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To live as Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876) must have been a joyless enterprise. He left the only woman he adored, was a victim for every man who wanted to claim his fame with a fast-draw competition, made a fool of himself in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and eventually got shot from behind during a poker game. The hand he possessed when he died (aces and eights) became known as the Dead Man’s Hand, which is not the type of legacy one wishes for.
Gunslingers and gamblers alike were hobbled with Hickok’s other ailment which was glaucoma. He also spread rumors of having uncured syphilis. All these and more get their fair share of screen time in “Wild Bill” Walter Hill’s elegiac obituary of an unlovely man. By the time he reached early middle age, dying at 39, all he had to console him was the companionship of Calamity Jane.1 For a brief time, they indulged in the pleasures of romance and post separation kept on reminiscing over fond memories, at least if we are to trust the movie. (Jane was 24 when he died; she is best captured in the movie never approximately how distant those old times were). Cut into high contrast black and white the flashbacks of Hickok’s previous life and merge into the vibrant color of the latter portion of his existence as he works as a lawman in different towns, finally settling in Deadwood. One day, Bill mutters ,”this town reminds me of something out of the Bible.” When questioned about which part of the bible Bill was referring too, he responded with a simple, “what part do you think?”
“The part right before God got furious” Bill is inexplicably fast, fearless, and accurate with a sidearm, which helps explain the bizarre behavior of the spectators that attended his drinking bouts in the saloons. Rather than diving out of windows and running for the door like you or I would if a gunfight broke, they form a line around the room and watch with keen interest like movie extras happy to be in the shot. They get lots of chances, in the first ten minutes of the movie Bill kills mebbe a dozen men, one that had lived would certainly remember never to put on another man’s hat.
It is said that eventually in the Wild West every town will be visited by a child that desperately wants to test their shooting skills against a famous gunslinger. Wild Bill is one of them. Here Wild Bill is portrayed by a David Arquette who is now also a Kid, and it turns out, Wild Bill did not treat his mother (Diane Lane) too well either. Bill remembers her, in a black and white clip, and we see that she was the only woman he ever loved, and in fact, loved her so much he left her, which if you were Wild Bill was mebbe the nicest thing you could do for a woman. McCall–that’s the Kid’s name would like to settle accounts with Wild Bill and the narrative marches toward its mundane conclusion.
Jeff Bridges plays Wild Bill. His performance, like that of all Western gunfighters in the last few years, has to be compared to Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday in “Tombstone” (1993), and, like all the others, fails to achieve his standards. The straight saloon cowboy of our age was defined by him. Bridges, a terrific actor, is not in the right part this time. He portrays Bill as a man who is tired o’ living and not scared o’ dying.
He lives a recluse life. One close male friend, an Englishman Charley Prince (John Hurt), serves as his close friend and confidante, as well as narrator. And there is Calamity Jane as well, but she is more of a friend than an ex-girlfriend. When Bill and Calamity share a hot tub, the very idea of sex is out of the question: We assume they’re rigid from all those recoils.
The film attempts to achieve poignancy and sadness within the final moments, and we can observe its direction, even if it does not quite reach that destination. Walter Hill adapted his screenplay from a Thomas Babe play and the novel Deadwood by Pete Dexter, and attempts some form of Zen where one’s actions are more crucial than the consequences that follow. Given the current context, Hemingway might have liked the stoicism Bill exhibits as he confronts a potential death; to me, however, it seemed like play-acting.
If you want to have something to fascinate your fellows today, Calamity Jane’s last name simply was Canary.
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