High Noon

The pendulum of the clocks swings, setting a tempo for the music, the tick tock of the clock setting a back drop for the sequence that follows. The music intensifies, building; people are praying in a church. People sitting at a bar, watching the clock, waiting. The people on the screen merge with the people that sit in the audience as they sit and wait for noon. Doom doom, goes the drum, the music stately intensifying. Doom doom, we see the three cowboys, doom doom, we see the train tracks. Doom doom, the cowardly man, feeling ashamed for not helping Will Kane (Gary Cooper). Doom doom, everyone is looking at the clock. doom doom, we see the empty town. And then you hear the train whistle, and your heart jumps, and you get shivers because it is equal to someone hitting that last high note in a song. This is what the film was setting up for, the high note. When that whistle blows we know there is death in the air.

This film is talking about becoming a man. I think it is important to make the distinction between a man and becoming a man. Some men can go there whole lives and never reach true manhood. America does a terrible job of giving boys a ritual, a rite of passage, into manhood. In some cultures, boys would have to face death before coming into manhood, travailing away from civilization or their tribes to live for an extend period of time in the wilderness. In Sparta greece, mothers would tell there young if they did not win a war, they would be a disgrace if they surrender or come back alive. Although this isn't what the film is saying, it is touching on this subject of manhood, of being a true worrier.

I would like to elaborate on that idea of the high note. The purpose of something such as a beautiful song is not to be played as fast as possible. This seems to be the philosophy of western civilization, the faster it goes, the better. The faster our cars, the less we see. And so televisions are put in the car so we dont get bored, even thought the entire world is passing by. Perhaps this is was not an intended message that the director gave to the film, this idea of time and how it passes, but it is what I took away from it. Another issue with the western mentality is the desire for that high note to be the soul purpose of the song. It must have a build up, reaching the pinnacle at the end. Storytelling is built out of relationships. The reason the high note works is because each new plot development has a relationship to the other, like building blocks being stack up, then falling down. Each block is the same size, each of equal importance.  

(A side note)

In hinduism there is an ideology, which explains the ultimate story. It could be called the dream of reality. The beginning of the dream starts out like a fairy tale, dreamy, happy, angelic. There is nothing wrong in the world until things move into a second reality and a darkness begins to encroach. Things begin to seem shaky, and then we move into the third stage, the age of darkness. This is when the tragedies and genocides, the rape of the planets occurs. This is when you go to jump of the bridge and just as you hit the ground you wake up with a start. And it starts back over. This is the cycle of life, and many people consider the time that we are in is that of the second area, when things darken, and you can feel it on the edge. And why would this be the way of the universe, because it is the most interesting story ever told. Life is a story, told through many different expressions. High noon for instance is saying something about the life of a male human. On the whole films, and to generalize, art is asking one question, why do we exists?