Thanks to 'areyouwatching' for taking the time to do the transcript!
It's a great story, you know, a really great story, I read, you know, many scripts, I like to read a lot of scripts, but very rarely does one really stick with you, and this one did, you know, it just, it is a real classic, you know, morality tale, as most westerns really are. And so I just kept plugging away, thinking, alright, you know, this is the one, this is one I wanna do next. I tend to be, get quite a one track mind when there is something that I wanna do and this kind of became my obsession.
It starts on a day when Dan is about as low as he can be, he's been humiliated in front of his family, his livelihood has just been threatened completely, you know, he's faced with homelessness in the desert, and in trying to go back and salvage some of his herd, it's just coincidence, he comes across Wade who’s in the middle of robbing a Pinkerton coach and they spot him and Wade, you know, takes away his horses, leaves Dan and his boy stranded in the middle of the desert, nothing left to do. And that's their first meeting.
What I like so much about this story is very often, you know, in movies, Hollywood movies, it's presented that you do the right thing, you get the rewards. Everybody knows you look around in life, okay, that happens sometimes, but an awful lot of the time you do the right thing and you lose everything and you don't even get people's respect because they think you're an ass for not having just caved in and (told the lie??). And what I like with this movie as well is it doesn't give you that false hope of, you know, what, all it takes is doing the right thing, standing up to the bad guys, and your life is gonna be wonderful. He pays the ultimate price for it, Dan does.
Dan definitely is an idealist, he does not want to be corrupted by the corrupt
society, he kind of definitely believes in do unto others as they, as you'd
have them do unto you. Trouble is, it ain't working, you know, and it's one
thing if you're a single man, sacrifice yourself, suffer, but when you’ve
got dependents, it's a much more complicated scenario.
Ben Wade, Russell's character, on the other hand, recognizes corrupt society,
doesn't have this utopian ideal about, you know, if you behave the right way,
you can eventually bring about some kind of change, he's got a more cynical
approach, but he's very honest and he's very seductive and charming in that
fashion, and Dan, despite the fact that this man is a killer, Dan realizes he's
the only honest person in Dan's life other than his family, everybody else lies
to him.
Russell is a, he's a standup guy, he's a, you know, very solid guy, and so you can have just very blunt conversations with each other in that case and that's what I always love, it's been great, it's been really good working with him, but consequently, essentially what I'm saying is, it's kind of effortless when you get personalities that gel like his and mine do, you don't have to really work at it very much it kind of, it kind of happens.
He's got an incredible eye for detail, but he's great with cooporation as well, you know? He kind of, he kind of works his thoughts out loud in front of everybody, he's not kind of feeling like he has to have all the answers right there for you, which is nice, because then you can feel like, you know, you can really come in, and you can see his process and can see why he's getting to somewhere. And it's just very easy to understand Jim and he’s, it is very true that he's a very bloody good director with actors and then obviously we've got these kinds of scenes with the gunfight which I don't think is his absolute favourite thing, but you know, he recognizes that if you do treat it as just another part of the story then it tells a whole story, just the way a gunfight is fought out.
People had to be hard, people had to be tough, I think there's a modern-day fascination with that because we have, at least in America, in the first world, you know, so many conflicts nowadays at least the majority, you know, people in the big cities, that to (live?) a life where you had to be entirely self-sufficient, you weren't getting help from anybody, is really admirable, you know, and I think that (slightly??) for me, there's always the question of, well, would I be able to do that, you know? And with all westerns it’s kind of testing your metal(?), you know, it's about will you do the right thing, will you step up to the plate when that is needed with no support from anybody else.