A primitive revenge western?

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I am not sure that Lin is a "hero" in any traditional sense. He spends the movie obssesivly hunting down his own brother. It is hard to see his quest as a moral action, or as representing any moral philosophy. Winchester is a revenge tale, one with some shades of gray, it is not a moral inquiry. If you compare every film you watch to some high philosophical ideal, you are not going to find many that meet your standard. Also Winchester 73 has nothing at all to do with Hamlet. I find your comparison to be disturbingly primitive and a dangerously powerful endorsement of douche-baggery.
"Your only hunger will be for power. Your only thirst will be for vengeance." Lex Luthor

I think I agree generally with you, janniklindquist, that the movie veers to close to affirmative moralism, especially in its final moments (and I think your account of the film is excellent). The Winchester signifies differently according to who's holding it (exploitation of native peoples by the Indian trader, the threat of the Other by Rock Hudson, senseless masculine posturing by Waco Johnny) but in the end the movie appears to show Lin heroically reinscribing it with the morality of the father, the name of the father, through killing his treacherous brother (who doesn't even dare go by the family name).

But still, I think the rifle is a fascinating phallic symbol and criticizing the movie for being too moralistic seems like a simplification. This movie needs a more complicated reading.

ANY movie whose plot (and main character) is driven by revenge has a primitive morality. Because that is what revenge is: primitive.

I don't think your so-called primitive morality is a mistake here, or in any way unintentional. This is not a pretty story about nice people. It's full of bitterness and cruelty. Winchester '73 was made at the height of the film noir period, and in my opinion it has MUCH more in common with those crime films of the decade (think "Out of the Past" starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas) than it does with Hamlet, or even other more traditional westerns.

I also don't think the film is an endorsement of revenge. If anything, it makes no judgements at all. We're following hard-bitten men who are in conflict, until one overcomes the other and the story ends.

The basic underlying narrative conflict´s indeed not a very complex one, but I didn´t find any of the characters overly one-dimensional or obvious and they all came across as believable human beings - McNally acted fairly sensibly ie non-murderously most of the time and I really don´t see how one can conclude that Stewart was "on the verge of madness" as his more emotional moments only occurred in the presence of his enemy, making him no more insane than any highly revenge driven protagonist from Glenn Ford in The Big Heat all the way to Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon films (in fact, he was ´less´ unhinged than those two). Also, I don´t think Mann was up to any real re- or deconstructions of the mythos of the western hero - it´s a fairly straight forward story in these regards, mainly set apart from your average classic western by the noir tinge Mann adds (that, and the relative rawness & sense of urgency to the violence uncommon to classic western era). And there wasn´t any overt "moralizing", either.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Surely you noticed there were more stories packed into Winchester '73 than the brother rivalry? What of all the depictions of the weapon as power being wielded by different kinds of men, and their different needs for that power? The film runs the gamut with human-kind's applications and relationships with the gun, I found it a rich experience.

"Disturbingly primitive"? Really? Exaggerate much?

~.~
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