Eastwood's film had all the necessary elements to make a classic... There are in his movie a lot of thoughts about war and the victims of war... The film has the magical combination of historical fact and cowboy fantasy...
The fantasy, as ever, is Eastwood... Josey Wales switches from a simple peasant farmer to stone-cold killer... His shooting becomes as precise as his tobacco spitting... Whether he is merely taking a split second to reverse the two guns he is pretending to hand over to some bounty hunters and concede some bullets instead, or whether he is decently shooting countless 'Blue Coats' with a captured machine gun, or appearing out of the sun to terrify a band of Indians into thinking he is an 'army of one,' or pulling the triggers of his empty guns over and over again, he remains superhuman and invincible... It is Eastwood's screen presence as something unique, direct and strong, the essential Eastwood persona that is a powerful attraction to the public and an enigma to the critics...
Josey Wales has no desire to become an outlaw... At the beginning of the film he is a peaceable Missouri farmer whose wife and child are murdered by Unionist vigilantes, the 'Kansas Red Legs.' The film opens in 1858 when the semi-discipline of the Civil War has been reduced to the chaos of marauding private armies... Wales joins a bunch of desperate Confederate fighters led by Commander Fletcher (John Vernon), and for the next seven years intensifies a multiple revenge on the Unionists, killing them without political cause or pity...
At the end of formal hostilities a price is placed on his head so he makes a picaresque journey into the Indian nation... On the way he picks up different companions: Jamie (Sam Bottoms), a young soldier he saves and who repays the favor only to die from his wounds; Lone Watie (Chief Dan George) who instructs him in the ways and thoughts of the Cherokees; Little Moonlight (Geraldine Keams), the Navajo girl who suffers injustice from the white man's civilization; Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman), the old woman who knows how to shoot marauders, and Laura Lee (Sondra Locke), whom he rescues from a rape...
After surviving the dangers of their journey under the protective wing of Josey, the group settles on a farm formerly owned by Sarah's son who has died in the war... Wales tries to pass his self-sufficient qualities onto them so that they can if necessary survive without him... He shows them how to use guns and protect the farm against invaders, and negotiates a peace with the blue-painted Navajo Chief, Ten Bears (Will Sampson).
Eastwood plays a solitary figure who is not simply an avenger, or a fugitive with a gun... He is a man who at the same time defends women and children and the weak... His love affair with Laura is triggered off by such wistful sentiments as 'clouds are dreams floating across the sky of your mind,' but it rings true that a man blinkered by revenge and hardened by the sheer need to survive could be drawn to an innocent girl, able to escape from the terrors of her environment into the poetry of her reveries... This was the first of six films that Eastwood would make with Sondra Locke who has already won an Oscar nomination in her film debut 'The Heat Is a Lonely Hunter.'
Chief Dan George, who received an Oscar nomination, for playing Old Lodge Skins in Arthur Penn's 'Little Big Man,' is terrific as the aging Indian warrior Lone Watie... He calls himself a civilized Indian - "We're civilized because white men can sneak up on us.' He struck up a perfect partnership with Eastwood, sensitively timing the soft humor in their relationship... When Josey casually outdraws and kills four men, the Old Indian asks with genuine interest, 'How did you know which one to kill first?'
The fantasy, as ever, is Eastwood... Josey Wales switches from a simple peasant farmer to stone-cold killer... His shooting becomes as precise as his tobacco spitting... Whether he is merely taking a split second to reverse the two guns he is pretending to hand over to some bounty hunters and concede some bullets instead, or whether he is decently shooting countless 'Blue Coats' with a captured machine gun, or appearing out of the sun to terrify a band of Indians into thinking he is an 'army of one,' or pulling the triggers of his empty guns over and over again, he remains superhuman and invincible... It is Eastwood's screen presence as something unique, direct and strong, the essential Eastwood persona that is a powerful attraction to the public and an enigma to the critics...
Josey Wales has no desire to become an outlaw... At the beginning of the film he is a peaceable Missouri farmer whose wife and child are murdered by Unionist vigilantes, the 'Kansas Red Legs.' The film opens in 1858 when the semi-discipline of the Civil War has been reduced to the chaos of marauding private armies... Wales joins a bunch of desperate Confederate fighters led by Commander Fletcher (John Vernon), and for the next seven years intensifies a multiple revenge on the Unionists, killing them without political cause or pity...
At the end of formal hostilities a price is placed on his head so he makes a picaresque journey into the Indian nation... On the way he picks up different companions: Jamie (Sam Bottoms), a young soldier he saves and who repays the favor only to die from his wounds; Lone Watie (Chief Dan George) who instructs him in the ways and thoughts of the Cherokees; Little Moonlight (Geraldine Keams), the Navajo girl who suffers injustice from the white man's civilization; Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman), the old woman who knows how to shoot marauders, and Laura Lee (Sondra Locke), whom he rescues from a rape...
After surviving the dangers of their journey under the protective wing of Josey, the group settles on a farm formerly owned by Sarah's son who has died in the war... Wales tries to pass his self-sufficient qualities onto them so that they can if necessary survive without him... He shows them how to use guns and protect the farm against invaders, and negotiates a peace with the blue-painted Navajo Chief, Ten Bears (Will Sampson).
Eastwood plays a solitary figure who is not simply an avenger, or a fugitive with a gun... He is a man who at the same time defends women and children and the weak... His love affair with Laura is triggered off by such wistful sentiments as 'clouds are dreams floating across the sky of your mind,' but it rings true that a man blinkered by revenge and hardened by the sheer need to survive could be drawn to an innocent girl, able to escape from the terrors of her environment into the poetry of her reveries... This was the first of six films that Eastwood would make with Sondra Locke who has already won an Oscar nomination in her film debut 'The Heat Is a Lonely Hunter.'
Chief Dan George, who received an Oscar nomination, for playing Old Lodge Skins in Arthur Penn's 'Little Big Man,' is terrific as the aging Indian warrior Lone Watie... He calls himself a civilized Indian - "We're civilized because white men can sneak up on us.' He struck up a perfect partnership with Eastwood, sensitively timing the soft humor in their relationship... When Josey casually outdraws and kills four men, the Old Indian asks with genuine interest, 'How did you know which one to kill first?'