Johnny Guitar (1954, Nicholas Ray) (Patreon)

90/100

Forgot that I'd reviewed this professionally, when it played at Film Forum in the summer of 2003. And I'd now like to take issue with my description of it as a "combination of high camp and deep feeling," which I'm pretty sure was informed by discourse that I'd read about Johnny Guitar in the '90s (and also possibly by the experience of watching it with a rep-house audience primed to guffaw at pre-Method acting). Like all of Ray's films, it's expressionistic, not campy; there's admittedly sometimes a fine line between the two, but the latter suggests a winking quality that's wholly absent here. When Emma sets the saloon on fire, and we get that magnificent shot of McCambridge all but running backwards from the flames and then abruptly turning into close-up with a crazed expression on her face, Ray is wielding a tool—an emotional sledgehammer, frankly—that no other medium provides (cf. Godard, though "Nicholas Ray is cinema" comes from his review of Bitter Victory.) There's nothing remotely amusing about it, at least to my eyes. I just gasp at the intensity. 

The gasp-per-minute ratio for reels one and two, in particular, is exceptionally high. First there's your initial glimpse of Vienna's, a set like no other in the history of the Western (and a reminder that Ray studied under Frank Lloyd Wright; see also the Dancing Kid's "lair," which anticipates the Van Damm house in North by Northwest). Then there's the eerie silence occasionally punctuated by the sound of the ball circling the roulette wheel, even though nobody ever plays. Then we're introduced to the title character, who promptly all but vanishes from the frame for a good 10 minutes or so; he gets an iconic re-emergence, catching a whisky tumbler as it falls from the bar, but we've already been given ample notice that Johnny Guitar might not strictly be about this fellow who calls himself Johnny Guitar. (Likewise, Ray largely ignores the Johnny-Bart brawl, mostly letting it play offscreen while we watch Vienna verbally parry with the Kid.) Above all, there's Vienna herself, conforming to exactly zero of the genre's conventions regarding female characters, representing such a stark anomaly that the script has someone comment on it aloud: "Never seen a woman who was more of a man. She thinks like one, acts like one, and sometimes makes me feel like I'm not." Of course, it's not so much that she acts masculine as that she just doesn't simper or equivocate, which wasn't unheard of for a female lead even at the time (though it was comparatively rare). What's truly remarkable is Vienna's strength of purpose in a context prompting clear expectations that Mr. Guitar will be fulfilling that role. Which he only sorta does. Even when he rescues Vienna from being hanged, it's staged almost anti-climactically (as the Kid later sneers): He just cuts the rope from above, rather than shooting it from a distance à la The Man With No Name. Nearly every chance Ray gets to diminish Johnny's presence, he takes.

Other folks have written quite eloquently, and at greater length than I'd be able to, about various queer readings, as well as the film's clear anti-McCarthy subtext. (I'll just note, on the latter score, the enduring relevance of Emma badgering Turkey to falsely indict Vienna with a silent nod of his head, then triumphantly shouting "You heard it from Turkey's own lips!") No matter what one's preferred lens may be, though, I feel like the finale must seem like a slight disappointment. There's a rushed, perfunctory air to the last few minutes, and especially to the final clinch between Vienna and Johnny; I can't find any evidence of studio interference, so can only assume that Ray's interest lay elsewhere. The movie really peaks with the second confrontation at Vienna's, when she sits at the piano in that white dress playing Peggy Lee's title tune and treating the lynch mob that's come for her as if they were slightly drunken hecklers. Then Ray stages that aforementioned shot of Emma exiting the burning building, which is so overpowering that there's almost nowhere left for him to go. I did shave off half a star, but flaws don't get a whole lot more forgivable.