Budd Boetticher documentary on TMC
Written by Joe D on July 6th, 2007
Last night I watched a documentary about legendary director Budd Boetticher. There were some excellent interviews with the man himself and other directors, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne, Taylor Hackford (who directed a doc on Budd back in 71′ for KCET, around the time he made his film about Bukowski). At one point they were discussing Seven Men From Now and how during the climactic gunfight between Lee Marvin and Randolph Scott . Boetticher cuts away from Scott during his draw. You don’t see him draw his gun and shoot, you just see Marvin get shot before he can draw his gun, almost a magical cut. Then Hackford said what an influence on Sergio Leone, yeah I can see that but the magical fast draw was used almost exactly by Jean Pierre Melville in his masterpiece Le Samourai. Alain Delon (Costello) kills the club owner with an unseen quick draw. Delon confronts the guy in his office, while the clubman is sitting at his desk. We see the clubman get a gun out of his desk drawer, Delon still hasn’t made a move, the club owner starts to raise his gun, cut to Delon firing his pistol, killing Mseur. Club. The magical Boetticher gun draw reincarnated by Melville, one of the greatest miners of American Cinema Gold.