Acid westerns are a unique subgenre of Western that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s.Pauline Kael first coined the term in a 1971 issue of the New Yorkerduring her review ofAlejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘El Topo.’ Acid Westerns combine classical revisionist Western motifs with the cinematic excesses of Spaghetti Westerns, incorporating LSD-inspired countercultural narratives to create a provocative, drugged-up version of the American Frontier.
Contemporary filmmakers likeJim Jarmuschadopted this style for his 1995 feature film ‘Deadman’ starring Johnny Depp, playing an accountant-turned-gunslinger anti-hero in a monochromatic dreamland.The film serves as a critique of an American obsession with violence in a psychedelic fashion, nodding its hat to the anti-war movement of the 1960s. The film is highly symbolic, drawing on the poetry of William Blake and his depictions of hell as an ode to the prolific poet and an allegory for the character’s journey.Acid Westerns allow filmmakers to usethe trope of the Old Westto explore contemporary philosophiesabout the myth of the Old West and the American Dream by incorporating thematic elements that appear out of time but deeply reflective. They provide a little more room to dream, as it were.
‘El Topo’ Was the First Acid Western
In 1970,Alejandro Jodorowskywrote, directed, and starred in the surrealist tale of a black-clad gunfighter’s search for enlightenment.The film is a bonkers foray into a Feliniesque worldfull of maimed circus performers, Yogi-gunfighters, and social decadents wrapped in a cloak of Judeo-Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy.Acid Westerns are bizarre places.It was a far-out thing, a non-linear tale concerning the spiritual journey of the film’s protagonist. The Salvadore Dali meets The Spaghetti Western-inspired film had caught the ire of a prominent New Yorker film critic, Pauline Kael.Kael’s critique of the film came in 1971after nearly a decade of hippie spirituality found its way into more mainstream media avenues.
Still, her criticism hits on two crucial points about what defines an Acid-Western. First, they aresurreal affairsstretching familiar tropes to absurd limits. The second is that they are the realm of the avant-garde, experiments in the realm of narrative and image to provoke an audience into new ways of thinking or feeling. So the gunslinger, El Topo (Jodorowsky), finds himself in the desert with his woman, Marah (Mara Lorenzio). They search for water and food as they wander about in a barren wasteland of sand. El Topo fires a bullet at a rock, and water spits out. The two drink deeply from the fountain. Then, in an alarming and strange scene where El Topo prays for guidance, and Marah circles him bleating the mantra of “nothing, nothing, nothing” over and over, El Topo suddenly and savagely forces himself on her. The camera cuts are quick and disorienting, and the overlaid audio track of Marah’s protestations horrifies. Then, the two are relaxing by a pond, drinking its sweet water, and very much in love.None of it makes a lot of sense. Audiences are familiar with these types of characters. Submissive women, rugged and feral cowboys, and hot, dusty deserts, butthey have never seen them in a disjointed context like this. So what is this all about?
Acid Westerns Are All About Symbolism
Symbolism is essential to the Acid Western. Jodorowsky used the scene toexplore the idea of masculinity and femininity on a limited budget, the place where control, cruelty, and love intersect. When speaking about the controversial scene, he would denote that Marah is submitting to his masculinity, and she has an orgasm and, as a result, becomes less frigid, which is why he has a phallus-shaped rock spurting water from the top that Marah delights in. Even more problematic is that during the film’s initial release,the director would claim that the scene that occurred between him and Lorenzo was not fakeand that it really happened.
From Guillermo del Toro to Jodorowsky, The Best Mexican Horror Movies
Ghosts and blood and ghouls, oh my!
Of course, this was untrue, with the director disclosing more than twenty years later during the #Metoo Movement,in an interview with Artforumthat “They were words, not facts. Surrealist publicity to enter the world of cinema from a position of obscurity.” In other words,he made it up to get people to pay attention to the film.This is an essential feature of surrealist work:the entire movie, up to and sometimes including the publicity around the film, is an act of symbolism meant to rattle the cages of the establishment, rightly or wrongly. Acid-westerns are subversive in that they use a familiar place, like the Frontier or a cowboy, and turn it into a world of symbolism where the character’s journey is a manifestation of a spiritual one.
Acid Westerns Are About A Character’s Spiritual Journey
In 1996,Jonathan Rosenbaum further expanded the definition of acid westerns in an interview with Jarmusch about the filmDeadman. Acid Westerns, he posits,are revisionist Westernswhere the traditional view of the West as a journey toward prosperity is instead a journey toward death. He points to the film’s dreamy monochromatic color palate and style. Scenes begin and end with fade-ins and fade-outs, creating a sleep-and-wake cycle within the viewer. LikeEl Topo,the film creates a surreal world of violence, decadence, and debauchery. William Blake (Johnny Depp) begins as a very ordinary and timid man from the East, suspiciously clean and optimistic. The further West he travels, the more he degrades. He encounters acts of violence and fornication in the streets. He is laughed at, mocked, and abused. He is impoverished, becomes dirty, and, eventually, becomes the walking dead as he is led by his spirit guide, Nobody (Gary Farmer), to the Land Of Spirits. On this journey,William Blake becomes a poet who replaces the pen with a gun, killing everyone he encounters.
He undergoes a spiritual transformation that is more important than the central conflict. In a pivotal scene where Blake has recently finished a vision quest, he is encountered by two lawmen who have come to arrest him. Blake starkly contrasts the man he was, no longer timid, confident, and relaxed. They ask him if he is William Blake, and Depp answers, “I am. Do you know my poetry?” Then he shoots them dead, rather unassumingly.The film is about Blake’s ability to accept death, and while the audience waits for the climatic showdown between him and the bounty hunters, they are left somewhat underwhelmed.The film concludes with Depp drifting peacefully off into the ocean in a canoe toward the land of spirits, a marked change from the resolution of the gunfight typical of a Western. Acid-Westerns are places for spiritual growth and exploration rather than straightforward storytelling. Through Blake,Jarmusch can explore lofty ideas like death and be critical of America’s love affair with violent storytelling. Acid Westerns are deep abstractions and their dreamy use of symbolism is cerebral, disturbing, and fun. They are a playground for directors, a youthful stab at playing cowboys after one too many bong hits that make exploring challenging ideas a little palatable.
What Acid Westerns To Watch
John Lennon championed Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topodespite its controversial nature. It remains an essential watch as this first Acid Western set the tone for every subsequent film. It combines the dramatic excess of the Spaghetti-Westerns of Sergio Leone, the absurdist surrealism of Salvador Dalí, and the colorful pageantry of Federico Fellini. Jodorowsky hits his stride, though, in his exploration of the stages of the cross in’The Holy Mountain,‘where the Director arguably perfects the Acid Western.
Deadmanis an incredible journey intoa Lynchian versionof the American West. It is notable for its star-studded cast with the likes of Iggy Pop,Crispin Glover, andJohn Hurtall making an appearance alongside Depp. It is justone fantastic film worthy of watching for its excellent performances and aesthetic value. Nick Cave and John Hillcoat make sibling rivalry a life-and-death affair in the 2005 Australian Acid Western ‘The Proposition,starringGuy Pearceas protagonist Charlie Burns. Burns will traverse a trippy desert wasteland to hunt down and murder his rapist brother Arthur (Danny Huston). There’s also’Wild Bill’which is a far-out recounting of the legend of the eponymous cowboy Wild Bill Hickok. The film was written and directed byWalter Hilland starsJeff Bridgesas Wild Bill as he lives out his last days inthe legendary town of Deadwood.
There are dozens of other great films in the genre, all of them with their own distinct spin on the genre.What remains true is that the character’s inner world is always central to the film’s plot, and the maturation of the character’s soul throughout the film lies at the heart of the Acid Western. Cryptic and horrifying, though they may be, Acid-Westerns is an essential artistic take on the genre.The Old West is a lot of things, but above all else, it is a place of exploration where the metal of humanity is tested. It is a perfect playground for ideas and symbolism, with Western tropes being familiar cultural touchstones that can easily be subverted to get the audience to ponder the more significant questions in life.
