(Photo by Warner Bros)

Warner Bros: 100 Years, 100 Essential Movies

Warner Bros. turns 100! To celebrate, we’ve partnered with the studio (along with our friends at Vudu) and dug through their iconic library, checked behind the matte paintings on the soundstages, and even rummaged through the water tower (Yakko certainly has a fascinating collection of film negatives) to select the 100 essential Warner Bros. movies!

The films date back to the early days of cinema and are listed here beginning with the most recent release. The earliest film included is the 1938 swashbuckler The Adventures of Robin Hood. The 1940s are Bogie and Best Pictures: Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

In the 1950s, we see Marlon Brando redefine acting in A Streetcar Name Desire, one of the best of the creature feature era (Them!), and the finest among Alfred Hitchcock’s works (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder).

The 1960s were a decade of cultural revolution, and Warners was the first major studio to embrace it, starting with 1967’s iconic Bonnie & Clyde before 2001: A Space Odyssey redefined what was cinematically possible the next year.

In the New Hollywood era of the 1970s, where creative expression was absolute, Warners sought to work with the rising generation, including Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets), William Friedkin (The Exorcist), and Terrence Malick (Badlands). This gave Warner Bros. the longstanding reputation as the most director-friendly major studio; Kubrick worked with them for decades, aas have Scorsese (later directing GoodFellas and winning Best Picture for The Departed), Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry, Unforgiven), and, until recently, Christopher Nolan.

Cult and pop culture fandom as we know it started during the 1980s, and the WB logo felt inescapable across Batman, Blade Runner, Gremlins, Beetlejuice, The NeverEnding Story, and The Goonies. Warner Bros. would re-up their commitment to this space in the 2000s with the dominating duo of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. In between, we just got some stuff like The Shawshank Redemption, Seven, L.A. Confidential, The Matrix, and Space Jam. Would this list even count if there were no Looney Tunes on it?

2008’s The Dark Knight still remains the comic book movie to beat, and it’s just one example of the abundant Nolan/Warners partnership that once yielded Interstellar and Inception. 2015 saw two series revitalizations: Mad Max: Fury Road and Creed. 2017’s Wonder Woman is a jewel of DC Comics superhero movies, and that same year, Paddington 2 was momentarily the best-reviewed movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rent or purchase any of the 100 essential Warner Bros. movies on Vudu, and celebrate a century of the most beloved entertainment ever! —Alex Vo

(Photo by Fox)

Snowed-In: Our Favorite Winter Movies

Winter is here, and we’re celebrating by…well, staying indoors. It’s cold outside, for one thing. Plus, there’s wind, rain, snow, and we think we saw a vicious groundhog. No, thanks! To celebrate of winter of contentedly never leaving the house, we collaborated (remotely) with out friends at Fandango and Vudu for our favorite snowed-in movies across all genres. This means movies that bury us in the white stuff (Snowpiercer, The Hateful Eight), feature famous snow scenes (The Empire Strikes Back, Monsters, Inc.), hit hard with winter sports (Goon, Eddie the Eagle), are set during the season (Groundhog Day), and evoke that special melancholy mood (Edward Scissorhands, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless ). Enjoy this platter of movies best seen chilled, and head on to Vudu’s collection page for purchase and rental! —Alex Vo

With Halloween Kills, his sequel to 2018’s critically acclaimed – and box-office–slashing – franchise reboot, Halloween, director David Gordon Green has made a horror film aimed squarely at the blood-thirsty hearts of true horror fans. Kicking off moments after the events of the first film, Kills sees Michael Myers surviving Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) fire trap and beelining to Haddonfield for a killing spree like no other we’ve seen in this franchise – or any other. (Seriously, don’t even try to keep count of the bludgeoned/stabbed/impaled/twisted bodies Michael leaves in his wake this time – we ran out of fingers and toes in the first third, as did a few of his victims.)

Green is becoming one of horror’s hottest commodities – it was recently announced he would next develop a rebooted Exorcist trilogy and he is set to produce a Hellraiser TV series. It’s an interesting evolution for the filmmaker who, until 2018, was mostly known for an eclectic mix of stoner comedies (Pineapple Express, Your Highness) and wrenching dramas (Joe, Stronger). Given his history of playing in different genres, it was perhaps unsurprising that when Green sat down with Rotten Tomatoes to talk about his own favorite movies, the choices were diverse: an iconic Western here, a classic sports comedy there, plus, of course, a few journeys to the dark side. Here, he talks about why the movies mean so much to him, and discusses the challenges of creating all that Halloween Kills carnage and how he plans to close out his current horror trilogy.

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David Gordon Green’s Five Favorite Films

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Joel Meares for Rotten Tomatoes: In this new movie, Halloween Kills, I think slasher fans like myself are going to love that fact you just really go there. I feel like you’re just putting it all on the table. It’s so violent. It’s so extreme. The kills are so over the top. Michael’s completely unleashed. How fun was it to go so far, to just go ham?

David Gordon Green: Well, it was the lawlessness of being a middle child. You don’t have the authority of being the first film in the franchise that shows up and says, “Here are my characters and here’s what we’re setting to do.” You don’t have the responsibility of showing up at the end and having to wrap it all up in a tidy way. Here, we really just got to be destructive and lawless. It was a lot of fun.

At the same time, it was a lot of stress, because for the amount of ambition that we had for this movie, and the short number of days that we had… or should I say nights – it was seven weeks of all night shooting. When you’re looking at the ambition, where there’s no simple scene in the entire movie, there’s no exposition of two people sitting in a room talking, other than maybe a moment or two in the hospital with Hawkins and Laurie. But for the most part, every day was dominated by logistics.

So, for all of these kill sequences, we never got more than two or three takes; more often than not, we did it in one. It was rehearsing. It was ironing out all the logistics. It was getting the spectacular ability of [makeup and FX designer] Chris Nelson and our makeup department, to bring their A-game and expertise to this so that we could really make this a standout movie, in terms of Michael Myers and his aggression and… questionable attitude.

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Rotten Tomatoes: “Questionable attitude” – I like that! You mentioned that the final film, Halloween Ends, there is a different kind of responsibility. I’d read somewhere that you said it is going to be, – and correct me if I’m wrong – but a slightly more constrained, or contained story. Is that true? And as you’re about to film Ends, what is your mental state going into closing out this trilogy?

Green: I just have to say, it’s less chaotic and we’re kind of getting back to the basics, a little bit. I think we stirred it all up in the middle one and I think now, we can process the emotion. In a leap of time, we can process the emotion that we left the traumatic evening of Halloween 2018. We also experienced the world and its upside-down nature, over four years, following that moment. We’re going to pick up in 2022, with characters that we have grown to love, a couple of new ones, but for the most part, it’s a structured movie.

Again, it changes and evolves so I don’t want to say too much. It’s connecting the pieces, emotionally, between Laurie and Michael, with a sense of resolve. Hopefully, we can think, “This is 40 plus years in the making.” How do we want to leave this mythology, at this point? To leave for the next generation, the next great idea, the next wave of filmmaker or storytellers, to approach in their own way. I want to wrap it up nicely and generously with the fan base, and lovingly of the characters that I’ve come to know and connect with.

Halloween Kills is in theaters and available on Peacock from Friday October 15, 2021. 

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Thumbnail: © 20th Century Fox Film Corp, Everett Collection

(Photo by New Line/ courtesy Everett Collection)

25 Fresh Robert Altman Movies and Series

Directors know they’ve made an indelible mark on cinema when their last name becomes a descriptive adjective, a shorthand to jazz up any review or conversation. In Robert Altman’s case, “Altmanesque” can describe a few different kinds of moods and movies. There’s those sprawling stories with a multitude of characters tied with perhaps the loosest of narrative threads, like in The Player or Short Cuts. “Altmanesque” can point out roving, restless cameras that capture spontaneous and improvised performances, as featured in The Company and Gosford Park. The term is also used to paint deep-fried slices of Americana with a satirical sizzle, which Altman served up in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and A Prairie Home Companion. His magnum opus, 1975’s Nashville, represents a cross-section of all of these.

Though Altman’s prime period was during the 1970s, kick-starting the decade with Best Picture-nominated M*A*S*H, he typically isn’t bundled together with the other mavericks of the era (Spielberg, Scorsese, Friedkin, Coppola, and so on), having broken into the industry much earlier by working in television since the ’50s. Because of his experience, Altman was able to set up productions at a much faster pace than the young upstarts. Dig just beneath the masterpieces and you’ll immediately discover classics like The Long Goodbye, California Split, 3 Women, Thieves Like Us, and more.

The ’80s were considered a relatively dry decade for Altman, necessitating the narrative of a comeback film. That would arrive in the acerbic Hollywood insider comedy The Player, in 1993. Player would deliver Altman one of his five Best Director Oscar nominations, with the last nom in 2001 for Gosford Park. In March 2006, the Academy gave Altman the Honorary Award, eight months before his death.

Visit and celebrate the works of a true American directing icon with these 25 Fresh Robert Altman movies! —Alex Vo

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Joel Meares for Rotten Tomatoes: What was Joey’s pitch to you to come on board for The Castle in the Ground? What was it that interested you about the film and the script?

Neve Campbell: Well, I think it’s a very important topic. The subject of the opioid crisis is very important at the moment. I think over half a million people have lost their lives to the opioid crisis and it’s tens of thousands of people a year, still. And I think so few people really realize how easily people can succumb to these medications and how dangerous they can be if not taken appropriately. So, for me that was really important.

I hadn’t seen Joey Klein’s work before, and when it was brought to me, I watched his movie The Other Half. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s stunning. The performances are amazing and the time that he allows actors to go to where they need to go to and the vulnerability that he gets out of actors is a beautiful thing. Joey himself is an actor, and it’s always nice to work with directors who are also actors, because it’s a different language, and it’s sort of nice to be able to relate in that way when you’re being guided.

Rotten Tomatoes: Was there something that you learned about the opioid crisis or how people get access to these drugs while making this film that surprised you?

Campbell: I watched a bunch of documentaries once I got the film, when I decided to do it, and I spoke to Joey’s dad, actually, who is a doctor in Montreal. He spoke to me about what people go through, and I hadn’t realized the impact that Purdue Pharma [which introduced OxyContin to the market] had on the amount of people whose lives were lost. [It’s] pretty awful to think about the knowledge that they already had about the addictive qualities of these medications and the fact that they were not being honest about it. It’s pretty horrific to learn about that. And as I said, I hadn’t really been aware of the numbers before. So for me it was very eye-opening, and then infuriating.

Rotten Tomatoes: The relationship that you have with Alex Wolff’s character in the beginning of the film is so beautifully rendered and important when we consider his journey in the movie. Had you worked with Alex before and how did you guys create that genuine-feeling mother-son intimacy?

Campbell: I had never met Alex before we got on set together and started our first scene. I think the fact that I’m a mother of two boys really helped me. It helped me be aware of what that dynamic would be already and added an understanding of how devastating this journey would be with my son if I were to go through that myself.

And Alex was very, very willing to be vulnerable, and it was so important for this character, and he really went there. He was so committed to it. I think we were really glad when we realized in that first scene that we were both going to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and that we could be; we were safe in that place together.

Rotten Tomatoes: We can’t let you go without asking about the upcoming Scream movie. Have you been approached about playing Sidney Prescott again?

Campbell: We’re having conversations – I have been approached about it. The timing’s a bit challenging because of COVID. You know, we only started the conversation maybe a month and a half ago, so it’s going to take some time to figure out how it’s all going to work out…. We’re negotiating, so we’ll see.

The two directors wrote me a very touching letter about Wes Craven and how he was such an inspiration to them and how they really want to honor him, and that meant a great, great deal to me. So, we’ll see. Hopefully we can all see eye to eye on the project and find a way to make it.

Rotten Tomatoes: Are you excited about the possibility of returning to the franchise?

Campbell: I’m so grateful for these films… I love Sidney Prescott. It’s always fun for me to step back in her shoes, and it’s always fun for me to see the cast come back and make one of these films again and try to make another good one.

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Castle In the Ground is available to rent or buy on demand May 15, 2020. 

Thumbnail image: Courtesy the Everett Collection, © Sony Pictures Classics

Best Western Movies of All Time

Welcome to Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the 100 best-reviewed Western movies of all time, sorted by Adjusted Tomatometer with at least 20 reviews for each selection. Additionally, we picked only classical period films, so you get outta here with that Best Picture-winning neo-Western nonsense! Now, it’s time to put on your best pa-avenging chaps, slide a bad hombre down the saloon bar top, and ride on to see how the West was Fresh! —Alex Vo

(Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)

A renowned stage actor with the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, multiple award winner (including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Jim Broadbent has earned near universal acclaim for his work in theatre, film, and television. Some of his best-known screen credits include Iris, Moulin Rouge, the Bridget Jones franchise, Time Bandits, and, of course, the Harry Potter franchise. In July, we’ll also have the pleasure of seeing him join the Game of Thrones cast, but this week, he stars in The Sense of an Ending, in which he plays a recluse coming to terms with decisions he made as a younger man. It’s a role he says is more similar to himself than most of the others he plays (more on that later).

We had the honor of speaking with Mr. Broadbent about his Five Favorite Films and it was a very close race. In fact, his original “five” included seven titles. And since we know inquiring minds want to know, the two we left off the list are His Girl Friday and The White Ribbon, both of which he loves as much as the others, which you can see in the list below:

 

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Kerr Lordygan for Rotten Tomatoes: What do you think will surprise your fans when they see The Sense of an Ending?

Jim Broadbent: Probably because it’s playing a character who’s quite close to me in many ways. He’s not as avuncular and as lovable as some of the characters I’ve played, maybe, but there’s a sort of hard… he’s a complex character. There’s a sort of arrogance and pomposity about him. He’s gentle with his daughter and his ex-wife. He’s not unpleasant, but there is an element… he’s thoughtless and arrogant and a bit pompous as well, but I don’t know how people perceive me. You can’t tell yourself. You’d have to film me.

RT: You’re not lovable in real life — is that what you’re implying? If you’re saying that you’re arrogant and pompous, I don’t think so.

Broadbent: I don’t know, there’s elements of that, obviously. We’re all complicated people. [laughing]

RT: I guess we all are everything, a little bit. So, awesome.

Broadbent: That’s what I like doing.

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The Sense of an Ending opens on Friday, Mar. 10, 2017 in limited release.

This week on home video, we’ve got a blockbuster comedy reboot, a retelling of a familiar legend, the fifth chapter in an animated franchise, a true-life thriller, and more. Read on for the full list.

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This week, 3:10 to Yuma hits theaters, telling the story of a cash-strapped rancher (Christian Bale) who volunteers to help escort a train robber (Russell Crowe) to federal court; what follows is a battle of wits in which the normal bounds of good and evil fall by the wayside. Thus, Yuma joins a long line of Westerns that explore the complexities of human nature against the unforgiving backdrop of the frontier.

In the mid-1960s, filmmakers began to move away from the black-and-white morality of earlier Westerns in order to explore some of the darker aspects of the frontier. That’s not to say that earlier films didn’t delve into the complexities inherent in the form; High Noon (95 percent on the Tomatometer), from 1952, presented a skeptical view of the nature of heroism, and John Ford‘s 1964 drama Cheyenne Autumn (63 percent) took a more sympathetic view of the plight of Native Americans than did his previous works. But it wasn’t until later in the decade that Westerns began to depict the frontier in a more complex, ominous light: as a place of dirty living conditions, changing political and economic climates, and the razor-thin line between lawlessness and order.

One of the primary forces in the shift from the traditional Western was Sergio Leone, who created the template for what would become known as the Spaghetti Western. His revisionist oaters, shot in the deserts of Spain, featured iconic, antiheroic gunslingers and almost comic violence that shook up the staid conventions of Hollywood Westerns. Starring Clint Eastwood, Leone’s “Man With No Name” trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars [94 percent], For a Few Dollars More [91 percent] and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly [100 percent]), as well as Once Upon a Time in the West (97 percent) with Charles Bronson are all classics of the genre. Lesser-known but also startlingly memorable is Duck, You Sucker (aka A Fistful of Dynamite, 81 percent), an epic meditation on revolution, class warfare, and explosives. Set during the Mexican Revolution, it tells the story of Juan (Rod Steiger) is a bandit who comes across Sean (James Coburn), an explosives expert and Irish revolutionary. After some setbacks, Juan and Sean team up to raid a bank, and Juan becomes a reluctant hero of the revolution when it turns out the bank is filled not with money but with political prisoners.

Duck, You Sucker remains one of Leone’s least-seen films, but it’s got a number of the same elements that make Leone’s westerns so memorable: breathtaking vistas, explosive battle sequences, a haunting Ennio Morricone score, and oodles of moral ambiguity.
Coburn doesn’t match Eastwood’s iconic, tight-lipped gunslinger, but he makes up for it with crotchety humor and an air of morality; he’s committed to a cause, but disillusioned with the revolutionary life. And Steiger’s Juan evolves from a selfish thief to a man who realizes his unique place in the midst of historical events. “The combination of Leone’s obsessive close-ups, Ennio Morricone’s melodious music, and the comradely chemistry of Coburn and Steiger ignite an emotional explosion comparable to that of Once Upon a Time in the West,” wrote Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer.

As the west was tamed, the tolerance for gungsliners and bandits — once lauded as antiheroes — evaporated. Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch is about a tight group of such undesirables, who realize their time is running short, and decide to go out guns-blazing. The aging outlaws that comprise the Bunch — which include Pike (William Holden) and Dutch (Ernest Borgnine) — mastermind a series of robberies in the dusty outreaches of rural Texas; their philosophy is encapsulated in the film’s most famous line: “If they move, kill ’em.” In between heists, the outlaws do their share of carousing, but there’s a sadness underlying even the movie’s most carefree scenes, a sense that these men share a bond, but that their specific brand of loyalty is quickly becoming outdated. Hot on their trail is Thornton (Robert Ryan), a former member of the gang who now leads a group of mercenaries to capture the Bunch, and is deeply conflicted about his new role.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking The Wild Bunch is in any way a slog through the last days of the west. The movie has many moments of melancholy, but it also contains at least three battle scenes with a level of ultra-violence — and sheer awesomeness — that few have come close to matching (although many directors have tried; John Woo and Martin Scorsese have both cited The Wild Bunch as an influence. “The on-screen carnage established a new level in American movies, but few of the films that followed in its wake could duplicate Peckinpah’s depth of feeling,” wrote Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader.

The end of the old west is one of the prominent undercurrents in Robert Altman‘s masterful McCabe & Mrs. Miller (91 percent). McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives in the grim Northwest town of Presbyterian Church with the intention of establishing a saloon and a whorehouse. It isn’t until the British madam Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) shows up that his plan starts to take shape: She supervises the construction of the building and oversees the girls. The pair forms an uneasy-but-affectionate personal and professional partnership that contributes to the growth of the town. But powerful mining interests get wind of the business’ success, and offer to buy McCabe out; drunk with success, he insults them, with catastrophic results.

Like the HBO series Deadwood (which owes an obvious debt to McCabe), one of the underlying themes of the film is how the freewheeling, pioneering spirit of the frontier was tamed by economic — and often uncivil — means. But that only goes so far in describing the poetry of this masterful film. You’d be hard-pressed to find a movie more evocatively, forbiddingly atmospheric than McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The harsh environs of the snowy Northwest are so vivid you can practically feel a chill from the screen. In addition, the sepia-like cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond and the elegiac songs of Leonard Cohen create a forlorn, bleak feeling of a time and place that will soon be relegated to history. “Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another,” wrote Roger Ebert. “But one of them is perfect, and that one is McCabe & Mrs. Miller.”

The Western has gone through a number of cycles, and though it’s fallen out of favor in more recent times, there are always a few oaters, like Unforgiven (96 percent), Open Range (78 percent), or The Proposition (86 percent) that explore the landscape of human complexity — usually with a shotgun in hand.

Early word is that The Silver Surfer will appear in the "Fantastic Four" sequel, only he’ll be a fully CG-animated entity, not unlike Gollum or Dobby or Kong. New gossip indicates that actor Doug Jones (who seems to be Guillermo del Toro‘s "go-to" FX performer) will be employed to bring the Surfer to cinematic life.

From AICN: "Seems that the convention booker for Doug Jones (Abe Sapien in "Hellboy") is telling people that Doug’s going to be giving the motion-capture performance as The Silver Surfer for the "Fantastic Four" sequel Fox is gearing up on right now."

Fans will soon be able to appreciate Jones’ work in his pal’s "Pan’s Labyrinth," which opens on December 29th. (My birthday!)

Director John Hillcoat had a big ambition when he undertook "The Proposition": a Western with a truly Aussie sensibility.

"It’s the Australian West," he said. "We’ve tried to reclaim it for ourselves."

"The Proposition," opened in limited release in the U.S. on May 5 after an enthusiastic response at the Toronto and Sundance film festivals.

In the film, set in the Outback in the late 1800s, Charley Burns (Guy Pearce) is captured by the authorities, and given an ultimatum by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone): if he slays his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston) within a week, his younger brother Mikey will be set free. If not, Mikey dies.

"The Proposition" is filled with sharp supporting performances by the likes of Emily Watson and John Hurt, as well as some startling cinematography, a haunting score by Nick Cave (who wrote the screenplay), and fascinating characters, whose capacities for good and evil deeds shift convincingly.

Guy Peace in "The Proposition"

Australia’s colonial history leant itself to a lot of potential for drama, from the harshness of the climate to the settlers’ condescending, often violent attitudes toward the Aboriginal population. Hillcoat said he wanted to make a film that was true to history but also worked dramatically.

"It’s been a dream to do a film out in the elements like that and trying to tackle that part of our history because it hasn’t really been seen on the screen like that," he said.

Hillcoat said he was inspired by revisionist Westerns of the 1970s, and films that displayed a realistic, sometimes harsh frontier, like Robert Altman‘s "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," Sam Peckinpah‘s "The Wild Bunch," and Terrence Malick‘s "Days of Heaven."

"What I loved about Peckinpah and Altman and Malick is there’s a link to reality, and what the times were, a kind of truthfulness about what it would have been like back then," he said.

For years, Hillcoat had wanted Cave to do the score for such a Western in an Australian setting. They agreed that Cave would have a go at the script, but Hillcoat thought it would be a loose outline that would later be fashioned into a screenplay. Over a matter of a few weeks, Cave came up with the scenario.

"Once he started, out it came, the story of the brothers and the central conflict that we could hang all this stuff on," he said. "Nick surprised me and himself."

Nick Cave and John Hillcoat

When Pearce got the script, he thought it was something special.

"It was so beautifully written," he said. "It was so poetic and so evocative, which is very rare. It was very easy for my imagination to be fueled and to get a sense of what it was they were trying to tell."

Pearce was also attracted to the moral complexity of the story.

"Obviously the scenario is quite extreme and rather harrowing," he said. "It almost seems like an impossible task to contemplate how one might choose one brother over another or one family member over another, particularly when it comes to having to kill [someone]."

The moral ambiguity and violence in the script, as well as the plan to shoot the film in the Outback, made the film a tough sell, Hillcoat said.

"It was incredibly hard to finance because of the tone and the script," he said. "The financers knew it was a logistical risk to go out there and build sets in that kind of territory. By the time the money got together and we finally had everyone ready to go, we had slid into the beginning of the summer."

Trouble struck early when Hillcoat and several members of the crew were involved in a serious car accident, in which their vehicle hit some rough terrain and rolled over three times.

"They’d thought I had broken my neck," he said. "Twenty-four hours later, I greeted the key cast that had arrived on a charter flight. I had a neck brace and black eyes. That was just the beginning."

Guy Pearce and Danny Huston

The environment posed many serious challenges; temperatures reached well into the 100s, and many scenes were shot at night because the cameras were too hot to touch. The week after production, fierce winds leveled the majority of the sets. So as rough as the conditions were, things could have been worse, Hillcoat said.

"Luck has a major part when it has to do with the developments," he said. "Those strong winds could have come at any moment when we were shooting, so we were lucky."

And the difficulty of the shoot created both a sense of camaraderie among the cast members and a greater feeling for the material.

"All that stuff adds to what you’re doing," Pearce said "The environment really informs what you’re doing. The environment and the world that these people live in and the level of survival is far more extreme than what we know it to be today, [although] certainly [it is] for some cultures, not for others. It was a real fascinating sort of journey to enter into that."

"It was one of those situations where everyone knew it was going to be quite extraordinary," Hillcoat said. "Everyone kind of bonded rather than tore each other apart."

Much of the good feeling on the set came from Hillcoat’s method of directing, Pearce said.

"He really knows what he wants, and what he wants is very true and honest performances," he said. "He’s very open to having you find that very true and honest place. He certainly doesn’t limit you in your honest interpretation of the work. He’s my kind of director."

Guy Pearce and John Hurt

And in getting to the truth of the material, the film often depicts some very graphic floggings, shootings, and spearings. But Pearce said it’s the tone of the film, the sudden but inevitable flare-ups, that make the violence seem more shocking.

"Some say, ‘Oh, the film is violent.’ I think on some level, people are inadvertently complimenting the film by saying that, because we’re talking about the fact that it actually is effective," he said. "There are plenty of films out there that are violent, where people run around with machine guns and shoot the hell out of everybody, and there’s no aftermath. To me, that’s disrespectful in film. It’s just like a video game.

"To me, this feels complete in the addressing of violence: You have the lull before the storm, you have the really horrific storm, and you have the cleanup afterwards," he continued. "There’s probably less violence in this film than in the majority of other films. It’s just that when it happens, it feels real."

The violence feels more real because of the setting, Pearce said.

"It’s kind of a looming violence," he said. "We know that this world is a harsh and dangerous one, and it’s one that’s fraught with all sorts of difficulties in regards to surviving. You feel quite troubled at the idea that potentially anything violent could happen. It’s that looming violence that adds up for people when they watch it."

Regardless, Pearce said he feels American audiences will find a lot in the story that will resonate.

"I feel it should particularly appeal to Americans because on some level, there’s a similar frontier environment, [with] people really being out of place and trying to make a home in such a harsh environment that’s not their own," he said. "And really, the story’s about human emotion rather than necessarily a historical document."

Emily Watson

Those complex emotions are in some ways incongruous with the idea of the Western in film, with exception of the 1970s anti-Westerns, Hillcoat said.

"Your sympathies keep swinging between some of the characters, and that’s very unusual because normally the American West is put into very black and white terms," he said.

And Hillcoat said he feels that dealing in black and white is a problem in today’s political climate, one that "The Proposition" refutes.

"Life isn’t like that," he said. "I know Bush is trying to tell everyone life is like that. Part of the mood of all that in a political context [is] empire building and the consequences of violence. I’m hoping it will ring a chord here [in the U.S.]."

And it has certainly made a big impression on Pearce; he said the film, from the cinematography to the music to his co-stars’ performances make "The Proposition" a particularly special film for him.

"It’s by far my favorite film that I’ve ever been in," he said. "Look, that’s not to take anything away from ‘Memento‘ or ‘L.A. Confidential,’ because I think they’re both extraordinary pieces of work. But there’s something about this that moves me in a way I haven’t felt before.

"I have to be fair, because I haven’t watched the other [films] for a couple years," he continued. "[But] there’s something so raw. Maybe it means more to me because it’s an Australian story."

Still, Pearce said, "It’s a story about human emotions, so it doesn’t really matter where it’s set."