Gold is just dust in the wind...
Old debt paid today: John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was long time ago among the missing classics. The final argument for choosing it was the info which told that P.T. Anderson was watching this film (almost) every night during shooting his latest masterpiece There Will Be Blood.
Another reason for watching Sierra Madre comes from the guarantee of the co-operation between Huston and Bogart. After their common debut, The Maltese Falcon (which was actually Huston's debut too), the "new" film generated high expectations both in its time and in me as well. And it paid off almost without any doubt.
Almost.
But first the story, maybe during introducing it I'm able to throw light on some minor problems which shouldn't weaken a cinematic classic like this. 1925, Mexico, a small-dusty city called Tampico. Another sweaty-hungry day for Dobbs (Bogart), carrying all his property under his armpit, begging on the street from fellow Americans (the rich one dressed in a white suit is Huston himself). He somehow stucked in this place, can't find a proper job since here he is only a dirty gringo. He makes friendship with a guy, Curtin, who is in the same shoes as he is. After another desperate day they meet an old fellow who has been around a lot, a veteran gold miner. Since they can't lose anything they form a secret group to search for the treasure, yes, from the Sierra Madre. I said treasure, but I ment gold. And there will be gold...
"I know what the gold does with the men's souls" - warns Howard, the old chap the more and more hungry young ones, even before they would have started their expedition. And as a trained vieweres we know already: even if there are gunshots, dangerous mexican bandits, indians, train robbery attempts, bar fights and so on, the story will deal more with confidence, stamina, toughness, greediness, simple dreams and desires. During they are searcing for the gold, we are looking for its definition: blessing or curse?
There isn't any surprise during the two hours, even the logic of the flowing story is subordinated to these morally and psychologically driven questions. The source of my biggest problem comes from this priorities: the sudden deus ex machinas, the often changing characters, the unprepared/unmotivated shifting focus on the protagonists are the narrative sacrifices on the altar of the moral and ethical "meaning".
Together with this I recommend it, somewhere halfway between Stroheim's Greed and PTA's oil-drama (but definitely behind the Huston-Bogart predecessor from 1941...).
8/10
Posts
