Western Wednesdays: ‘The Shootist’

“I’m a dying man, scared of the dark.”

I’ve put off watching The Shootist for a long time.  It has such a weighty legend hanging over it.   It’s John Wayne’s final film, and features melancholy appearances from a lot of  greats such as Jimmy Stewart and Richard Boone. Even Humphrey Bogart’s ghost looms over it because of Lauren Bacall’s sad and spare performance.  Even the horse figures prominently — Dollar was Wayne’s favorite horse, and its appearance was a condition of his doing the film.

My goal was to watch (or rewatch) all of Wayne’s Westerns before tackling this one.   But it’s been hanging on my DVR for a few weeks, tempting me, and I decided to stop putting it off.  Wayne died several years before I was born. There’s a finite amount of his movies any way you slice it, and why put off the inevitable?

Which is, of course, what The Shootist is about.  Acceptance.   It’s a powerful film. No matter how you feel about Wayne, it’s a moving portrait and one of his best performances.   We all know Wayne wasn’t the most nuanced or gifted actor. He played himself.