WESTERN. Brando and Nicholson draw
“Missouri Breaks” at 8:55 p.m., on Arte.
End of the 19th century, in the Far West. David Braxton, a wealthy landowner, is at the head of a breeding farm of several thousand animals. He conducts his business as a clan leader and, when confronted with bandits, takes justice into his own hands. Until Logan (Jack Nicholson), leader of a gang who got rich thanks to a train robbery, arrives nearby. He buys a ranch close to Braxton's, plays good neighbor, but begins to steal cattle. Exasperated, Braxton turns to a hitman with particular methods, Clayton (Marlon Brando) to do the cleaning…
From the end of the 1960s, destabilized by the advent of the spaghetti western, Hollywood began to present another vision of the Wild West, less Manichean and more political. Praised at the time but a real commercial flop, “Missouri Breaks” nonetheless constitutes one of the best representatives of these westerns that are as modern as they are deconstructed. We owe it to one of the greatest directors of the time, Arthur Penn, author of “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967 and “Little Big Man” three years later. It relies on two huge stars. Marlon Brando, excellent as an uninhibited and baroque killer, sadistic pervert and occasional fan of transformationism. Jack Nicholson, for his part, plays the charm card to the fullest, even if he also plays a handsome bastard, who does not hesitate to seduce his enemy's daughter to achieve his ends. At Penn, pretenses are legion, starting with the title of his feature film, which actually takes place in Montana, the Missouri Breaks being a series of rugged plains located along the Missouri River.
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