The Quick and The Dead (108 minutes)
Is this where Leo was inspired to only date women half his age?
**Note: if you’re reading this in email it’s too long and will get cut off! To finish the article head on over to my Substack page linked here**
I went just about to my max runtime (which is 110 minutes by the way) for this week’s flick because I was wildly intrigued by the thought of a Western directed by Sam Raimi. That, and Frank was eager to watch it because he’s obsessed with the Blank Check podcast and they just covered it. This is a very “Regina George wore army pants and flip flops” moment for me. But to be fair, I haven’t listened to the podcast so all thoughts here are still my own. (As a woman writer I have to say that or the trolls come out from under their bridges.)
The Quick and The Dead was released in 1995 just after Raimi directed Army of Darkness and before For The Love of the Game. For those who are less Raimi-versed, let me explain why these three movies lined up together is so wild. Army of Darkness is a sequel to Evil Dead 2--the wildly shot and chaotic zombie classic. And For the Love of the Game is a sports drama about an aging pitcher starring Kevin Costner. Squeezed in between these two is this Western produced by Sharon Stone. You can say whatever you want about Sam Raimi but you can’t say he isn’t game to try something new.
Quick Plot Overview! The Quick and The Dead (which from here on out I am going to refer to as TQTD because I’m lazy and everyone loves a good acronym) is classic Western fodder. A woman with no name (Sharon Stone) arrives in a frontier town ruled by despotic “mayor” Herod (Gene Hackman) to compete in the town’s annual dueling tournament. There we’re introduced to a wild cast of characters all in town for the same purpose including, The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Preacher (Russell Crowe). So help me god, I love good cowboy nicknames. Lady (Stone), Preacher, and The Kid all have a bone to pick with Herod which we watch unfold over the course of the dueling tournament. Oh and all three of them are also really great gunslingers.
To start, this movie was not a hit.
You may be thinking “But how? With a cast like that?” But it wasn’t necessarily star-studded at the time. This was Russell Crowe’s first US film and a pre-Romeo + Juliet, pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. Two out of four of our main characters were not well known. I do feel like if I had known Leo at that time I would have jumped at the chance to see him duel. I was all of eight years old but ratings be damned.
(I’m starting to realize I am always covering “not a hit” films. Is that the true nature of a 90-minute movie or is this my own habits shining through? This may be a necessary deep dive at some point. Or maybe it’s just a me problem.)
This movie does have one of the recurring trends we’ve seen so far on this Substack journey-- a basic and somewhat one-note plot. The script itself is not very original and basically goes through the checklist of what a Western should be. We’ve got revenge plots around every corner. No one you can trust. Dusty streets and big guns and a clocktower and a hanging. Check, check, check.
What ultimately makes this movie stand out, and stand up on its own legs, is Raimi’s iconic direction applied to a new genre. When I think of Raimi I think: Dutch angles! Motion sickness! No really. I am super sensitive to motion and while I love Evil Dead and Evil Dead II for what they are, I always walk away fucking nauseous. He employs a lot of different camera angles, rapid camera movement, and purposely disorienting angles.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive into his style, I found this great piece over at Pop Matters. Where they go into the history of his career and style than I could ever cover in this letter.
TQTD does have a lot of Dutch angles but unlike his horror films, chills out on the more rapid and disorienting shots. Easier for me to watch, thank you.
In a lot of ways, the stylistic choices in this movie made me think of Wes Anderson. It seems like a weird comparison, I know, but hear me out. Both directors set their shots with the overall aesthetic in mind first, rather than the other way around. It’s not always about what’s the best way to capture the moment but what will be the most interesting frame. I see this most clearly in the dueling scenes where we are looking at the shooter through the hole they’ve just shot, instead of holding close on the shooter or their victim’s faces. In those moments, rather than trying to force an emotional moment, Raimi is creating a moment that is a bit grotesque and a bit funny. Riding the line that he so often does between horrifying and hysterical. Anderson operates similarly in his films where we are often pulling emotion from the set/surroundings instead of strictly from the characters. Putting them in boxes or wide shots that oftentimes tell us more than a single tear could.
Here are some visuals for what the fuck I am talking about (images are linked for credit):
.
.
.
.
Outside of style and set (did you SEE that graveyard image?), there are only a few other elements worth mentioning. The performances of our four main characters are alright. Gene Hackman is inspiring as ever, managing to add depth to a character with ZERO redeeming qualities. As we were watching this we had to pause and Google where Hackman has been. It seems he retired in 2004 after Weclome to Mooseport with Ray Romano. Ouch.
It is super fun to watch a young DiCaprio as a gunslinger. I was pretty uncomfortable watching him woo Stone’s Lady because he looks to be about 15 years old and she looks… much older. I did the research and he was 21 at the time of filming while Sharon Stone was 37. Is this where Leo was inspired to only date women half his age? Similarly, Hackman’s Herod also tries to get with Lady and he was 65 at the time of filming. So I was definitely justified in being put off by both advances.
Outside of the ick factor all around, Leo is charming as ever which is a great foil to both Lady and Preacher (Crowe) who are pretty big bummers the entire movie. Lady is stoic, while Preacher lives up to the hype of being “holier-than-thou”. There’s just enough sexual tension between the two for us to imagine that in another life they would have been hot and heavy. Another life being one that they’re not both risking their lives competing in gun duels and arguing about morality.
Finally, the costuming is pretty fun barring obvious racial stereotypes that the film industry was definitely not moving away from in 1995. (Have they now even in 2022?) Lady wears some of the best leather pants I have ever seen in my life and I appreciate the ornate garb of Ace — a trick gunman involved in the duel. There’s a blog post I found dedicated to Lady’s looks you can dive into to see what I mean. The costumes were done by Judianna Makovsky, who would go on to do a bulk of the Marvel movies. Her brand is clearly sexy yet functional.
This movie falls into the style over substance category but it’s still a fun time, especially if you like seeing actors early in their careers. I’d come for the dutch angles and stay for DiCaprio and Hackman.
SOURCES:
https://fanboynation.com/the-quick-and-the-dead-1995/
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-quick-and-the-dead-1995
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1059629-quick_and_the_dead
https://thespool.net/features/the-quick-and-the-dead-review/
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-quick-and-the-dead-117578/
https://www.popmatters.com/depth-of-field-sam-raimi-horrors-stylistic-savior-2495716301.html
http://vintagesusieandwings.blogspot.com/2011/11/sharon-stones-wardrobe-in-quick-dead.html
For some reason, this movie has always been one of my favorites. I love a good predictable Western.