‘Exploding the screen’: why Tombstone is my favorite movie | Video

Ohon October 26, 1881, four men – gambler and lawman Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and his dentist friend Henry “Doc” Holliday – passed through the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, and walked down the street near Fly’s Boarding House and Art Studiojust west of Well Corral.

Thirty seconds later, two people were dead and one was asleep; over the years, which, depending on your point of view, was either the police or the triple murder became popular as a tale of good overcoming evil.

This love affair has changed almost every movie genre about guns, and 1993’s Tombstone is no exception. But while its predecessors are often drowned in their own problems, Tombstone brings out the screen with wit, humor and self-awareness that transforms a tale of chaos and mass murder into a thrilling adventure, ending with the good guy symbolically riding off into the sunset with his true love.

Shows Kurt Russell as Wyatt, supported by Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as Virgil and Morgan, Tombstone is inspired by Val Kilmer, which is undoubtedly his career apogee, as Doc.

It was a holiday and many accounts hot flashes and easily irritated; Kilmer recasts him as a flashy, red-faced but charismatic, black Southerner with a desire to hasten his already imminent demise with alcohol and guns.

His performance is given wings by cinematographer Kevin Jarre’s dialogue, which combines with Kilmer’s delivery to elevate what could have been a western thriller into a unique and surprising rollicking adventure. One of the joys of rewatching Tombstone regularly is anticipating and repeating, Rocky Horror-like, the fusillade of Holliday’s. nice words.

Holliday challenges his nemesis Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) with a simultaneously gleeful and vicious “I’m your huckleberry,” the movie’s signature line that graces many T-shirts. After pointing bullets at a member of Clanton’s opposition, the target insults him for being too drunk to shoot straight, prompting him to produce another and say, “I’ve got two guns. One for each of you.” When he makes a poker hand that drains cartoon villain Ike Clanton of his money, he says, “Well, isn’t that a daisy?” and he mocks his opponent’s intelligence by saying, “Maybe poker just isn’t your game.”

The actual gunfight at the OK Corral was a brief and ugly affair, part of an ongoing war involving moral turpitude on both sides. Tombstone retells the story as a tale of family and friendship, with Russell Wyatt as its emotional core, weighing his family obligations and responsibilities against his desire to live a peaceful and prosperous life. Wyatt, torn by the subsequent murder of Morgan and the maiming of Virgil at the hands of their enemies, shouts to Ike Clanton that “Tell ’em I’m coming, and hell is coming with me,” starting the finale, when he, Holliday and his friends take revenge on those who killed Morgan and his friends.

History is inevitable. Some of the dialogue, including Holliday’s aphorisms, is very surprising, as are the small details such as the Earps and Holliday’s drinking. Old Overhauled whiskey (Doc’s favorite tipple) and a the dog barks as Morgan lies dying They are scattered like Easter eggs for Old West buffs. In contrast, the scope of Earp’s revenge is oversold and the main confrontation between Holliday and Ringo is made from whole cloth; but, compared to previous efforts such as 1946’s My Darling Clementine – which killed Virgil before the Gunfight with Doc at the time – Tombstone’s story is synonymous with words.

The key to enjoying Tombstone is not to worry about the dirty story he would have told, but to enjoy the entertainment he chooses to tell, to enjoy the image of matey bonhomie and his anti-riot story, and to be endlessly happy, even with repeated viewings, the appearance of Bill Ay-Zane! Dana Delaney! Jason Priestley! Billy Bob Thornton! Power Boothe! Charlton Heston!

Do I still like Tombstone because I know its past mistakes? Not at all; and I’m not alone. A few years ago, inspired by a couple of whiskey watches, I spent some time visiting Tombstone, where I met an actor who walks the streets as Doc. He took the character, he told me, not on Holliday’s history but on Kilmer’s picture – because it is a vision, not a gaunt, invisible reality, which has been in the popular mind.

As Kilmer’s Doc might observe: “Well, isn’t that a daisy?”