"But I'm mean."-- Scarlett Johansson
How often has Ron Howard been asked what it was like to work with Wayne on that last film. I do not think The Shootist is particularly good. The script is timed to Wayne's gravelly cadence, orchestrated, rather, as if we're getting a Pilgrim's Progress lecture, but it's tolerable because we all know the dynamic of what is going on beneath the surface, the inside irony of the American archetype which was wormwood from the beginning, even the no nonsense approach to profiteering on dead celebrity. There is a certain laziness in consistency as well, as the tension in the movie hinges on the obligation to the terminally ill that did not have to exist between a widow of good standing and a self-justified killer who wants his death to be his own while capitalizing on its occurrence as a spectacle, though granted Wayne was offering up his own approach to a stardom unlike any other. One we'll never see again. It is almost more triptych than motion picture, with Stewart, Bacall, Howard framing the three panels to be spoon fed as an allegory.
I am tired of my life as a quadriplegic. I really am, timing my vulnerability to stultifying fecal discharges and low grade fevers. I know I do not have a great deal of quality time in the remainder, and that my anger at what I've been inflicted with, passively taking it without any pleasurable experiences in the breach to balance, has kept me going, but even if I land a few scores, I will never be strong enough for anything other than an itinerant caretaker's wage. It isn't fair.
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