Tough guys, tough talk.
Monday, March 19, 2007 at 08:09AM 
Once again, the weekend movies provide thought for fiction writing. (More about Joe Lansdale later). Another guilty pleasure of mine is westerns - I shouldn't say "guilty' because some very fine movies come to mind when I think of Westerns. The works of John Ford, the Samurai Westerns of Kurosawa, and one of my all time personal favorites, Sam Peckinpah.
Last night, I was watching a western that had this crisp dialogue, really much tighter than a lot from that era - I had tuned in late and had not caught the name of the film, but I could tell it was probably from the 60's (I also had a hunch about the name).
There was also an edge to the dialogue, something that came late to most westerns. What I mean is that many of the older westerns were so busy talking about honour, loyalty, loving your gal and your horse in equal measure, that they seemed more operatic than real drama. Even Peckinpah was known to wax eloquent on the changing times. Later with movies like Unforgiven, there started to be that revisionist view of the west, the blood, the dirt, the guns that exploded in your hands and all the mean drunks.
The movie I saw on the weekend was decades away from this revision, yet the dialogue had a definite edge, people got shot and not in pretty ways. But more than that it had this clipped style that I recognized. Less than halfway through the movie, I knew what it was. Hombre, starring Paul Newman and written by none other than Elmore Leonard. As I listened to the dialogue it was almost like I was seeing on the page, rapid fire back and forths, short sentences, probably a few "he saids" and "she saids", no long speeches, none. Of course before Leonard was writing lines for Chili Palmer he was writing Western pulp novels. I've never read any of them, or seen Hombre. But the style is unmistakeable.
(imagine the following said by gangsters or cowboys)
Russell: Hit something, Mendez, first the men, then the horses.
Mendez: I don't know. Just to sit here and wait to kill them?
Russell: If there was some other way, we'd do it.
Mendez: Maybe we can keep going and try to outrun them.
Russell: If you run, they're gonna catch you, they're gonna kill you. You believe that more than you believe anything.
Mendez: All right.
Russell: And try not to puke. You may have to lie in it for a long time.
Leonard has a lot of fans across the genres, including some hi-falutin ones like Martin Amis. If you've read him you know why. I'd recommend Hombre or my other favorite Leonard treatments, Get Shorty or Out of Sight (based on Rum Punch and probably the best of the lot.)
Elmore Leonard's 10 Tips on Writing (not that I agree with them all)
Reader Comments (2)
I just read the ten tips. Which ones don't you agree with? I wouldn't disagree with any of them, unless I thought I could get away with it.
Mostly one and two. Sure, I hate the dark and stormy night beginnings, but it can work, and I love writing about weather.
And two - I have read some killer prologues in my time. That is the one I must take umbrage with. Where I will take that umbrage, I don't know. How doe sone carry an umbrage?