Josey Wales: It's living that's hard

A friend asked me recently about what westerns she should watch. She had never really seen many, and wanted to fill that hole in her entertainment experiences, and asked me where she should start.

I went the easy route, and said that she just needed to follow a few directors, and that'll set her on the saddle. You can't go wrong with the obvious, like John Ford, or Sergio Leone, or Anthony Mann, or Howard Hawks, or Sergio Corbucci.

But after thinking about it for a while, I honestly couldn't say what my favourite western movie is. Sometimes it's The Good The Bad and the Ugly, and sometimes it's Unforgiven, and sometimes it's the Searchers, because the Duke's voice breaking at the end is a total heartbreaker.

But it was easy to pick my favourite scene in any western ever. It's this bit in Outlaw Josey Wales where Eastwood goes out to meet the local Indian tribe, and offers up a few words of death, and some more words of life, with real iron in them.



The best westerns are always something to do with death, but there can also be life, and people can live together without butchering on another. If they so choose, and live by their words.

The second best bit is the gunfight at the end of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, because of course it fucking is.