Dirty Harry vs. The Shootist

Bobby Karmi

on 7/1/2013

Don Siegel show down, between his most well known film and the one I think deserves more attention. Both can be said to be stories about how men who lead violent lives fascinate us alogside character studies about those same men. Harry Callahan is one of the great film cops and no one can argue that, alongside Siegel's direction is highly stylish and protrays San Ferinsico in a way that treats it as both Heaven and Hell. J. B. Brooks on the other hand is the culimation of all the roles John Wayne played in his western films, and at the end the film feels like a wake for this archetypical figure (Wayne was dying the same cancer that inflicted the character he played as I recall). It was deconstructionist in a way that certianly influenced Eastwood's own farewell to his archetype Unforgiven (1992), and also has moments that feel like a Peckinpah film (the setting of a week in Janurary, 1901 draws an interestig parallel to The Wild Bunch (1969)). Both are films I really enjoy for various reasons that require there own reviews, but for now my vote goes to Dirty Harry, if only because to truly feel the emotional impact of The Shootist one would have to know about John Wayne's contributation to the western alongside have a fondness for his films, while Dirty Harry needs little to no introduction.