The Most Dangerous Man Alive

Way back in 1964, a handsome young stranger stepped onto the dry desert landscape of the location shoot of a Western movie, and took the world by storm. He was The Man With No Name, played by Clint Eastwood. He was a genuine original in Western movies (and Western World cinema, for that matter) who was unimaginably different from anything ever seen before. Up until that time the persona of the (traditional) loner Western American gunfighter who set the tone for dozens of movies was Shane, the warm-blooded gunslinger with the heart of gold who was seemingly obsessed by guilt from his past as a killer.

Now, in A Fist Full of Dollars, was someone completely different: a (seemingly) cold-blooded, cold-hearted, couldn't-care-less gunman who seemed much more real, much more true to what we know now of the actual history of gunmen of the Old West than the mythical and friendly boy-dog-friend-and-woman-loving Shane. Yet this silent stranger, The Man With No Name, seemingly was possessed with a magical intellect and a magical power with weaponry that absolutely blew away the earlier conventions of "a man with a conscience who happened to be proficient with firearms." And yet The Man With No Name touched something deep in the archetypal memory of the moviegoer. He made absolute, dangerous power over life and death within one man a reality, and therefore was extremely appealing to anyone who ever had fantasies of power over all the frustrating barriers of life. In A Fist Full of Dollars he came alive in the imagination of millions of people. Modern people, caught in the complex and often frustrating realities of life in the late twentieth century, found in him a man who could cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and Gordian knots of the real world around them, and that made him intensely appealing.

Although the movie was a Western (called an "anti-hero-Western" at the time, because its protagonist was so radically different from the standard "heroes" of the Western genre of that time), in actuality the movie was an "amorality" play which gave a sense of strength to many in every walk of modern life who clung to power as the ultimate means of attaining meaning. In that sense, The Man With No Name was a throwback to a earlier type of hero who was beyond the pale of civilized behavior, a sort of pre-civilized barbarian who could fight "dirty" or "clean" as the situation dictated in order to secure victory at any cost. Both women and men found him incredibly attractive, for different reasons.

We, the "civilized" audience may have been shocked at his methods of obtaining his goals, but still something deep in our bones admired his skill as a warrior beyond time and convention. Thus, "civilized" people deplored him, but people who were frustrated with the conventions of "civilized" behavior saw in him the genuine champion for all they longed for. He was a shocking and startling presence, but one that could not be ignored. Somehow, in a terrible and animal way, he gave the moviegoer a sense of confidence. The fact that he was a fantasy character made little difference: He was a winner.

The story is itself set in Mexico, not far from the border. It is in actuality a clever adaptation of a Japanese film titled Yojimbo by Akira Kurasawa, whose film was released in 1961. The Man With No Name, as in the Japanese film, plays one gang in a small town against another. Using skill and witty one-liners and warrior skills he eventually moves to a point of confronting the arch-villain. Then he deftly dispatches the bad guy. Along the way he makes friends and saves a family. Why? Even in his apparent cold-bloodedness something of goodness is alive in him down deep.

When he saves the family he utters what may be is his most unforgettable line. The wife in the family asks him why he is helping them survive, and he looks at them and says something like, "Because I knew someone like you once before, and there was no one there to help." How many times would would-be heroes have liked to have rescued someone and said something like that? All damsel-in-distress-savers love a line like that.

The really odd thing about this movie is that, as a story, it has flaws galore. It is a ragged, patchwork, brutal, and in many ways illogical tale with holes in its credibility you could drive a wagon train through. It is not stuff for young children to see because of its non-stop killing and violence. But Eastwood's performance is so compelling and his character is so ghostly unreal/real that you are somehow mesmerized by what is taking place. The thing that really gets you is a part where he is captured and beaten half to death by one of the gangs and yet struggles to bring himself back to life over several days as if by the strongest of wills. That, too, plays well, and though it seems unreal it is in its own way riveting.

My hunch is that this movie will be still watched a hundred years from now. It is a true classic in its own right. It spawned a couple of sequels and a whole gaggle of what were called "spaghetti Westerns" because of the Italian origins and style.

The music is interresting too. The score, by Ennio Morricone, is as different as the plot and the characterizations as well. It all enhances the strangeness of the story and the heroics (or anti-heroics, if you please) of the tale.

Of course, one still has to deal with the premise of all this. The Man With No Name, as we have said, is like a killing machine of raw power. Yes, he is human and vulnerable. But his confidence in himself and his quickness with a pistol make him the most dangerous man alive, at least in the small town where he finds himself. And so because he has this incredible power within himself, he is able to shoot down anyone who gets in his way, save a few lucky souls along the way, and come up with "A Fist Full of Dollars" in the end (again, in a way the audience may not expect, he gives the bulk of the dollars back to those from whom it came.) But still, what is really going on here?

The fantasy, as we have said, is what appeals in this movie. In a complex world of frustration where we may find ourselves in the modern day, sometimes deep inside there is a primal urge to use raw power, even lethal power, to cut through it all and Get Our Way. We come up against a brick wall in life, and we have three choices: submit to it, try to negotiate with it, or fight it. The Man With No Name is the representation of option three: you knock down every wall that gets in your way. And millions of people in our world today think that is how you deal with the obstacles of life, if you don't submit to them.

So in a way, the Man With No Name represents the easy way out, the quick fix, the I'll show-'em answer. The problem is that in Real Life, it doesn't really work out that way. The Clint Eastwood character may seem to win in the end, but the truth in real life is that might doesn't necessarily make right. Law and justice can no more be entrusted into the hands of one fallible human being than can a weapon of mass destruction be ultimately entrusted into the hands of a dictator. It takes a group of people who hold each other accountable in a moral way to handle issues of justice and law, not one man or one dictator holding sway over a group of people. And that group of people have to have something besides personal satisfaction going for them too: an inner desire to do what is best for everyone, not just the lucky chosen ones. Which is why religion at its best is helpful to human beings: it informs the group as to what actually is "good" for everyone. The Man With No Name may not be "evil", but if absolute power tends to corrupt, in Real Life I don't think I'd want him as the mayor over my town.

In Real Life Clint Eastwood the actor eventually became the mayor of Carmel, California, and from all reports did a credible job as a respected and innovative civic leader. But in Real Life he did it with a group of citizens working together, not as a loner with his serape over his shoulders, his stogie clenched between his teeth, and his gun in his hand. The Man With No Name was ONLY a quick fix fantasy, and if you let fantasies like that think they can work in real life, you will have made a terrible mistake. Too many people all over the country and the world try to play out the role of The Man With No Name today and get what they want with selfish power, with results that mean broken marriages, parentless children, friendless empty lives, and guilt that knows no end. Real Life demands a behavior that is grown up, not immature and which turns away in wisdom from the quick and too often deadly and ugly "fix" which isn't really a fix anyway, but the spawn of a new set of problems.

Still, if you like movies, and you want to see a fantasy played out, you owe it to yourself to see this movie if you like Westerns and if you just want to see something completely different. It's out on DVD now in a good edition. It launched Clint Eastwood's career and made him the number-one box-office actor in the world for a while.

You won't forget it and you will feel its pre-civilized power long after it is over. And you will also sense within it that the Man With No Name really does have a name: in a crude, secular way, it is "Savior." A savior born of power and not of Grace, perhaps, but even so his maturing essence points to a kind of salvation to come in a time when warriors must fade away, and peaceful humans will come and walk and tame the barren earth.

So in that sense he is a false savior, one whose fadeaway opens the possibility for a true Savior, a man of peace and love, to come and set things right in Reality. Power will one day give way to Grace. But before that time, the most dangerous man in the world will come with power and foreshadow a time of hope. And after it is seen that raw power does not give credence to that hope, the better way of love will be evident.


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