Michael Winner is synonymous with Sir Charles Bronson (yes, in my book he is Knighted) and Death Wish (1974); he has made countless other fine films, yet many continue to float beneath the public's radar. Now, granted, Winner's specialty was macho 1970s genre films, which may explain why, almost 50 years later, he is not a household name with the likes of Eastwood or Peckinpah.
This being said, the mere idea that Lawman is not regarded as one of the finest westerns of its day is outlandish. To be fair, the film was released the same year as Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971). Regardless, Lawman is an absolute gem shimmering through decades of dust, begging to be instilled atop the Western cannon.
Synopsis
Burt Lancaster plays Jarod Maddox, a Marshal from the town of Bannock where a group of drunken cowhands shoot up the town's streets and store windows, accidentally killing an old man in the process. As the town's Marshal, Maddox aims to track down and return the entire group to Bannock for justice.
Mr. Bronson, played by Lee J. Cobb, leads the group; Bronson is a rancher turned businessman who owns a large piece of profitable land in the nearby town of Sabbath. The law in Sabbath is the stoic Robert Ryan, playing Marshal Cotton Ryan, who must weather the incoming storm of Maddox's justice, while attempting to convince Bronson's men to stand trial without any blood-shed. What unfolds not only turns the Law versus Corruption dichotomy on its head, but it also questions at what point a man's moral convictions trump the very law he is sworn to uphold.
Top Guns
How Lawman still remains overlooked is a Hitchcock mystery considering the number of heavyweight actors in the film's starting lineup. First is Burt Lancaster. Approaching sixty years of age, Lancaster's aged face and features are perhaps one reason the film was not a bigger success. Yet, it is exactly the withered, lined face of Lancaster that adds an ugly sense of reality to the film (the same applies to Cobb and Ryan).
This is a film shot and produced during the revolution in American cinema and, like many 1970s period pieces, the West is perceived through a grim, grimy lens as long accepted social mores are gunned down like Bronson’s men. Watch the hollowed features of Robert Ryan, working as a mere figurehead with little actual power under Bronson’s thumb. Then compare Ryan to the pained sorrow and desolate Lee J. Cobb who, by film's end, is a shell of his former self.
Rounding out this powerhouse cast is Robert Duvall in a rare villainous role, playing one of Bronson's hired hands. As the youngest of the four, he is figuratively withered, morally stained with the horrors of attempted murder all for a piece of land.
Despite the former, Lawman does not toil in any kind of existential misery; in fact, it's far from it. Yet, there is a nagging sense of cruelty that emerges from the opening credits, yet fails to subside after the gut-wrenching conclusion.
Eye of the Beholder
Another factor in Lawman's intimate and immediate impact on the viewer's conscience is Winner's direction. It appears that Winner employed more of a Euro/Spaghetti mentality, especially concerning the camera's mobility. The angles at which Winner captures the film's most gripping scenes are "Leone-esque" in terms of their unconventionality; the final shot of the film is a terrific summary of the preceding 100 minutes. Winner's continual use of close-ups in collaboration with the camera's freedom, its pans, and tracking shots aesthetically emphasize, almost operatically, the picture's dizzying moral conundrum. Lawman must be a candidate for Winner’s best work.
The Widowmaker
The real tension in Lawman rests in the mind of the viewer. Lancaster, Cobb, Ryan, and Duvall perform at the height of their abilities, reversing Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage" quotation. The actions and consequences on display in the early days of the 1900s in Lawman are as relevant today as they were in 1971.
Nicknamed The Widowmaker, Lancaster's actions will divide audiences; his decisions linger in one's mind long after the final frame. What, exactly, is the difference between murder and justice? Are these two concepts mutually exclusive or, instead, uncommon bedfellows? As mentioned, the viewer is the ultimate judge.
Join the Conversation