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- Verified Buyer
THE BIG COUNTRY is what the big screen was created for, and THE BIG COUNTRY was certainly created for the big screen. Wide open spaces in the American west never looked so vast and intimidating, so welcoming and foreboding.Some have argued that the plot is too thin for such a lengthy running time. When I first saw it as a youth on the screen of my father's small-town theatre, it seemed just like another western -- if longer than most. It seemed to lack the punch of a character-driven, action-filled western like WARLOCK or the excitement of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN -- still two of my all-time favorite westerns. Viewing it on DVD as an adult, I have changed my mind. I have since come to appreciate the skills of quintessential director William Wyler, the master of the mise-en-scene (or the arrangement of people and objects on the screen). Orson Welles may have originated the creative use of deep focus photography, but Wyler has utilized it to the point of perfection in THE BIG COUNTRY.The repetition of the line "it's a big country" became a humorous point for a friend of mine from graduate school and I to have fun with, but this is appropriate for the wide-screen vistas and almost leisurely pace of this now-classic motion picture. Wyler breaks a few stereotypes by allowing the characters in some of the more important action sequences to be photographed from a distance -- the fist fight between Peck and Heston, and the final shootout between Ives and Bickford. Human beings are dwarfed by the landscape, often seen as no more than insects -- a decision purposely made by Wyler and his cinematographer to emphasize their petty hatreds and feuds. Particularly stirring is the sequence early in the film where the Terrill men, led by the Major (Bickford), gallop through the bleached-white canyon to reach the modest ranch of the Hannassey family. The music score accompanying this ride is stirring and grandiose. One might wonder, in fact, what this film would be like without this magnificent soundtrack. From the opening title sequence to the wordless finale, it is orchestral perfection -- possibly one of the greatest motion picture scores ever.Although William Wyler's later production BED-HUR won scores of awards, THE BIG COUNTRY is, in my view, a greater film. Burl Ives deserved the Oscar for his role as the patriarch of a clan of cattlemen who are down-scale from their opponents -- the Terrills -- an actor who can hold our attention by merely looking out the window away from the camera. Despite his lower-class environment and his obvious hatred for Terrill (Bickford), he is still a man of justice and fair-play. In his struggle against the wealthy Major, he is the antagonist with whom we would be more likely to sympathize. His own son Buck (Chuck Connors) with a few two many rough edges is clearly a disappointment to him; he would prefer that Buck acquire a few of the gentlemanly attributes possessed by the eastern newcomer Jim McKay (Gregory Peck). The action he takes when he is forced to choose honor over love for his son might strain credibility for some viewers, but Ives makes his choice believable and touching.Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons as the top-lined of the four leads are, at times, hard to swallow. Both are so virtuous as to be almost nauseating. Simmons is as beautiful as she was earlier in THE EGYPTIAN and later in SPARTACUS; she is a schoolteacher never seen near a schoolroom who had can afford a house to herself. Salaries in those small towns must have been more generous than they are for teachers today. All well-drawn characters are shown to have a dark or shadowy side, as we all have as human beings, but these two characters lack even a trace of a shadow. A character who has a shadow side but is able to overcome it in the end in order to emerge triumphant is not only more believable but compelling and enjoyable in a dramatic sense.Peck appears as an eastern gentleman whose sense of honor and hatred of violence remains steadfast throughout. Only twice does he resort to fisticuffs -- once against Heston and later against Connors. In both cases, he appears to be over-matched physically. He is the one-dimensional purveyor of morality and justice -- the squeaky clean goodie-two-shoes who might be more believable if he were wearing a parson's grab. Peck (that "skinny liberal" as John Wayne once called him) has portrayed these morally upright characters before and since, mostly notably as a lawman in MacKENNA'S GOLD. The way he keeps dodging the physical affections of the amorous Native American lass (Julie Newmar) stretches credibility beyond the breaking point. In DUEL IN THE SUN, Peck plays a spoiled outlaw, again squaring off against Charles Bickford. In that film, however, the roles are reversed: Bickford is the older decent character who falls in love with Peck's backstreet half-breed mistress, Jennifer Jones -- unfortunately for him as Peck guns him down mercilessly.Heston, not a great actor, is more believable as a character who changes his perspective regarding violence. He decides that he has fought the Major's battles long enough -- even though he relents at the last minute and is wounded in a canyon battle for his efforts. Carroll Baker is also more believable than the Simmons character as a spoiled daddy's girl with an Electra complex. The ending of the film leaves a few questions in our minds, trying to figure out what might happen beyond the classical happy ending.In China, I often show films about American history when I am explaining the development of the English language. I have, for example, shown NEW WORLD, REVOLUTION, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, and others. I am planning on showing such films as THE LAST FRONTIER as believable views of the west as it was. THE BIG COUNTRY, one of the great westerns like SHANE and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, would also be an appropriate choice to show the wide vistas of the American west and the concerns of those humans who are often, as shown in THE BIG COUNTRY, dwarfed by the landscape.
