I wouldn’t call it as Western as much as an quintessentially American cautionary tale, through and through.
Some spoilers ahead, so drive slowly.
If you dig the Transcendentalists, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, the usual suspect, you need to read the novel and/or see the film. On the protagonist’s journey toward enlightenment, naïveté & innocence meet greed & madness. It obviously helps to have respect for and love of Tatanka, and the knowledge that genocide is not exclusively human, but cross species. The ending could disappoint some, but the protagonist is learning and this is his first chapter as he departs to his next wilderness adventure, now significantly wiser, not to mention much more self-reliant as he has found his voice, direction, purpose.
Regarding the TATANKA allegory, like the indigenous peoples, the Tatanka are pointlessly hated, targeted, and almost completely decimated, for which the “rewards” are swiftly revoked, destroyed, fittingly by nature herself, along with multiple human spirits, putting into context the absurdity and tragedy of the tale, told time and time again yet always ignored at our peril.
As for the title, Butcher’s Crossing, we are the former, and at the busy crossroads, we decide the latter, our collective future path, divine or malevolent.
So, if you subscribe to any or all of the above, this is right up your (Colorado v)alley. That’s a poor attempt at an inside joke, but you’ll get it once you’ve seen it.
Thank God Nic Cage paid off his gambling debts so he can get back to business. One of his best performances, yet…
P.S. For the discerning eye, there is a poignant allusion to Lady Macbeth, to boot.
Boot?
Really?
(Apologies.)
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