Movie Discussion: Johnny Guitar (1954) by Nicholas Ray
Details
"Never seen a woman who was more of a man. She thinks like one, acts like one, and sometimes makes me feel like I’m not…" Sterling Hayden’s finger-picking interloper Johnny might get top billing, but the star of the show in every conceivable sense is Joan Crawford. She is Vienna, a gun-toting, trouser-wearing casino boss whose loose-living ways infuriate the local league of moral decency. Vienna finds herself trapped between two equally unpredictable forces: the aforementioned townsfolk, whipped into a fury by Emma Small, a sexually frustrated, self-hating tomboy; and a gang of layabout toughs under the command of wannabe outlaw Dancin’ Kid. Thanks to Crawford’s cutting but nuanced performance, Johnny Guitar is unashamedly feminist, but Ray’s gleeful subversion of conservative western traditions doesn’t end there. This is a movie for all the outsiders, for anyone who’s ever been judged on their appearance, their outlook or the way they choose to live. That it’s also a rip-snorting yarn packed with shootouts, punch-ups, daring escapes and crackling dialogue simply confirms its masterpiece status.
"The whole thing is weird, hysterical, and quite unlike anything else in the history of the cowboy film."
(Time Out)
"Ray has a knack for finding poetry where others would surely fumble, and here he's at his most poetic." (MUBI)
"One of the boldest and most stylized films of its time – quirky, political, twisted." (Roger Ebert)
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Let's discuss the 1954 cult classic western Johnny Guitar by the acclaimed American director Nicholas Ray, recently voted the 122nd greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and scholars. In 2008, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Please watch the movie in advance (110 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream it here (check the player settings to adjust quality) or rent it through Criterion or other streaming platforms (for best quality).
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Check out other movie discussions in the group, currently happening about 2 or 3 times a month.
This link here is a spreadsheet of the approximately 200 movies we've watched in this group and my ratings for each. You're invited to share your ratings too if you've watched a bunch of these movies with us. (I can add your list here if you send me a link. You can make your own list on sites like Letterboxd or by copying my spreadsheet and filling in your own values. Note that my list doesn't include every movie that Yorgo hosted on cause I didn't watch all of them.)