Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: Martin Ritt and Paul Newman’s sixth collaboration.
After directing his first revisionist western in 1963 (The Wildest of All), Martin Ritt continued in this progressive vein with Hombre, released four years later, still worn by his favorite actor Paul Newman.
Adapted from the eponymous novel by Elmore Leonard, the film tells the journey of a white man raised by an Indian tribe, aboard a stagecoach where he meets, among others, a disreputable adventurer.
An eminently political director, Martin Ritt moves away from the classic western and dares to evoke, for the first time, the Amerindian genocide through a subtle metaphor (the film is notably one of the least talkative in the entire history of cinema). Hombre is thus distinguished by its themes denouncing the racism of America WASP vis-à-vis minorities and its questionable morality towards them.
man was one of the biggest hits of 1967 in North America, grossing $6.5 million. A score that rises to 12 million dollars at the international box office.
man by Martin Ritt with Paul Newman, Fredric March, Richard Boone…
Tonight on Arte at 9 p.m.