the shootist

in my quest to see all of the jimmy stewart films, my latest film was the shootist. an amazing film. john wayne is a gunfighter with a big reputation for gunslinging, for killing a lot of men (though as he says, no one who didn't deserve it) who gets cancer and only has so much time to live, and jimmy stewart is a doctor who cares for him in his last days, gives him the bad news, and gives him powerful pain killers to make life bearable. it reminded me a lot of my own father, who died of cancer inside of him, and how much pain he had to endure in his last days. this is a film about life and death. about accepting one's own death and dying one's own way. it has romance in it, love, and ron howard plays the boy who learns some things about life from the old man, from john wayne.

someone once said, on TV, that westerns are a genre that doesn't get enough respect from film lovers. we say, well, it was only a western. instead, we should be treasuring westerns as an american genre that have all the elements of a good story, good guys, bad guys, war, love, in the stark terms of the American West.

once again, in this film, jimmy stewart plays the quintessentially good man, the good doctor, who has trouble telling the truth about how horrible the death of John Wayne will be. he's so good he has trouble breaking the bad news to the gunslinger. yet they have a friendship going back many years, the good doctor, and the shootist. i study jimmy stewart because i believe in every film he has something to say about "what it means to be a man" and "how one should live a good life." and "the attitude one should take toward life, toward giving meaning to life."