Review of JOHNNY GUITAR (1954)
From Letterboxd (May 1, 2018). I was surprised to discover this film casually buried in Hulu, only after mindlessly browsing options + categories. It definitely doesn’t help that my roommate also uses my account profile, which would reasonably distort what the platform recommends me, but I consider it nevertheless a cultural travesty that the film, as a sheer given, isn’t automatically launched to the top of everyone’s feeds. — A.B.
It goes without saying, in 2018, that Johnny Guitar is some kind of a masterpiece. On one level, it’s impossible to miss the allegorical functions of each character — that of, say, the individual capitalist in Vienna, the lynch mob of justice + order in Emma, the amorous pacifist in Johnny. But the very fact that, as a Western, the film feels less driven by adolescent, male-centered violence awards the viewing experience w a contemporary freshness heightened by Nicholas Ray’s perceptive vision of adult relationships. In essence, the androgynous eroticism of Johnny Guitar is shocking, immediate, and modern.
Take, for example, the dancing scene when Johnny accepts the challenge of playing his guitar. It’s an abrupt shift in tone, narrative, and trope that embodies the film’s on-the-fence, tow-the-line attitude about our roles in society. (I would’ve loved to see the audience response in 1954.) Thus, “the existential postulate,” as…
