131. U.S. director Arthur Penn’s “The Missouri Breaks” (1976): Re-evaluation of a Western trashed by many film critics
T he Missouri Breaks deserves more attention than it has received over the years. Apart from the fact that it contains one of the most darkly comic lines ever used in cinema " You know what woke you up? You just had your throat cut ,” most reviewers have logically zoomed in on the obvious—the swaggering performance of Marlon Brando at the peak of his career and an overshadowed but endearing performance of Jack Nicholson. Yet the film belongs not to these two worthies but to Arthur Penn, the director. The late Arthur Penn was more “ sinn’d against than sinning ,” after he made his third western, The Missouri Breaks , when most critics and viewers felt the film was a disaster. A famous US publication Variety described the film’s achievement as “ corned beef and ham hash .” According to reports on the making of this “revisionist” western, a term given to Westerns with anti-heroes, strong women, and a critical approach to re-evaluate established military heroes, government and busi...