Why did ”Pale Rider” take Clint Eastwood to the next level – the archetypal “mysterious stranger”?
Pale Rider(1985), directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, is a mystic Western where Eastwood reprises his iconic role as the mysterious loner, perhaps, for the last time.“Who are you? Who are you… really?”
A most absurd question to be posing at the archetypal “mysterious stranger” of the “Western,” who rides in from infinity and would eventually ride off into infinity; the question becomes even more pointless, if this stranger has the grizzled face and the towering figure of Clint Eastwood; Clint may not have originated the character of the mysterious stranger : who rides in from the infinite wilderness into a lawless land and sets about righting wrongs and establishing justice .
And once when his work is finished, he would ride back into the wilderness from which he came from; but Clint is the Star\actor the modern audiences most identifies as the embodiment of this archetype; having taken it to the next level with his “Man with no name” act in Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, and later in his own directorial ventures like High Plains Drifter.
So when actress, Carrie Snodgress (playing Sarah Wheeler) poses this question (once again) to Clint Eastwood’s “stranger” in the film, Pale Rider(1985), we chuckle; The absence (or the ambiguity) of a past history and the nature of his present actions is what defines this character. In the film, Clint is once again (and perhaps for the last time) playing a variation of the mysterious, laconic, loner stranger that made him a pop cultural icon.
Clint, who has been called a lot of names as part of embodying this archetype – Joe, Manco, Blondie, Stranger, – is here referred to as the “The Preacher”: Bearded, wearing a tall stovepipe hat with his tightly buttoned frock coat, and a clerical collar, Clint’s preacher arrives in the midst of a group of “Panhandlers”; a community of small-time gold miners in carbon canyon at the end of the California gold rush.
This community, living nearby a creek in Northern California, are being harassed and attacked by thugs working for a mining businessman, Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart), who owns a nearby small town that bears his name. Though this community have a legal claim to the land, LaHood hires thugs to try and get rid of them, that’s until the arrival of Clint’s mysterious drifter – referred to as The Preacher because of his appearance – who becomes the protector of the community.
He arrived as if as an answer to the prayer of this 14-year old girl named Megan (Sydney Penny) whose dog was killed by thugs during an attack. He seem to appear magically at her doorstep, as she finishes reading the passage from the Bible that gives the film its title—“and I looked and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” Though wearing a dog collar, and sweet and courteous to the members of the community, there is something threatening, deceptive and other-worldly about the Preacher.
