28th
High Noon
Once while in high school, I watched nearly all of High Noon, right up until the climax when the class ended and we never got back to finishing it. So I called up good ol’ Netflix and ordered me a western.
The film is about a frontier Marshall about to give up his gun-totin’ ways to marry the delicate Grace Kelly whose Quaker roots make violence unpalatable. Unfortunately, an outlaw with a grudge over a hanging conviction from Cooper is pardoned; he’s coming on the noon train to seek restitution for the years he spent in prison, and three of his cronies wait for him at the station. Cooper seeks out enough of a posse to keep the peace, but the genteel citizens forsake him, as does his brand-new bride who says it’s her or the gun and plans to leave on the same train that brings the outlaw. Out of a sense of duty, or sheer orneriness, Cooper decides to stand alone against the outlaws, and we watch as the minute hand creeps closer to noon.
Not being a film student in high school, I didn’t realize how beautifully shot this film is, nor how interesting the editing. Black and white with intense shadows, the film makes the most of the good/evil lighting depiction.
It’s incredible how tense the film gets when it is really just a chronological following of Gary Cooper as he tries to round up a posse. As the clock ticks closer and closer to high noon, the editing gets shorter and shorter. As the train whistle blows, faces of all the people who left Cooper to die fill the screen in low-angle closeup. It’s a beautiful, if melodramatic, testament to the human emotions of duty and guilt.
In the end, we get to see Cooper ride off indignantly into the sunset, having shot Frank Miller dead. At least he still has Grace Kelly.
