A man utters four words to an undertaker (‘Get three coffins ready’). He continues walking, gives a short lecture to four men before dispatching them, and indulges the audience with another four words as he tells the funeral director that he’ll require an extra coffin, before walking off into the distance. In one short scene from Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, a microcosm of a Hollywood silent hero is illustrated. Laconic, slow-moving and boundlessly confident in his gestures, Clint Eastwood’s nameless figure epitomises cool as he welds his Toscano cigar like a sword.
But that’s the Hollywood silent hero we’re talking about. While the violent Wild West is the bedrock of the Western that many have come to know and love, it’s not the only location where the genre can be set, and the Western, by virtue of its mythic, seemingly indestructible silent heroes and epic landscapes, can cross many genres. You’ll find it in the boxing rings and dark alleys of Bangkok (Only God Forgives), the darkness of South Korea (Oldboy) and, of course, the mountains of Japan (Seven Samurai) just to name a few examples.
What you’ll find much less often within these epics, however, is the oppressed ‘Other’ figure in the central hero role, and this definition extends to the indigenous man as well as the woman, who is typically cast in the helpless, damsel in distress role. Both are framed as outsiders within the brutal, unforgiving worlds of violent, dominating Caucasian men. We have no shortage of these figures fighting in the Wild West, saving dames, scalping Indians and colonising lands (see Stagecoach, Red River and The Searchers for a quick introduction). But it’s far rarer to see the dames carrying out acts of violence, and to see this violence experienced from the point of view of the oppressed indigenous survivor. It is perhaps rarer still to see both figures working together to achieve revenge and independence through these violent means.
Yet we can find two profound examples of just this in Hugo Blick’s recent TV series The English, and Jennifer Kent’s 2018 film The Nightingale. The former wears the influence of Sergio Leone on its shoulder with its classic opening titles sequence created by Scatterlight Studios, as well as composer Federico Jusdid’s frequent homages to Ennio Morricone’s harmonic tunes. Yet the work remains distinct through its focus on Emily Blunt’s Cornelia Locke, who joins up and falls in love with Eli Whipp, a Pawnee man who served in the Civil War alongside the Union, as they journey to their destination. One seeks revenge for lost family, the other desires to claim lost lands, and each enacts their own brand of justice against their oppressors along the way. If those sandy lands look like familiar American terrain, they aren’t. The series was shot in Spain in the Tabernas Desert and around Madrid, which goes to show that you don’t need to be in America to make a Western.
This is particularly true in the case of The Nightingale, which is set all the way over in the Australian outback. Instead of the grand, largely empty desert expanses we’re used to, the outback presents the viewer with a wilderness of a different, but no less threatening kind, thanks again to the violent nature of foreign invaders. And it’s safe to say that Kent doesn’t stint on the violence (or trauma) in this one. While The Babadook, the director’s lauded debut, contained its fair share of psychological scares, the level of physical, on-screen violence in The Nightingale definitely ramps up several levels. As with any revenge Western, the main act of violence or murder that provokes a character’s desire for bloody retribution should take place either early in the film, or before the film has started. We don’t see the death of Locke’s son in The English and we don’t learn about her motivation to travel such a long distance until a bit later (as with any good Western, a bit of mystery is essential). In the case of Kent’s film, however, we are subjected to harrowing scenes within the first act when Irish convict Clare Carroll is raped, her husband murdered and her baby dispatched before her eyes. This horror unsettles the audience, but also prepares them for plenty more bloody retributions on the horizon. As Romeo and Juliet’s friar forbodes, these violent delights have violent ends.
Carroll, like Locke, begins her journey through violent terrain with the help of a native, Aboriginal tracker named Billy, having received no help from the military police. Like True Grit’s Mattie Ross, she must gain the assistance, trust and – ultimately – affection of her protector in order to survive the unknown. But Kent’s and Blick’s narratives women never fall into damsel in distress tropes, with both women capable of handling and shooting weapons and adapting to their harsh environments. A picture paints a thousand words, and both The English and The Nightingale excel in their extreme close-ups on faces, again paying homage to many of the intense portraits we witness in Leone’s oeuvre; it’s no surprise that actress Aisling Franciosi’s distressed expression adorns The Nightingale’s main promotional poster.
Billy and Whipp both stand as remnants of their dying worlds; while Whipp has sublimated into the guise of his American colonialists to a certain extent in order to survive, he remains his own man by the film’s conclusion, ultimately leaving Locke to save his life and riding into the sunset to seek his rightful land. Like the classical Western heroes (with Shane as the most famous example), the hero cannot stay within the society he assists, and must leave any hopes of family behind to pursue his own journey. Billy, on the other hand, stays with Carroll during his final moments, but remains stoically independent as he stands by the sea, having successfully exterminated the film’s main villain. He curses his oppressors, then breaks into mournful song as a pained Carroll looks on. Whipp, too, regards his departing comrade with an emotive farewell, shouting that he cherishes her in his native language. These poignant outbursts are the final declarations we hear from both men, refusing the language of their oppressors in their proud native tongues.