Ominous? Maybe not so much. Dark, perhaps? But, it does deal with mortality. "In youth we learn, in age we understand." Maybe eventually, we accept and it has less power over us?
Part of what makes this film great is that it's an honest look, both flattering and not so, at a character who learns he's reached the end of his run portrayed by an actor, a man, who was also facing his own mortality. While he may not yet have been aware of his final cancer, he had previously lost a lung to it, had a recent bout with pneumonia with only one lung, and possessed a damaged heart valve all of which must have contributed to his general condition and mindset. I believe much of the man behind the character shined through here as it did in most of his films. You can say what you want of him as an actor(though Rooster Cogburn should convince anyone of his ability to portray a character), but plainly and simply put, it's telling that most people went to theaters to see "the new John Wayne movie", not just the latest western. It didn't necessarily matter EXACTLY what one of his movies was about, it was always comfort food for the mind and soul and likely a dose of old fashioned American ideals, and we identified John Wayne with it -still do. To most men John Wayne represents an heroic ideal, a sense of decency, an unwavering faith in doing the right thing that we all aspire to, a rightness, even a modern day mythos. For those that still refuse to get it, he and his characters represent the man that we want to be even when circumstances may prevent it. For many of us, while our mothers taught us these and other things, John Wayne, as well as the examples of fathers, uncles, big brothers, etc., also taught us what it was to be a man and do the right things -and that we must live with those decisions.
Now, if you want to really get into it, this was a movie about a character wanting to exert control over his passing as he had tried to over his life -he wanted to control how he went out. I'm not sure it was Wayne's intention, but the character doesn't go out exactly as he'd planned at the hands of others. It's also about redemption, in that through his passing through, and his passing and Ron Howard's character's hand in it, he prevents another young man from traveling the path he had.
Perhaps, John Wayne was far more than many of us realize, or credit him for, and fully felt and understood his own mortality, the overall futility of the illusion of control, and more importantly realized that perhaps our own redemption is in part through what we leave behind with and within others. I'd like to think the icon had one last lesson to teach us about what it is to be a man, ultimately at the mercy of fate, or God -as you would have it.
For the inevitable naysayers or those who may feel left out of my view of this, I'm not a misogynist, but I haven't had the pleasure of being a woman, so naturally my views are colored as are those of the fairer[certainly lovelier, but fairer? Best left to a case by case basis... -that was ONLY in the way of good natured ribbing. ;)] sex in their own bent and ways. Accept my humble apology for my lack, for I am but a man -though I do aspire to be a better one.
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