Sight & Sound, the magazine of the British Film Institute, recently completed a dramatic revision of its signature list of the top 100 films of all time. Much of the press coverage focused at the top of the list, where Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles displaced Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as the #1 film of all time.
Jeanne Dielman was hardly the only change to the list, as well-known films created by white, male directors from the United States gave way to lesser-known films by marginalized directors from other countries.
One of the films that dropped out of the top 100 entirely was Rio Bravo, Howard Hawks’ classic western from 1959.
There are understandable reasons why Rio Bravo didn’t make the cut. The film has dated poorly in many ways. Shot mostly on sets with unnatural lighting, it never comes close to achieving anything resembling verisimilitude. The plot was probably hackneyed even back in 1959 – outnumbered and outgunned, a heroic sheriff in a remote Texas town attempts to deliver an accused murderer to justice despite repeated efforts by a gang of villains to break him out of jail.
There is much in Rio Bravo that my daughters would consider “problematic.” The movie has a clear racial and gender hierarchy. White men are the protagonists who move the story; everyone else is basically a witness, an accessory, or worse. Most of the conflicts in the film are resolved through violence. And the movie’s star is John Wayne, who was recently “canceled” for racist comments that he made in an interview back in the 1970s.
Given all of this, it is understandable why the Sight & Sound critics were tempted to throw Rio Bravo on the trash heap of history.
And yet.
If you can get past the politics of the film (a big if, I realize), there is a lot to love about Rio Bravo.
There is a relaxed pacing to the movie, and moments of real warmth and humor between the characters. (Perhaps this is why Quentin Tarantino called Rio Bravo one of the greatest “hang out” movies of all time.) There is also genuine chemistry to the verbal sparring between Wayne and the female lead, Angie Dickinson.
But most of all, there are instructions on how to be a good man.
Rio Bravo is fundamentally a movie about male bonding and the call of duty. Howard Hawks conceived of the film as a rejoinder to High Noon, in which Gary Cooper’s beleaguered marshal searches in vain for assistance from local residents in preparing for the imminent arrival of a ruthless killer.
In contrast, in Rio Bravo, John Wayne’s sheriff does not seek help even when faced by a dangerous adversary with more men, more money, and more guns at his disposal. Nonetheless, Wayne receives aid at several crucial junctures from three other men: his alcoholic former deputy (played by Dean Martin), a senior citizen (Walter Brennan, providing comic relief), and a young gunslinger (Ricky Nelson).
As in many westerns, the credo of Rio Bravo can be reduced to this: A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. What this means in the context of the film is that Wayne and his lieutenants feel compelled to do the right and common sense thing – prevent a murderer from escaping – even if it requires enormous personal sacrifice for the greater good. They feel responsible not just to an abstract ideal of justice but to the townspeople of Rio Bravo who depend upon them to maintain the rule of law.
This unwritten code of personal responsibility helps to drive the plot of Rio Bravo and create narrative tension. Wayne and his men are given multiple opportunities to duck their duties, but they repeatedly choose to put themselves in harm’s way not to fulfill a masculine ego ideal but rather to promote the wellbeing of their community as a whole. In the process, they exhibit a host of other admirable qualities, including professionalism, commitment to excellence, and loyalty to one another.
We’ve come a long way from the male-dominated world of 1959 when Rio Bravo was first released. While there have been occasional steps backward (e.g. the recent Supreme Court decision limiting abortion rights), in general the past fifty years has been a period of enormous social progress in the United States, with significant shifts in public attitudes about the rights of women and minority groups.
But in the changing climate, there is evidence that men are increasingly struggling these days. Girls outperform boys at every educational level. Male life expectancy lags behind female expectancy, a fact that can be partially attributed to so-called “deaths of despair,” as men succumb to suicide and overdose in alarming numbers. One of the starkest disparities in the justice system is the disproportionate number of men behind bars — the Department of Justice reports that there are more than ten men in prison in the United States for every woman.
According to Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Men particularly seem to be having real trouble in this new world, and it’s limiting their sexual prospects. It’s limiting their marriage prospects. You get a backlash when you have a lot of men, particularly a lot of young men, experiencing this kind of failure to compete. We know that that causes trouble.” Put simply, the struggles that men are facing have demonstrated dire real-world consequences, including increased political violence.
Given this reality, it is imperative, as Richard V. Reeves argues in his new book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It, that we work to create “a prosocial masculinity for a postfeminist world.”
In an ironic twist, a good place to start this effort would be to rescue movies like Rio Bravo from the dustbin. We should certainly jettison the racism and sexism that mar Rio Bravo, but we should hold on to the prosocial personal values that the film exemplifies, including courage, accountability, and sacrifice for the common good.
Rio Bravo may no longer merit a place in Sight & Sound’s film canon, but it is high time for Hollywood to attempt a remake for a new generation.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock