Why are they breaking the rock?
Missed the beginning.
shareTo "get to the gravel underneath" or summat. They're trying to find gold, that's all you really need to know.
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MovieChat Forums > Pale Rider (1985) Discussion > Why are they breaking the rock?
They believed there was gold right under that rock ,and there was-real big nugget.
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God damm this is not rocket science.
shareI don't understand. Who would have wanted gold back then in the wild west? I thought gold wasnnt' valiuble until like the 1800s or something.
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You're confusing gold with oil. Oil wasn't thought to be of much value when it was first discovered. In fact, it was considered bad luck, since you couldn't do farming on land with oil.
Gold was always valuable.
Never be complete.
I thought gold wasnnt' valiuble until like the 1800s or something.
The film is set in the 1880s. share
Gold has been a standard for value since at least the middle ages. Per Wikipedia: "During the early and high Middle Ages, the Byzantine gold solidus, commonly known as the bezant, was used widely throughout Europe and the Mediterranean."
shareThe Roman Empire had large scale placer gold mining.
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It's also a metaphor for a challenge. The rock can be seen as stubbornness, something blocking the path. These miners are chipping away at mountains to find gold and to make a living. Hull was pretty much on his own, but the preacher was willing to help him confront his challenges, as he does so in the film. Club, LaHood's giant, is raw power, and has no problem splitting the rock just as LaHood has no problem destroying entire mountains, but there's no regard for the lives of those affected. Hull is working for a family life, LaHood for profit. The preacher advises the whole camp to work together, and not go it alone the way Spider did, which got him killed. Him joining Hull in hammering at the rock symbolized how woring together can garner desired results.
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
samuri5,
That that was damned good summary of the 'rock' hammering scene - Well done!
-B!LL!
Samuri's explanation is good as far as it goes. I think to be complete you must add that the whole scene (and many others) are derivative of Shane. In the case of this scene, it comes from the "tree stump" scene in Shane.
The whole movie is a re-telling of Shane, with elements of High Plains Drifter thrown in. Not saying that there's anything wrong with that... I just can't believe that there has been so much discussion of the movie without a discussion of its lineage.
I know I'm late to the game, but the scene was primarily there so you, the viewing audience, would understand the significance later when LaHood's men blocked the creek by dynamiting upstream. It simply gave the director a chance to explain how important a free-flowing stream was to the Tin-pans.
The way they were going at the rock certainly seemed symbolic -- as Clint kept reminding them a man alone ain't got no chance -- so we have a half dozen men chipping away at the top of a huge boulder without any thought of how best to do it. Anyone with any experience in breaking up boulders with a sledge hammer -- and I have a little -- knows you look for the weak points first and give it all you got so it will split along a sheering point (the "grain"), not easy-as-she-does-it erosion through a profusion of little blows on its top.
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