High Plains Drifter is a nasty, eerie Clint Eastwood Western, in which the icon directs himself as The Stranger. This particular man with no name rides into the mining settlement of Lago one afternoon, drinks three quarters of a beer, half a bottle of whiskey, shoots three men dead, and rapes one woman. All in his first 15 minutes in town.
Nevertheless, the citizens—already unsettled by news that an outlaw gang has been released from prison and is heading their way—bribe The Stranger to stick around and help them defend themselves. Written by Ernest Tidyman, High Plains Drifter also offers a moral twist to this Western staple. It turns out the townspeople are harboring a secret, one that reveals them to be something other than innocent victims.
Visually, Eastwood and cinematographer Bruce Surtees suggest High Plains Drifter takes place in some other time and space, one morally murkier than the usual white-hat-black-hat scenario. The Stranger arrives out of a heat-wave wasteland over the opening credits; later, he has all the buildings in town painted red, with a sign posted just outside that reads “HELL.” This sense of dislocation is supported by Dee Barton’s psychedelic, twinkling score, which at certain points incorporates something akin to mournful whale calls.
There’s also a great shot that surely was instrumental in establishing the Eastwood persona. In the saloon, the camera rests just off The Stranger’s shoulder as he sits at the end of the bar, his hat pulled down low so that it obscures most of the frame, only allowing us to see two men, down the bar, taunting him. As he looks up, his hat slowly tilts to reveal at least six more men at the bar, watching the confrontation unfold. The Stranger is unperturbed.
Given such mythmaking moments, it’s worth asking if Clint Eastwood actually played antiheroes. He certainly established his film career by trying to do so, in the likes of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, and others. But are any of these characters really that reviled for their actions? The question is a variation on the claim, often attributed to Francois Truffaut, that there’s no such thing as an anti-war film. Can there really be such a thing as a Clint Eastwood antihero film, given the macho charisma with which he carries himself and the fawning filmmaking that frequently captures his persona? Perhaps only 1992’s Unforgiven, which is why it might be Eastwood’s crowning achievement.
Consider, after all, the handling of rape in High Plains Drifter. That first assault, in which The Stranger drags Marianna Hill’s Callie into a barn, is depicted as an awful violation, but the setup somewhat implies Callie “deserved it” (she purposely bumps into The Stranger on the street, then slaps him for rudely dismissing her). This notion is supported later when we learn that Callie, too, is complicit in the town’s secret. And so The Stranger’s actions, while never condoned, are still qualified—no longer a sex crime as much as rough punishment.
There’s another rape later in the film, and in its depiction High Plains Drifter once again lobbies on The Stranger’s behalf. He drags the hotel owner’s wife (Verna Bloom) into her bedroom, where she screams and fights, eventually holding a knife to his throat, which he manfully twists out of her hand while bringing her close for a firm kiss. Shortly thereafter we cut to the next morning, where her face shines with bliss. We tend to only look at heroes like that.
(2/11/2023)
