High Noon: Difference between revisions

[[File:High-noon-DVDcover 8370.jpg|frame]]

 

''On this our wedding day.''|'''''The Ballad of High Noon'''''}}

 

 

Additionally, ''High Noon'' "inspired" ''[[Rio Bravo]]'' and ''[[Outland (film)|Outland]]''<ref>See [[Recycled in Space]] for more.</ref>

{{tropelist}}

* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Used inconsistently: a fistfight leaves Kane covered in blood, but people who're shot just fell over.

* [[Broken Aesop]]: This film's message is supposedly about innocent men (ordinary citizens) being treated as criminals (communists) by a legal authority (Joe McCarthy) abusing its power and being abandoned about their friends (The American public). This film's ''content'' is about a legal authority figure (Joe McCarthy) losing the support of his friends (The American public) because they won't help fight a band of obvious criminals (communists).

* [[Cowboys and Indians]]: Kane runs into kids who imitate the battle between him and Miller, with him shot to death.

* [[Crapsack World]]: Hadleyville. Marshal Kane ask the town's help for stopping a returning villain and his gang. Only a 14-year-old, a half-blind old man and his pacifist wife tried to help him. His deputy wanted to help... but only to get Kane to appoint him as the next marshal. Lampshaded by...

* [[Deliberately Monochrome]]: While it doesn’t hurt that color wasn’t in vogue for serious/art films at the time, the black-and-white color schemes are suggestive of a good-vs.-evil conflict in a morally-complex story. The photography was intended to look 19th-century, and especially intended to resemble the solemn palettes from photography of the [[The American Civil War|Civil War]]. When the idea of colorizing black and white films turned to ''High Noon'', [[Word of God]] was, in essence, "No, thank you."

* [[Divided We Fall]]: Will's deputy refuses to help him unless Will agrees to him being the next marshal.

* [[Extremely Short Timespan]]: The film is in real-time; there are clocks in almost every room, constantly keeping track.

* [[Good Scars, Evil Scars]]: Frank Miller sports some evil scars.

* [[Insignia Rip Off Ritual]]: Kane takes off his own badge.

* [[In the Back]]: Amy shoots one of Miller's man, Pierce, in the back through a window.

* [[Light Is Not Good]]: Frank Miller dresses in white in contrasting his goons wearing black.

* [[Lock and Load Montage]]: Subverted. Two minutes before he faces Frank Miller alone at noon, Kane sits down in his office and begins preparing by writing his will. Enter Dimitri Tiomkin's score and a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MooNISe8aM montage] of Kane at his desk, the omnipresent clock, Amy and Helena in the hotel, Miller's goons at the depot, and pretty much everybody else in the whole town at the saloon or church.

* [[Meek Townsman]]: Just about everyone in town.

* [[The Missus and the Ex]]: Amy and Helen. Although Helen Ramirez clearly still carries a torch for Kane, she helps persuade Amy to be the partner she knows he deserves:

* [[Neutral Female]]: Subverted. Amy vows not to support or help her husband fight the thugs, but ultimately she is the only person to help him fight. She shoots a bad guy and is even able to break free of Miller's hold so her husband can shoot him.

** Played straight by many of the female townspeople. Some seem disgusted at their husbands' refusal to help Kane, but do nothing themselves.

* [[Rousing Speech]]: Subverted in the church.

* [[Showdown At High Noon]]: Of course.

* [[Training the Peaceful Villagers]]: Subverted. Kane tries, but they aren't interested, even when their town is at stake.

* [[Violence Really Is the Answer]]: Many people urge Kane to run away rather than fight, including his pacifist wife, but he stands his ground, and his wife forsakes pacifism to save his life.

* [[When the Clock Strikes Twelve]]: Twelve o'clock Noon, in this case. We are constantly given shots of the clock and pendulum to remind us of Kane's supposedly imminent comeuppance.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Film]]