106. Desperado &...

Lyrics

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow

Don' you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of heats is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no youger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're loosin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

Hotel California and The Last Resort are absolute classics, but The Eagles have never made another song that even comes close to those two. Desperado isn't bad though, and it allowed me to see/write about a (sort of) western again.

The Movie: The Misfits (John Huston, 1961)

I''ve previously written a post here on John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, which I absolutely loved. The Misfits could not be any more different than it. The Maltese Falcon had an incredibly tight screenplay, with a very precisely developed plot. Every scene, and every line helped build up the characters and move the story forward. The movie invited us to think and strategise with the characters, by making expertly clear how each development affected each character. The Misfits, on the other hand, hardly has any plot to speak off. Not much happens here. Very often the characters are quite confusingly written. 

While the characters may be a bit inconsistently written though, here, like in The Maltese Falcon, it is exactly clear what the characters desire: Marilyn Monroe. She has to some extent the same function as the falcon, with one major difference. In the Maltese Falcon, the falcon was the McGuffin. Here, everyone else is the McGuffin. Everybody in this film exists to illuminate Marilyn Monroe. Thus, while the film may not be entirely successful, it is very interesting as a historical document. I have rarely seen a movie so obsessed with a film star. We all know the discussions about how Hollywood attracts audiences to their movies. They glorify their stars and build an aura of perfection around them. The Misfits seems to be a rare example of Hollywood falling for its own illusion. It's basically an exploration of all the ways in which Marilyn Monroe is perfect. Watching The Misfits, one can easily understand why Monroe was so messed up and confused. Especially if we consider that the film was written by Monroe's partner Arthur Miller, and that their relationship ended before the film was finished. In this context, Monroe's performance here is quite impressive, especially because it seems to be so unselfconscious. While the movie is constantly glorifying, she is playing, or at least trying to play, Roslyn as a woman grounded in reality. This is especially clear in the scenes between her and Isabelle (Thelma Ritter). The relationship between the two woman feels like a very naturalistic portrayal of a friendship between two women, with the older woman being something of a mentor figure. 

Monroe is basically presented here as the mother of all living creatures, a well of empathy that never dries up. She basically serves to give meaning to the lives of the three main male characters, who are all in their own ways desperate men. Gay Langland (Clark Gable) is as IMDB rightly puts it an 'over the hill cowboy', whose children have abandoned him. Guido (Eli Wallach) is Gay's friend, whose wife died a long time ago. Lastly, Perce (Montgomery Clift) is the most tragic of them all. He's a cowboy who lost the family farm and now has to earn a living at dangerous rodeos. Roslyn's incredible kindness and care (and her butt; the movie has quite a lot of close ups of Monroe's behind shaking around) are nearly magical. Around her, all their problems seem to disappear. Monroe is damn near literally presented as a source of joy and comfort. As if that's not everything Monroe is incredibly athletic too. In one scene at a bar the customers are playing with one of those small, wooden tennis rackets that have a string with a small ball attached to them. Whomever can hit the ball 10 times in a row will get money. Most customers hardly get to five. Monroe gets to 10 and keeps going. She hits the ball about 50 times, maybe more. The sole function of that scene seems to be to show that Monroe is extraordinarily better at this small, insignificant game than nearly any other person in the world. And of course she doesn't want to keep the money she earns for herself. She gives to the poor, and to Perce.

Monroe's care and empathy is also reserved for animals. At the beginning of the film she doesn't let Gay kill a rabbit destroying her garden. This early scene foreshadows the climax of the film, when the three men and Monroe go mustanging (hunting wild horses in the Nevada mountains). When Monroe learns that these horses will be killed she throws a fit, threatening to leaves. Much drama ensues, but in the end the horses are let go. Monroe now becomes more than just the mother of all living creatures, she is the symbol of modernity and progress.