Last year I reviewed two of the most iconic westerns of all time
that still stand the test of time, which were "The Searchers"
starring John Wayne, and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" starring
Clint Eastwood. After re-watching the film that gained John Wayne his Oscar
"True Grit", and an Eastwood film that I've been dying to see since Middle
School "The Outlaw Josey Wales", instead of reviewing them separately
(though I eventually plan to in the future), I'm deciding to compare and
contrast them. The reason why I've chosen these two films for such a comparison, as opposed to the two classics I've already reviewed, was for two reasons. The
first being how these two completely different types of cowboys share together in terms
of traits and personalities. And the other reason is the theme that both films
are centered on which is revenge.
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
Interesting enough, though John Wayne has top billing in the film, his character Rooster Cogburn isn't the focus. The actual main character is a 14-year-old girl named Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who is one of the strongest female characters to have ever existed in a western (at least until the third act). Regardless of how many times people dismiss and bully her because of her gender and age, she always finds a way to push-passed it. When Rooster and his partner La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) try to ditch her, she catches up with them. If she has trouble bargaining with a person, she won't stop arguing until she gets what she wants. She's headstrong of having things her way because she wants revenge on the man who killed her father, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey). Though her on-screen relationship with her Father is shown very brief, her love for him is felt throughout her journey for how determined she is to find Chaney and bring him to the town where she killed her Father to be hanged as opposed to flat-out murdering him.
Josey Wales' seek for vengeance shares a similar loss that Mattie went through. Before becoming the kind of outlaw that people would expect Eastwood to behave, he was a humble and civilized farmer living happily with his wife and kid without a care in the world. Until one horrible day, an army of pro-Union Jayhawker militants arrives at his farm taking away everything he had. Instead of losing one person he loves, he loses his whole entire family and his farm from these war-crimes as he's left for dead. Wounded, alone, and with nothing left for him to live on, the only thing that Josey can do now is take revenge on the Union Jayhawkers and the man who led the attack Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney) for what they did to him, his family, and his way of life. Much like how Mattie's relationship with her Father is played-out, Josey screen-time with his family is short but is still felt not only through his actions and thirst for blood but through every moment of the scene itself without feeling rushed or too romanticized. Mattie's motive for revenge is effective, but it's definitely Josey's motive that feels grimmer and felt more by comparison.
As Mattie and Josey seek revenge over the loss of family, both being inexperienced with guns and finding criminals, they don't go alone, they get help. Josey joins a group of pro-Confederate Missouri Bushwhackers after teaching himself how to fire a gun, while Mattie hires aging U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn who is known for having "True Grit". Mattie may be the main character of "True Grit" and tough for fighting to get what she desires, but when it comes to partaking in action and coming up with strategies at capturing her enemy, she gets put aside for the star that people came to see shoot-up the screen, John Wayne. Mattie does shoot the man she's after, but he still lives and gets taken out by Rooster as she's trapped in a snake pit. So in terms of comparing methods and personality for how the characters take action during the search, I'll be focusing on Rooster when covering "True Grit".
Unlike Josey Wales, Rooster doesn't have any personal vendetta against the person he's tracking down, all he cares about is the money he receives from it because that's his profession. To Rooster, he finds hunting criminals and bringing them back dead or alive to be more of a profitable sport for him, than wanting to serve justice for the common good. If anything Rooster just uses his position of authority just to strike fear into the criminals he's paid to find, feeling that he can do whatever he wants to them as long as the people who pay him see it justifiable. He knows his way around the places he explores to find the person he's after very well, and how the criminals he seeks thinks, which gives him the advantage to take on his opponents when they least expect it. And when he takes his fight to those who challenge him or refuse to obey his commands, he shows no mercy or hesitation when killing them or keeping them in-line. Before being a Marshall, Rooster in the past hasn't been so different from the criminals he catches. During the Civil War, he's taken part in war crimes with Captain Quantrell and revealed to have robbed a federal paymaster after the war, who doesn't consider these illegal acts he's partaken in to be crimes. Above all, despite Rooster being played by John Wayne, the iconic charismatic American hero who we know will do right in the end regardless of his faults, Rooster is shown to be rude, patronizing, and aggressive, who constantly drinks and is very trigger happy. However, (as many would expect from Wayne playing a cowboy) he can be gentle and protective towards Mattie, almost acting like a second Father figure to her. His ways of handling Mattie can be a little too rough and cold, but only because he doesn't want her to get hurt. The relationship shows that underneath Rooster's savage and self-righteous ways is a lonely man who has no real friends or a person to care for, where the only thing that keeps him going in life is killing people for the thrill and making money to drink his pain away.
Rooster may be flawed, but most of the people he goes after are people who are deserving of their crimes. Josey goes after people of authority who in the justice system are considered to be good guys. After years of killing Union soldiers during the Civil War, when the Union wins, the Confederates are forced to surrender, and Wales still holding a great hatred for the Union Redlegs refuses to bow down to them. His resistance becomes a lucky break for him after discovering that the Union is not only bullying the band of guerrillas he's been fighting with by forcing them to forget their beliefs but has them massacred even though the war is over. And the Captain (John Vernon) who Josey has served faithfully during the war is now slaved by the Union to take out rebels that oppose them, including Wales. The war may be officially over, but for Wales, it will continue as long as he's around and the Union Captain who killed his family is still alive and well. Josey will slaughter every Union Redleg that comes in his path, even with the knowledge that he can't single-handily slaughter them all. But he doesn't care, because just like the protagonists in "True Grit" the only things that keep him moving in life is revenge and violence which makes him become a wanted man. The greatest element to Josey's character is Clint Eastwood's performance because he's nowhere near as predictable as John Wayne is. Eastwood always had a dry and emotionless approach, who seemed like the kind of cowboy who will just do whatever he feels without caring about the consequences of his actions. Unlike how Wayne will shout, make bluffs, and give warnings when going after someone, Eastwood intimidates a person who dares to cross-him with his cold-stare and few threatening words spoken in such a gruff tone. At first, his intimidation backs away the person who is thinking about turning his gun on him, but should that man suddenly make eye contact with him again or look like he's about to pull out his pistol after being given a warning, he kills him in a wink of an eye. Just like Rooster, Josey is shown to be very calculating when coming up with strategies to attack his enemies, and is openly rude to people, except he'll mostly just spit in-front of the people he hates. Underneath his empty appearance, Josey on the inside is very caring and sentimental. He'll kill any Union Jayhawker soldier he finds but will stop his attack to rescue someone who is in need of his help. When about to ride off to face a large Comanche tribe, he leaves the people who he met on his journey who have become like family to him behind so they won't be harmed like his family. And instead of down-right killing the leader of the tribe, he sympathizes with them for their hate of the government stripping them away of everything away that they valued, and joins them as an ally, after how the government supported the people who took everything that meant to him.
Given John Wayne’s heroic reputation, and that his performance as Rooster came late in his career when everyone was already familiar with his characteristics, Eastwood as Josey Wales comes across as a more interesting character. Eastwood had already established his trademark as this kind of cowboy before in the “Dollars Trilogy”, which you can argue makes him almost as predictable as Wayne is at this point too. However, Eastwood's bruiting personality and savage approach makes him less expected when compared to Wayne because you don’t know when he’ll fire or when he’ll stop his plotting just to rescue an innocent bystander or make peace. With that said, despite their differences and one being more foreseen than the other, Wayne and Eastwood still perfectly fit the western genre, for their heroic image, tough personality, and having a soft heart underneath their cold personality. They are the true legends of westerns who will not be forgotten as long as the genre is still around.
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