"The Proposition" According to Mister Trend

Unlike senor Loomis, I am in no way a connoseur of Westerns. Barring Blazing Saddles, I never saw a western until I was 22. So my knowledge of the subtlties and nuances of the western as a genre are at best limited.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed "The Proposition." First off, it's written by Nick Cave, so I was already leery - generally speaking the media-star-crossovers never work (see: Corey Hart's solo career). However, I thought Cave did a fine job with the dialogue itself, keeping it good enough to be interesting yet sparse enough for (again, from my limited experience) the western genre. Particularly fascinating was his use of the stereotypes of the time in accurate and amusing (to non-Irishpersons) way. If you're big on Ireland, and take it very seriously, John Hurt's character is NOT for you.

Unlike Erik, I thought there was a bit of the "West as hopeful" approach in the film. Certainly, you see it in virtually none of the characters, who, perhaps barring the Danny Huston character, are "muddy" characters. Yet there is that notion of the West as a place of "progress" that demonstrates "humanity's" (i.e. Anglo-descendants) ability to "civilize" this frontier, a mission that Ray Winstone repeats several times as his goal. Certainly, the town where the movie takes place showed little signs of any "civilizing" being effected, yet the ideal i felt was still there.

I found the use of race intriguing, too. Replace American indigenous peoples with Australian aborigines, and it doesn't seem that different. I suspect that the characters cast were aborigines (though one looked perhaps more like a South American indigenous man), yet they were still relegated to virtually silent roles, playing the parts of sidekickds either "selling out" to civilization or obstructing it. As is apparently to be expected, there was little chance to see things from the aboriginous point of view. This mono-dimensional portrayal is certainly nothing new to the film, though it left me wondering throughout if Cave was playing on that stereotype in his film, or if he subconsciously fell into such a routine himself. I'm willing to give him credit for the latter, but it still sat with me through the film.

That said, the story was enjoyable (albeit predictable, but that's part of the pleasure of Westerns). Sure there were no clearcut characters who were good OR evil, but for those interested in such films, might i direct you towards Star Wars...