine to avoid being a spinster at 15. So too the pragmatic propriety (aka hypocrisy) in the Christian relationship between the whore Ruth (Sarah Silverman) and her fiancé Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) from whom she initially withholds all sex until marriage.
On the courage side, the sheep farmer tries modern negotiation strategies to make up for his inabilities in the classic macho skills. Those having failed, he succeeds through the arcane knowledge he collects both as a nerd and as a friend of the natives.
The film is very clever in its comic invention and in its replication of the classic Western’s tone. The music evokes the Dmitri Tiomkin scores. The Monument Valley setting recalls John Ford, with the further hint of a raised third finger here and there on the horizon. Alan Jackson’s rousing ballad at the end articulates the film’s theme with the spirit of Frankie Laine in Blazing Saddles, this film’s true muse.
I expect that for some viewers Seth Macfarlane is, like Mel Brooks, an acquired tastelessness. For me he, like Brooks, epitomizes sophisticated wit. Here as in Ted Macfarlane’s project is to let his well-meaning, put upon hero make it as a man by sustaining his sensitivity in the face of overwhelming coarseness (the West here, like the teddy bear in Ted). Finally, it’s fun.
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