TOMBSTONE: NEW CLASSIC

Our last movie of the year in Film Club was Tombstone, 1993. We had planned on a Western series, but started too late, so when we had time for just one more movie, I suggested this one. I struggled between this and some of the REAL classics like Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Searchers, anything with Clint, or maybe even The Magnificent Seven, but decided in the end that this was a good first Western for my young friends. If they liked it, it would lead them directly to OK Corral, and then they would be hooked.
What a good choice! They loved it: the story, the actors (who's not to like), the music, the guns, even the moustaches. What I had forgotten was the look of the film: just as you could not miss the defiant stance of Kurt Russell or the slimy swagger of  Powers Boothe, the sharp blue sky and long shots of men on horseback defied cliche as well as defined it. When I first saw the movie, I found myself evaluating the performances of some of my favorite actors unconsciously because I loved them all: Kurt Russell, Sam Elliot, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Dana Delany, Bill Paxton, Stephen Lang.......the kids reacted the same way. They asked if these guys were famous!

I love behind the scenes........

it is almost as if watching the film itself in the theatre is trompe d'oeil. It looks so real, but what I am seeing is only a piece of the whole picture: everything you see is imagery and metaphor: meta-phor. This may be one of the reasons that seeing movies is one of my favorite activities. All of it requires metacognition, so I often feel as if though I could let myself become absorbed by the story, but I won't, because is it just as  much fun to think about what the director imagined and then how he or she decides to communicate that image to me. I love my movies.