His name is Death or the Pale Rider (1985). This film will prove to those who do not like westerns at all that they are wrong. It should be watched by all fans of dramatic cinema, not just fans of the genre. One of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse was called the Pale Rider or Death. However, here he is quite a lively rider on a pale horse. No one knows his name, everyone just calls him the Preacher. “… And Hell followed him” – this is the slogan of the film.
ATTENTION! The review contains spoilers revealing the content of the film!
A sermon can sound like this
And perhaps he is not a man, but a ghost risen from the dead, a spirit of vengeance. He is the one who was previously killed by Assistant Judge Stockburn, as there is evidence. About his eyes, even villains say that they are “strange.” And that he was tall and skinny. The Laconic Preacher uses arguments from the Bible: “the ways of the Lord are inscrutable,” “it is impossible to serve both God and Mammon at the same time,” and after his appearance here it will no longer be the same as before.
The plot is unpredictable: at first it seems that the action will follow a well-known path, as in the Seven Samurai (or its remake, the Magnificent Seven), bandits will come and gold diggers will defend their canyon under the supreme command of the Preacher. Or did our antagonist come to stir up the water and as soon as it smelled fried, decided to get out as soon as possible? It’s not that simple.
But the Preacher knows how to play bast shoes.
The film was shot in the reserves of Idaho (Sawtooth National Recreation Area), there are breathtaking mountain landscapes. Perhaps this is one of the highest mountain westerns. There is also a cameo of the giant Jaws, familiar to us from the Bond “The Spy Who Loved Me.” It’s amazing that the Preacher easily inclined this monster to his side. Marshal Stockburn is relentlessly similar to Lee Van Cliff, but he is not so infernal.
Thanks for the whiskey!
Perhaps this is the only one of all the films where Eastwood plays not a man, but a ghost. In one scene, the bad guys approach the place where the Preacher is sitting with his back to the window and drinking coffee, and then they run in and unload their guns into the chair where he was just sitting. Are they so stupid and don’t see that he’s not there? It’s like they’re not that stupid. It’s just that the Preacher has a superpower: to dematerialize and suddenly appear in another place.
Megan loves preaching
Instead of filling the frame with himself and dialogues, Clint sparingly shows the squint of his eyes, the corner of his mouth, his face in the shade, or just a figure in the sunlit landscape. At the time of filming Pale Rider, Eastwood already had 9 films set by him with himself in the title role, he perfectly understood how it looks on the screen and how it all works, and in the film he gives out much more than what is written in the script. A favorite of women and children, the Pale Rider of our days.
Watch the movie His Name is Death online (HD)
