John Hillcoat
Even though he hails from a nation renowned for its take on exploitation cinema, director John Hillcoat has repeatedly proven himself to be far more interested with the archetypes of American genre films. His international breakthrough feature, 2006’s The Proposition, was the perfect marriage of the sensibilities of Ozploitation and the most hard-boiled Westerns; for a country with no major cinema heritage, it suggested Hillcoat was a director who could put his nation firmly on the world cinema map. Instead of continuing this distinctive subversion of genre with his subsequent films, Hillcoat has become increasingly formulaic.
Eh, these guys are cool. I’ve recently begun changing the characters I recognize from other films or media and putting them into these trailers. So my current line up stars Daryl Dixon, Jesse Pinkman, Tallahassee (or Haymitch Abernathy to some of you), Falcon, Clementine Kruczynski and Ben Affleck’s little brother.
Who doesn’t love a good Western? The wide-open, lawless expanse of the mythical West is the perfect backdrop for stories of heroism, betrayal, and windswept romance. Perhaps more than any other film, a Western is made of symbols: