Elliot Silverstein
10 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
Avatar (2009)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced by A Man Called Horse (1970)
Plot Themes Characters
There are echoes in this of Cameron’s “Aliens” (Giovanni Ribisi impresses as the corporate lackey who places profit above life), and of such infiltrator-becomes-an-initiate narratives as “A Man Called Horse,” “Dances with Wolves,” and “The Last Samurai.”
Like his professional debut, it's another transposition to outer space of the western, specifically countercultural films like A Man Called Horse , Little Big Man and Dances With Wolves , in which the white heroes cross over into the American Indian world and take the side of the supposedly primitive people against the supposedly civilised invaders.
If you’ve seen “A Man Called Horse” or “Dances With Wolves” there’s no reason for me to tell you where it goes from here...
I don’t know who I am.? Who he is, of course, is a born-again Injun in the mode of the hero of A Man Called Horse.
Still, the Chieftain Eytucan (Wes Studi) and the Shaman Mo'at (C.C.H. Pounder) are willing to give him a shot, so we get the chance to see Jam-Cam's version of A Man Called Horse, Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas as the Jakenator becomes more and more "one of them"!
The plot to "A Man Called Horse" (or, if you like, "Dances With Wolves") thusly prepped, Jake is able to strike out on his own - narrowly avoiding death in the jungles of Pandora thanks to Na'vi tribe member Neytiri (Zoë Saldana), with whom he quite naturally falls in love.
Genre fans will find plenty to gnaw on: The opening scene brings to mind the 1977 auto-schlocker The Car, while later passages obliquely reference everything from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the beloved but little-seen Seventies TV movie Gargoyles.
Oscar winner Bridges, whose Cogburn is the righteous version of the unstoppable killer in the Coens’ Oscar winner “No Country for Old Men,” puts his own stamp on Marshal Cogburn, and in one hilarious scene, channels not the iconic Wayne but the great Lee Marvin of “Cat Ballou” (1965).
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
Directed by Seth MacFarlane
influenced by Cat Ballou (1965)
Plot Themes
Like the authentic setting, Theron's seriousness grounds "Million Ways to Die," allowing us to give a pass to MacFarlane when he awkwardly emulates Kid Shelleen's drunken horse rider from "Cat Ballou" (Lee Marvin did it better), and tries to achieve Brooksian racial commentary with dubious setups.
As a writer (with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild), MacFarlane concocts a flimsy burlesque story that draws on every offbeat oater from “Destry Rides Again” to “Cat Ballou” and “Django Unchained.”
In the venerable tradition of Cat Ballou and Blazing Saddles, Seth MacFarlane’s comedy western boasts gags galore – some a lot cruder than others.
In The Car (1977) a diabolically possessed automobile does the same thing.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Directed by Joel Coen
influenced by Cat Ballou (1965)
Characters
In the whimsical, if also violent first installment, Tim Blake Nelson plays the eponymous singing and card-playing cowboy Buster Scruggs, a darkly comic and cartoonish variation on a theme of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry with a dash of the revisionist Western classic “Cat Ballou.”
I can remember attending a double feature of two Richard Harris films, “A Man Called Horse” and “Man in the Wilderness.”
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
influenced by Cat Ballou (1965)
Characters
Director Gore Verbinski ( The Ring )compares Jack Sparrow to Lee Marvin's character in Cat Ballou.
And in old Westerns like Rio Bravo and Cat Ballou, the drunken gunslinger could beguile audiences with his stuporous amiability.
Marvin, who was at the height of his career in 1967 (having just come off a Best Actor Oscar win a year earlier for Cat Ballou), accepted the part eagerly.
Credit three people mainly with the film's success: E.M. Nathanson for his novel on which the movie is based (screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller), Nathanson saying that while it was fiction, he was inspired by legends of such things actually taking place; director Robert Aldrich, an old hand at action thrillers with movies like "Kiss Me Deadly," "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," "The Flight of the Phoenix," "Emperor of the North," and "The Longest Yard" to his credit; and Lee Marvin, a former Marine riding high as an Oscar winner for "Cat Ballou" two years earlier and "Point Blank" the same year.