An odd thing for the Duke to say, but then *The Shootist* is an odd movie when viewed from most critical angles. The movie is just damn unusual, but given the circumstances -- the final performance by one of the most famous actors (one of the most famous Americans, really) in all history -- a truly unique effort was required. Wayne had already had a lung removed before the movie was shot, and during the shoot was having heart trouble. It was clear that the man didn't have too much longer to go (though he surprised everyone by sticking it out for 3 more torturous years), so the director and the writers reshaped the well-regarded old pulp Western novel on which the story is based to fit the living legend like a glove. The results are fairly glorious, but keep the slight caveat in mind that it's a one-man show, here.
And what a man! Recall that Wayne had once befriended Wyatt Earp (yes, THAT Wyatt Earp) on the back-lot of MGM Studios back in the late Twenties. I'm not sure if that really means anything, except for the notion that if Wayne merited the opprobrium of the Achilles of the Wild West, then Wayne himself must have been infused with a mythic touch as well. In many ways, this sense is made clearer in his final film than in any of his others. Despite how obviously unwell he is, there's something lordly, almost god-like, about his presence here. And, for once, and despite the lordliness, the Duke is entirely lovable. Gone is the reactionary, crotchety posturing of such late-career films as *The Green Berets* and *True Grit*. In *The Shootist*, the actor is facing much more compelling circumstances that changing political and social attitudes. Impending mortality apparently made him serene enough about the small stuff that he could take the post-modern Seventies head-on, climbing aboard the revisionist-Western bandwagon with absolutely no difficulty.
And this IS a post-modern Western, despite the cozy late-Victorian interiors and Wayne standing in for all the Old-Fashioned Values. One can only shake one's head in disbelief when Wayne says things like, "A man should be able to die privately" -- our knowledge of the actor's condition makes a meta-fictive mockery of the dialog. On the other hand, the well-earned sentimentality plays a harmonious chord with the post-modern cinematic ideas about the Old West. Don Siegel directed this movie -- a post-modern enough guy, I suppose, but even so, not the most intuitive choice for this relatively non-violent project, though there are occasional splashes of Peckinpahian bright-orange blood, and Siegel DOES evince his usual editorial brilliance with the exciting final shootout in the bar. Speaking of the climax, its ambiguity is startling: Wayne, after dispatching his final foes, ends up shot in the back by a bar-keep. And what final screen image of John Wayne does Siegel give us? Wayne dead on his back in the bar, covered in a blanket, isolated in death, with ironic commentary provided by a gilded stand, in the shape of an eagle, for a potted plant standing a few feet behind the corpse. Preceding this, Ron Howard's character has tossed away the pistol he used to exact revenge on the bar-keep. Wayne nods in philosophical assent just before he dies. What does this mean, anyway? -- a repudiation of the actor's own legend? Had Wayne become a "peacenik"? Who knows. The ambiguities, in any case, are strange and marvelous. Art, in other words.
Just a quick note on the more mundane aspects. The production design is top-notch. Filmed in Carson City, NV, the scouts clearly noted that particular town's unsullied architecture -- Carson is a place that has stayed firmly rooted in its aesthetic origins. There are many subtle touches, such as when the bar-keep has to turn on the ceiling fan -- powered by a rotary leather belt -- with a long stick that resembles a pool cue with a small wrench at the tip. The multifarious and ungainly-looking telegraph poles are appropriate, as are the tremulous "horseless carriages" from circa 1901. All of which, of course, underscores the idea that Wayne's character is way out-of-date, an absurd final remnant of a vanished breed. But magnificent for all that, regardless. Finally, several other Golden Age heroes -- Lauren Bacall, James Stewart, and even John Carradine (who had played Wayne's rival in *Stagecoach* almost 40 years prior) -- provide loving support, even if their roles aren't characters as such, instead showing up as mere satellites that orbit around the Duke.
*The Shootist* belongs in that special, and very small, group of films -- like Huston's *The Misfits* -- that allow us to pay our respects to performers who not only portray what is best and worst in our own selves, but indeed shape our entire popular culture. A must-own if you care about the movies. 8 stars out of 10.
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