1 Bazin also observed that, by 1940, the western had reached the peak of its classical epic form, only to take a break during the war years and re-emerge as a form of “superwestern”, not immune to “outside influences – aesthetic, sociological, moral psychological, political”, which, by the 1950s, Bazin noted, also included a variant form of “novelisation.” In his view, the qualities of the novelised western still contained the elemental characters and set-ups of the classical western, but were now more personalized with a sense of “individuality of characters,” and an overall psychological or emotional sincerity at the root of the narrative. In fact, Bazin declared that without the “ethics of the epic tragedy,” the recognisable symbols of the western, the cowboys and landscapes, would amount to no more than a “picturesque” view. Yet, for Bazin, these recognisable elements on their own were not what constituted the western as the “American film par excellence,” but, rather, the elements that went into the construction of a profound form of mythical realism – on the scale of Greek Tragedy, with its “superhuman heroes and their feats of valor” – at the foundation of which was a simple and elemental morality tale of “social good and evil,” determining not only the “aesthetics” but also the “psychology” of the form.
Of the form, Bazin observed that the western, like the cinema in general, is also constituted from the continuous movement of its mythical characters through the vast horizons and landscapes of the 19th-century American frontier. Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954) belongs to a style of western that the French film critic André Bazin referred to as the “American cinema par excellence” – a style of hybrid western of classical settings, heroes and antiheroes. It is at this point that the game becomes one of every man and woman for themselves.
That is, until learning on the way to Vera Cruz that the job they were hired to do – to escort the Countess from Mexico City to Vera Cruz through Juarista-laden territory – is just a cover for guarding a carriage loaded with gold, destined for France and intended to fund and win the French side of the conflict. While the two men are initially wary of each other, they soon settle into a relationship of one-upmanship and camaraderie, displaying their prowess for Emperor Maximilian (George Macready) and vying for the attentions of his charge, the Countess (Denise Darcel). Ben, a world-weary Southern gentleman, fought the last battle of the South on his own plantation, and has nothing more to lose in joining Joe’s motley crew of mercenaries and criminals looking to cash in from either side of the conflict. At the end of the American Civil War and during the height of the Franco–Mexican War, circa 1866, Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) and Ben Trane (Gary Cooper) make their way into Mexico looking to sell their services as hired guns to the highest bidder.
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