The Shooting ou La Mort Tragique de Leland Drum

As far as westerns go, the 60's were all about Italy and the spaghetti western. By 1967 the ripples Leone's movies are about to make in the American film-making business are around the corner, which leaves The Shooting hanging in a peculiar time and place. Too out there to be appreciated by the traditional western crowd of the 50's and not as cynic and hard-boiled as the spaghetti western-influenced works of the early 70's.

But it succeeds exactly because of that. Monte Hellman crafts a mesmeric, primeval, ultimately existential western that exists in a parallel western universe. A mythic world of some other order. That it refuses to sit down and explain what is going on with the plot is a testament to the film's strength. Not everything needs to be explained. It's all about the impression images make. Impressionistic in that aspect but also surreal. Very. Who is the woman? Who is Billy and the bearded man? As Warren Oates, Jack Nicholson (in an early role here but showing the potential he would fulfill later on in his career) travel through the barren desert, in search of something or someone, The Shooting slowly but gradually peels back the layers of conventional film-making to reveal an off-beat, gritty and fascinating movie. Some of the editing used by Hellman (day to night and vice versa) only serves to disorient the viewer more.

Not only is this a rare, one of a kind western but in all its psychotronic, b-movie glory, it's one of the best of its kind America has to offer. Kudos to Hellman for not refusing to take chances.

"Did I tell you to do something?" - Billy "I don't give a curly-hair, yellow-bear, double dog damn if you did" - Coley

Four people ride across the desert tracking a killer but it is not clear who they really are and who it is they are looking for. In Monte Hellman's subversive western The Shooting, just released for the first time on DVD, Warren Oates is Willett Gashade, a bounty hunter turned mine owner who returns to find his brother Coin missing, his partner dead, and a fellow worker in a state of panic. When a strange woman shows up, the three set out on a journey with an unknown destination that leads to a final bizarre confrontation. The Shooting has more questions than you can find on the SAT and it is often a frustrating challenge to fit the pieces together. Hellman shot the film on a limited budget in eighteen days in the desert country near Kanab, Utah with B-movie producer Roger Corman and a young actor named Jack Nicholson.

It was released to television and did not play in the theater until years later after it developed a cult following in Europe. The quality of the transfer is impeccable but the dialogue borders on the incomprehensible. Slow-witted but good humored Coley (Will Hutchins) is fearful as he tells Gashade that he was asleep when he heard an argument between Willett's partner Leland Drum and Coin. He says that Colin fled, and Leland was shot dead by an unseen gunman and tells Gashade something about Coin having ridden down "a man and a little person, maybe a child," but Coley's not sure about that. Soon, a woman (Millie Perkins) who is not named arrives and offers to pay Gashade to guide her to Kingsley, a town that lies some hours away, beyond a dangerous desert. The woman is abrasive and complaining but Coley takes to her immediately while Willett is distanced and aloof.

Mystery piles upon mystery. When the riding party sets out, the woman asks to be led in the wrong direction without offering any explanation. The woman shoots her horse claiming it was lame but it turns out have no broken bones. When asked why she shot the horse, after a long period of silence, she can only muster a feeble smile. Along the way, Coley, Willett and the woman meet up with Billy Spears (Nicholson), a nattily dressed gunman with a sadistic smirk, and it becomes apparent that the purpose of the journey may be to track down the person or persons responsible for shooting Leland. Beyond that it is anyone's guess as to what the film means and an unforgettable climax does not clear up the confusion.

The director has said that The Shooting is a mirror of the Kennedy assassination where doubt remains about what actually happened on that day, but the connection is murky. Whatever its ultimate meaning, The Shooting is an involving ride full of twists and turns and Jack Nicholson's mighty performance as Billy is worth the price of admission. Actually the meaning may be revealed when Gashade says to Millie, "If I heard your name I wouldn't know it, would I?" She says, "No." Then he says, "then I don't see no point to it." She says, "there isn't any." Perhaps like life, The Shooting doesn't mean anything. It's just there to grab your attention.

Hollywood, in the 1960s was a locale rife with young visionaries, sometimes stoned, wandering about like starets in Tsarist Russia. But Roger Corman always had an eye out for serious, energetic, responsible young filmmakers, like Monte Hellman, who could put a movie together on the cheap. "The Shooting" has a great virtue: the unique talent of Warren Oates, who could project simultaneously, and with seeming ease, both strength and anxiety. The props, costumes and desert scenery of Kanab all serve this western well, even if its dramaturgy is weak. It seems more like an "idea," stretched out to 82 minutes, than an involving, logical plot.

Most casual film viewers will find Monte Hellman's "The Shooting" to be slow, boring, and pretentious. But serious fans of cinema will be amazed at how terrific this existential morality play really is. Hellman's version of the old West is at once depressing and beautiful, and the rickety production values on display actually enhance the atmosphere. And of course, who can forget that inscrutable ending with echoes to the Zapruder film? This is fascinating stuff for the patient, thoughtful film student.

Willet Gashade (Warren Oates), a former bounty hunter, returns to his small mining camp after a lengthy absence and finds his slow-witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins) in a state of fear. Coley explains to Gashade that their partner, Leland Drum (B. J. Merholz), had been shot to death two days before by an unseen assassin. Also starring a young Jack Nicholson.

In 1964, Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson had made two films together, "Back Door to Hell" and "Flight to Fury", which were produced by Roger Corman and filmed back-to-back in the Philippines. This film was very much in the same vein, this time shot back-to-back with "Ride in the Whirlwind". Nicholson's history with Corman is well-known, but Hellman's career also came from Corman. His first directing gig was "Beast from Haunted Cave" (1959), a Corman film, which was followed up with an uncredited stint on "The Terror" (with Nicholson). In fact, Hellman did not really blossom outside Corman's domain until "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971).

The film was written by first-time screenwriter Carole Eastman, who would soon write "Five Easy Pieces", another Jack Nicholson vehicle (and much later the Nicholson film "Man Trouble"). As with many involved, she was a Corman veteran, having been responsible for the music in Corman's "Creature from the Haunted Sea" (1961).

It was not until 1968 that the U.S. distribution rights were purchased by the Walter Reade Organization, the same company that distributed "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). No other domestic distributor had expressed any interest in the films. Walter Reade decided to bypass a theatrical release, and the two titles were sold directly to television. In retrospect, it seems bizarre that this film fell into obscurity, but who could have predicted Nicholson's rise to stardom?