Anthony Mann's Winchester '73

I thought I'd try to review what it is I enjoy about this film from my point of view as a story artist. That is my day job after all.

Boiled down to a sentence, Winchester '73 is the story a man on a death hunt for his own brother who murdered their father. The great twist of this 1950 movie is that the story unfolds as we follow the hero's stolen Winchester '73 rifle as it changes hands amongst a group desperate characters whose lives and deaths interconnect. It's a really inspired story structure that zips along at terrific pace and never gets dull. It's definitely one of the best "cowboys and indians" kind of movies I've ever seen. But that's enough about the story.

It may seem obvious that every shot in a movie should tell a story. Most compositions, camera moves, and character actions should be a metaphor of what's happening in the story and drive the story forward. Ideally, an audience should be able to understand and "feel" a story even with the volume turned off. Yet I often have trouble finding these qualities in current films and television shows. It seems that many directors today rely on dialog spilling out of a group of talking head shots to get the story across. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It works. But time and again I find myself going back to older films to find those greater qualities I mentioned. As a story artist, I really love watching for those visual metaphor's that the best director's employ in an almost "DiVinci Code" fashion to create multiple layers of logic with in their storytelling. I suppose I could have picked a more dynamic director like Orson Welles to profile here. But I chose Winchester '73 because of Anthony Mann's subtlety with this technique. I've sketched out a few compositions from the movie to illustrate (and appreciate) some of my favorite shots of his (and to get better at using that Wacom tablet).

After the opening credits, the story opens on the star of the show, the Winchester '73 rifle. The camera starts close on the shiny plaque on the butt of the gun that announces the rifle as the prize of a shooting competition. The camera pulls back to reveal the rifle safely resting on a perch of deer antlers behind the glass of some store corner window display. There are no arbitrary choices in this simple set-up. It's no accident that the rifle is lit to glow and shine like treasure. It's no accident that the shot puts the audience on the opposite side of the glass with a group of men and boys so that we may covet the rifle along with them. It's no accident there are exactly three men and three boys. It's as though Mann is telling us that this very rifle turns men into boys coveting a toy. And by the same token, a boy can imagine himself a man with that rifle in hand. So much information and poetry in one simple shot. And it doesn't end there! The camera later pans over to the two heroes of the story as they ride into town and converse. Mann sets up everything the audience needs to know about the story in one shot! There must be at least 3 script pages in that shot alone. Now that's controlling editorial pacing!


There's some terrific scene planning here in this pan establishing the excitement of the shooting competition. Mann started the pan with as much motion as possible inside the frame. He shoots the camera over the erupting steam pipes of a train. A bell on the train swings back and forth. He has an enormous crowd of people running through the street. For more interest in the background, he had flags and banners strung all over the place. He even tells us that the whole town has come out for the event because he shows us the very edge of town in the distant background. As the camera pans over, motion ceases. Mann wants everyone's attention focused on only the town Sheriff. He dresses the Sheriff in black to catch your eye. He makes sure the Sheriff is the only one moving in the frame. And he makes sure that the crowd forms a perfect circle around him to further draw attention. As with most of Mann's shots, tremendous depth is shown with strong foreground, middle ground, and background elements.

These next two shots are consecutive. What I appreciate the most is how much story Mann packs into the most basic of set-ups: 5 men standing in a row and talking. What could possibly be more boring? Yet Mann makes something of it.

In this wide group shot, the first thing to notice is that there are two men in matching poses and this is no accident. Dialog tells us these two men are brothers and the matching poses echo that connection visually. Costume design tells us a little more about these two men. The man with the black hat, the shirt with the most eye catching pattern, a pair of obnoxious, pin stripped pants, and an unshaven beard is clearly the evil brother. The whitest hat in the bunch is worn by the good brother. Costumes on the surrounding characters are rather neutral.

The story has told us that the good brother has come to town to kill the evil brother for the unsubstantiated murder of their father. But the local law enforcement has countered this plan in order to keep the peace. This is visually reinforced by placing the good brother between the two law officers. He's literally trapped in the frame by them and unable to get to the evil brother on the right side of the screen.

The next shot cuts in on the previous shot. Here we see the evil brother smirking and enjoying his safety provided by the local law. Mann made sure the star on the chest of that officer was noticeable between the two brothers to visually reinforce the point that the law is the only thing keeping the peace between them. The evil brother is compositionally trapped by all the good guys by being squeezed into the far right side of the frame. Even directly behind him we see the head and shoulders of the good brother's friend. And notice how all the faces scowl at the evil brother yet he smiles right back in the opposite direction. The faces read like a sentence: Scowl->Scowl->Scowl-><-Smile. Visually, it's the definition of defiance.

Granted this staging is a little old fashioned. But the beauty of these principles of visual storytelling is that they can be applied to most any composition. The characters in the scene above could be rearranged and shot from different angles and the same story points could still be visually conveyed using the same principles that Mann used.

The climactic conclusion of the movie happens when Good chases Evil up a rocky hill for a high tension, rifle shootout. This is easily one of the smartest shootouts I've ever seen on film. I've sketched out only select shots from the battle to try to show Mann's intelligent progression through the sequence.

We start with a terrific view (1) of the location for the battle and we immediately understand that Evil has the high ground and Good is really gonna have to work to get up that hill while under fire. I was pretty amazed at how well Mann used the environment for the battle. Not only was he able to find rock formations to make great, claustrophobic compositions (6,8,9,11,12,13) but he found ways for the characters to use the environment against each other. These characters are such good shots that they use bullet ricochets against each other (6,8,11).

Watching Good and Evil watching each other, learning each others tactics, then turning those tactics against the other is a thing of beauty. There's no dialog to explain their actions or thoughts or plans. You watch and you learn along with the characters through clear and simple shots. Visually explaining how a character watches, learns, and then uses his new found knowledge without a single word is always a challenging task and one that Mann handles with ease.

Mann tightly controls the amount of screen space the characters take up throughout the scene. He uses composition to ratchet up the tension through the sequence by transitioning from wider shots of the actors with compositionally greater areas of cover in the early scenes(2,3,4,5) and progressively changes over to shots where the actors take up more screen space with less compositional areas of cover later (8,10,11,12,13). He also changes screen direction frequently throughout the scene to add to the chaos of the sequence (5,9,10).

The sequence starts off following the point of view of Good (1-6). Mid-way through the battle, Evil starts to get a little more face time so we can see his arrogance and understand that he thinks he's winning (7). But slowly the tables turn on Evil as Good sneaks up behind him (10,11). Now we all but lose Good's point of view in favor of seeing the look of fear in the eyes of Evil (11,12). THIS IS THE PAYOFF FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE! We've watched Evil smirk and gloat in the face of Good for too long. Mann allows us lots of time to soak in Evil's fear and desperation because he knows we are a blood thirsty, revenge driven audience and we love to see Evil fall and die like a dog! He even turns Good's back to the audience for almost the entire end of the fight just so we focus on the desperate face of Evil (10,13-15).

Finally, look how Mann uses that final composition (13-15). In shot 13, Good is compositionally at his weakest area of cover in the entire sequence. There's less than an inch of rock protecting him from the hail of bullets coming from Evil. In shot 14, Good rises up and transforms the composition to the most dominant one that he has held in the sequence. Even his shadow on the rock was planned to give him more compositional power. It even looks like the shadow is aiming directly at Evil. This is of course where Evil is shot and killed. There are two cut-ins on Evil as he takes the hit in a medium shot, then falls off the cliff in a wide shot. The we cut back to shot 15. This is an interesting choice. I would think some actors would demand the sequence end on their face for the appropriate acting beat to end the scene. But Mann keeps the shot on Good's back as we watch him slowly collapse under the weight of the moment. The negative space above him formerly occupied by his brother now bears down on him. The posture and the composition say it all. Man, THAT is poetry! And the whole sequence is played out without music! It's not needed. The sequence is tense enough without music cues.

Having said all that, there are a few choices Mann made in the movie that I didn't agree with. But I guess that just happens when you've been watching movies or storyboarding long enough. Inevitably you develop your own sensibilities for storytelling. And that's what I love about this medium- everyone has a different viewpoint on what works or doesn't. That certainly keeps the job from becoming predictable. Anyway, hopefully this review inspires a few rentals. If so, enjoy!