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Monte Hellman makes art movies--as in Mr. Wim Wenders, or Mr. Robert Bresson, for that matter. How he disguised them as hot-rod movies, or trendy hippie bashes, or simple old Westerns, is beyond me, so rarefied, quiet, composed, and art-conscious are they. RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND, scripted by its star, Jack Nicholson, reduces "the Western" to abstract essentials. Guys in a shack getting smoked out by the lawmen outside. Guys on the lam from a lynch mob. Stoical lynch-mob hanging. Tense, purse-lipped conversation between outlaw and kidnapped good-girl type. Presented against a stark landscape with no extras (I'm sure Hellman'll tell you it's sheer economics), the scenes take on the quality of gallery installations based on Western plot devices. If you ever wondered where the laconic sensibility of such latter-day types as Jim Jarmusch and Michael Almereyda came from, here's a hint.
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