Too Big
A lot of ponderous Westerns came out of Hollywood in the 50s, and The Big Country (1958) is one of them. Hollywood has always liked bigness, never more so than in the TV-threatened 50s, so The Big Country must have seemed a natural. It's got a big star--Gregory Peck--a big director--William Wyler--and even big men in support, like Charlton Heston and Chuck Connors. Some have called the film a classic, but I don't see it. Neither Wyler nor Peck, who produced it together (and fought during the whole shoot) were satisfied.
Wyler worked slow, and sometimes that shows in the finished product. He's going for grandeur, but what he gets mostly is a sense of elongation. The film is close to 3 hours, and if you cut all the pauses and meaningful glances, it'd probably be 100 minutes.
The plot is essentially a feud between two men, with Gregory Peck, who's marrying the daughter of one of them, thrown in the middle. (It's supposed to be a comment on the Cold War, but it's best to ignore this sort of stuff.) Peck plays the hero, but I don't think he's ever portrayed the perfect liberal so clearly, not even in To Kill A Mockingbird. His character is impossibly, insufferably, good. Quiet, unassuming, with a sense of humor about himself, he's also very smart, very talented and always does the right thing. And he's so honorable, he never does what's right to impress others--in fact, because he's willing to look weak (even though we know he's strong), his girl (Carroll Baker) dumps him. When she wants him back, it's too late--he goes to Jean Simmons, the schoolmarm and only person in the film good enough for him. In fact, the film is little more than one scene after another where someone fails to measure up against Peck. Compare this to the conniving and imperfect if ultimately decent newsman Peck plays in his previous Wyler film, Roman Holiday.
Is the film hopeless? No. I can imagine coming out of a hot day into an air-conditioned theatre in 1958, enjoying the wide vistas on screen. It's called The Big Country and Wyler goes out of his way to show you lots of country, and it's big. There's also a nice score by Jerome Moross. Best of all, it's got a fine supporting job from Burl Ives (one of the main feuders) who won an Oscar for his work. But you can do better.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:23 AM
2 Comments:
The character described reminds me of a self-assured church going conservative rather than a lib. Of course neither is terribly relevant. Viewing art (even middlebrow commercial art) through the prism of the current petty partisan divides impoverishes the analysis of each.
Peck's character being a liberal is practically the main point. He's the sensible one who sees that tolerance and peace are the way to go, while everyone around him wants war and death. This is pretty central to the movie, in fact, and is not about current partisan divides. (We're talking about a 1950s liberal, after all.)
Peck, in fact, regularly played this sort of character. Indeed, both Peck and Wyler were liberals who were trying to make a point with this movie. However, the Peck character is so perfect he becomes insufferable.
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