Great essay on a movie I continue to have deeply ambivalent feelings about. I remember the image of the jerry-built house as a metaphor for Bill’s general incompetence being mentioned in at least one early review. But you nicely expand to the larger social & political frame of the movie.
One thing, though, is that Ordinance 14 would have been seen as neither unconstitutional nor unusual at the time. Town “gun check” laws were common in the Old West, and broadly effective, particularly in consolidating “cow towns” that now lean heavily into their supposed romantically “wild” pasts. Interestingly, it seems actual violence was much higher in company-run mining & railroad camps, where the bosses seem to have been broadly indifferent to intra-communal violence.
The Supreme Court’s Heller decision of 2008 was particularly stunning because it completely reversed the entire history of 2nd Amendment interpretation to that point with respect to federal deference to local authority to regulate private ownership & use of firearms.
One final thought, chiming with your beautiful Deadwood piece: Big Whiskey is a kind of anti-Deadwood in its lack of a real communal body, in any meaning of the term. Little Bill is not the only culprit, to the extent that the community has put itself into his hands & lets him do what he does. Maybe that’s the thing that’s always left me most queasy about the movie: to what extent do the town’s citizens also “get what they deserve,” or not, in the orgy of bloodshed at the end?
BTW, you mentioned reading the Cicero biography. I would agree that the end of the Roman republic is relevant to today. Clodius is downright Trumpian. I would recommend two other end-of-empire books, both with interesting parallels. One is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire. The other is 1177 BC, about the collapse of the bronze age, by Eric Cline.
Sorry, you have categorically misunderstood the film, Little Bill and William Munny. First Little Bill has created justice. The town has no gunslingers and everything is ok. The sign *is* the laws written down. People were not very literate then so many warnings were on edge of town like that. It means his rule is not arbitrary.
Second Strawberry Alice says this isn’t fair but she is already a criminal, morally compromised ie property so does *not* have a say. She says she does because, as she says later to the other whores,
“Just because we let them smelly fools ride us like horses don’t mean we gotta let ‘em brand us like horses. Maybe we ain’t nothing but whores but, by God, we ain’t horses.””
She is appealing to a higher justice, literally the appeal to God, that they may be whores but they are humans not animals. This is a classic tension explored in the play Antigone where Antigone flouts Cleon’s law by an appeal to the ancient law. Thus Little Bill is not incompetent nor is his justice incomplete he is fair in the context. She changes the context like Antigone (and Strawberry Alice is right but she misplays it because they want the cowboys killed which is disproportionate to their crime or wounding and scarring. Disproportional justice isn’t justice and that is what hau rs the town. Why? Because Will Munny comes in like God’s Old Testament and wipes out Little Bill and nearly all forms of justice. The one surviving deputy runs away and will not shoot at Will Munny even from a hiding spot because he cannot act—he is broken. Will Munny doesn’t change when he hears Ned is dead. He accepts that is his or Ned’s fate for a bad life. Remember he says “we’ve all got it coming”when explaining the life to the Kid. What he could not abide was his friend was a decoration that dishonoured him for a crime he did not commit and was Ned’s responsibility and Will Munny extracts vengeance on Little Bill so the scales are closed.
You missed the significance of when William Munny becomes the killer. Not when he was told Ned was dead. It is the moment she really says who he is William Munny” it is at that exact moment William Munny takes his first drink. He is going to turn into the man Ned warned them about and Little Bill thought he had the measure of. The difference was Will Munny wants to kill Little Bill. He is not concerned with justice he wants revenge. He becomes that which he disavowed and the Kid shrinks before him realizing he is literally been trash talking a cold blooded killer of nightmares. US Marshalls were tough SOBs so to go up against one and kill them like it was nothing was serious and Ned even said he killed three men in the fight. He had killed so many he could not even remember all of them. Note William Munny doesn’t get drunk. He takes the drink to unleash the killer. He is moderating his drinking and his killing. Therein the deeper change in William Munny.
Little Bill cannot build the house do something creative is correct because that is beyond his role. He founded the town in that he brought justice by the disarming and beating down of gun slingers always with more men than the gunslinger will have. What he cannot do is rule. Again a classic tension between founders and rulers. This is correlated to his flawed judgement of the punishment for the crime. The whores were not considered and their honour was disfigured by him in the way the cowboy had disfigured Delilah. He is not incompetent so much as unsuited but unable to change. Romulus founds Rome in a crime Machiavelli’s focal point that such creation requires a crime but because he is a criminal he cannot rule and the rulers that follow needed that founding crime even as they try to avoid referring to it or having to replicated it as the seek to rule not refound in bloodshed and crime. William Munnny is not refounding the city. He leaves it. The town must decide whether or not it will seek justice or collapse but they are not tainted by the founding crime so they have or the next ruler has a chance.
In the end William Munny saying deserve’s got nothing to do with it is completing what he said to the Kid “we’ve all got it coming” we being the criminals and that includes Little Bill as much as he was insisting g he was building a home he was the criminal for what he had done and William Munny brought him justice and justice for the whores for which he was paid.
Munny gets the fate he deserves but had he been killed later he would not of complained of being undeserved. What it shows is he drank in moderation enough to unleash the killer and achieve justice. He also earned the money so he could and did return to the life promised his wife and raise the kids. He gets a peaceful death not one in crime and violence because he left it behind for good in part because he has no more killing to do.
Great essay on a movie I continue to have deeply ambivalent feelings about. I remember the image of the jerry-built house as a metaphor for Bill’s general incompetence being mentioned in at least one early review. But you nicely expand to the larger social & political frame of the movie.
One thing, though, is that Ordinance 14 would have been seen as neither unconstitutional nor unusual at the time. Town “gun check” laws were common in the Old West, and broadly effective, particularly in consolidating “cow towns” that now lean heavily into their supposed romantically “wild” pasts. Interestingly, it seems actual violence was much higher in company-run mining & railroad camps, where the bosses seem to have been broadly indifferent to intra-communal violence.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/
The Supreme Court’s Heller decision of 2008 was particularly stunning because it completely reversed the entire history of 2nd Amendment interpretation to that point with respect to federal deference to local authority to regulate private ownership & use of firearms.
https://govfacts.org/rights-freedoms/constitutional-rights/right-to-bear-arms/how-three-supreme-court-cases-transformed-americas-gun-rights/#
One final thought, chiming with your beautiful Deadwood piece: Big Whiskey is a kind of anti-Deadwood in its lack of a real communal body, in any meaning of the term. Little Bill is not the only culprit, to the extent that the community has put itself into his hands & lets him do what he does. Maybe that’s the thing that’s always left me most queasy about the movie: to what extent do the town’s citizens also “get what they deserve,” or not, in the orgy of bloodshed at the end?
thanks! i fixed this. others noted the error too.
I love the way you walk us through movies.
BTW, you mentioned reading the Cicero biography. I would agree that the end of the Roman republic is relevant to today. Clodius is downright Trumpian. I would recommend two other end-of-empire books, both with interesting parallels. One is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire. The other is 1177 BC, about the collapse of the bronze age, by Eric Cline.
thank you! i love 1177 bc! so fascinating. will definitely check the other out too.
Sorry, you have categorically misunderstood the film, Little Bill and William Munny. First Little Bill has created justice. The town has no gunslingers and everything is ok. The sign *is* the laws written down. People were not very literate then so many warnings were on edge of town like that. It means his rule is not arbitrary.
Second Strawberry Alice says this isn’t fair but she is already a criminal, morally compromised ie property so does *not* have a say. She says she does because, as she says later to the other whores,
“Just because we let them smelly fools ride us like horses don’t mean we gotta let ‘em brand us like horses. Maybe we ain’t nothing but whores but, by God, we ain’t horses.””
She is appealing to a higher justice, literally the appeal to God, that they may be whores but they are humans not animals. This is a classic tension explored in the play Antigone where Antigone flouts Cleon’s law by an appeal to the ancient law. Thus Little Bill is not incompetent nor is his justice incomplete he is fair in the context. She changes the context like Antigone (and Strawberry Alice is right but she misplays it because they want the cowboys killed which is disproportionate to their crime or wounding and scarring. Disproportional justice isn’t justice and that is what hau rs the town. Why? Because Will Munny comes in like God’s Old Testament and wipes out Little Bill and nearly all forms of justice. The one surviving deputy runs away and will not shoot at Will Munny even from a hiding spot because he cannot act—he is broken. Will Munny doesn’t change when he hears Ned is dead. He accepts that is his or Ned’s fate for a bad life. Remember he says “we’ve all got it coming”when explaining the life to the Kid. What he could not abide was his friend was a decoration that dishonoured him for a crime he did not commit and was Ned’s responsibility and Will Munny extracts vengeance on Little Bill so the scales are closed.
You missed the significance of when William Munny becomes the killer. Not when he was told Ned was dead. It is the moment she really says who he is William Munny” it is at that exact moment William Munny takes his first drink. He is going to turn into the man Ned warned them about and Little Bill thought he had the measure of. The difference was Will Munny wants to kill Little Bill. He is not concerned with justice he wants revenge. He becomes that which he disavowed and the Kid shrinks before him realizing he is literally been trash talking a cold blooded killer of nightmares. US Marshalls were tough SOBs so to go up against one and kill them like it was nothing was serious and Ned even said he killed three men in the fight. He had killed so many he could not even remember all of them. Note William Munny doesn’t get drunk. He takes the drink to unleash the killer. He is moderating his drinking and his killing. Therein the deeper change in William Munny.
Little Bill cannot build the house do something creative is correct because that is beyond his role. He founded the town in that he brought justice by the disarming and beating down of gun slingers always with more men than the gunslinger will have. What he cannot do is rule. Again a classic tension between founders and rulers. This is correlated to his flawed judgement of the punishment for the crime. The whores were not considered and their honour was disfigured by him in the way the cowboy had disfigured Delilah. He is not incompetent so much as unsuited but unable to change. Romulus founds Rome in a crime Machiavelli’s focal point that such creation requires a crime but because he is a criminal he cannot rule and the rulers that follow needed that founding crime even as they try to avoid referring to it or having to replicated it as the seek to rule not refound in bloodshed and crime. William Munnny is not refounding the city. He leaves it. The town must decide whether or not it will seek justice or collapse but they are not tainted by the founding crime so they have or the next ruler has a chance.
In the end William Munny saying deserve’s got nothing to do with it is completing what he said to the Kid “we’ve all got it coming” we being the criminals and that includes Little Bill as much as he was insisting g he was building a home he was the criminal for what he had done and William Munny brought him justice and justice for the whores for which he was paid.
Munny gets the fate he deserves but had he been killed later he would not of complained of being undeserved. What it shows is he drank in moderation enough to unleash the killer and achieve justice. He also earned the money so he could and did return to the life promised his wife and raise the kids. He gets a peaceful death not one in crime and violence because he left it behind for good in part because he has no more killing to do.