The Big Country is best remembered for Jerome Moross’s instantly identifiable musical score, one of the greatest (and most hummable) ever written for a western. It’s also a score of surprising variety and texture, enhancing the visuals and the emotions so much so that it becomes an integral element of the film’s overall impact, in much the same way that Hitchcock’s later classics, such as Vertigo (1958), are unimaginable without Bernard Herrmann’s music. And, as with Herrmann’s work, you’re never unaware of Moross’s Oscar-nominated score, but it’s so right that I never tire of it. Moross’s rousing music connects stirringly with the rapturously beautiful images of Franz Planer’s color cinematography, embellishing the film’s sensory pleasures to ecstatic proportions. Obviously, this movie has to be big, and it has to be big often. It’s no surprise that the camerawork is gorgeous, or that the natural scenery astonishes, but the film’s look is uniquely memorable for its array of compositions that serve as constant reminders of just how big the big country is. These vistas aren’t employed merely to showcase wide-screen visions of American beauty for their own sake, but rather to highlight, through the camera’s distant perspective, how small humanity is within these unfathomable spaces. The film features breathtaking, panoramic shots in which the human figures (or the houses or towns that inhabit them) are tiny, isolated specks in a world they mean to conquer and control. Whether on horseback or in carriages or on foot, the characters are matted against an endless nothingness that, to our eyes, overwhelms them, but it actually invigorates them with possibility. Since “big” is the unifying force behind every aspect of Wyler’s vision, it’s extraordinary that the production never swallows up its cast. In his pursuit of grandeur, Wyler never sacrifices the small, telling details of character.
excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jay Lesiger // Jul 3, 2008 at 9:06 am
You’re on the money, as always, about THE BIG COUNTRY. A great Western, even if you’re not a total Western fan. Peck is just this side of foolish as the uptight New Englander faced with new life challenges and changes for his love of a woman (the pouty, posturing Carroll Baker, the only sour note in an array of great acting). Jean Simmons comes off far better as the strong, sensible schoolmarm; her quiet scenes with Peck are among the film’s best (we feature a half-sheet from this film in our Jean Simmons room at Chelsea Pines). Heston was very smart to take this “supporting” role in order to work with Wyler and this cast, as he brings some really interesting qualities to his usual macho persona. Watching Ives and Bickford square off and chew the scenery is a delight. The big fight scene between Peck and Heston is brilliantly staged and photographed, and the Jerome Moross score is one of the screen’s finest and most apt (so is his music for THE CARDINAL, the Otto Preminger epic that is one of my many guilty pleasures). All in all, a terrific film!
2 John DiLeo // Jul 3, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Hi Jay,
It’s nice to hear that you’re a BIG COUNTRY fan, too. Maybe the word will spread! Yes, Jean Simmons is wonderful (as always!) and so totally unexpected in the western milieu. It’s like when Marlene Dietrich showed up in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN and, against all odds, was thoroughly at home and quite marvelous. Simmons is a real treasure of her era who still hasn’t been suitably appreciated.
Charlton Heston was probably never better than he is here. Freed from all that Bible-epic stoicism, he was never looser, sexier, or more alive on-screen.
Give Carroll Baker another chance. What I love about her in this movie is her willingness to be unlikable. She embraces her role’s unattractive qualities and is fearless in playing them for all their worth. It’s a shallow character that Baker makes fascinating in all her mood-swinging brattiness.
And Gregory Peck is simply ideally cast. You can’t think of anyone else more perfect for this role.
Now I want to see THE CARDINAL again!
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