I once heard JG described as a 'baroque western', which works for me, although 'operatic' obviously makes just as much sense. As you say, it does look beautiful, which you'd expect from Nicholas Ray. His forte was his interiors (he trained as an architect under Frank Lloyd Wright). Either way, it has some of the strangest scenes in any Western, like the bit when Joan Crawford plays the piano to the posse, or when she walks through the waterfall with Sterling Hayden at the end.
The masses of vaguely subversive sex-related symbolism inevitably made it a far bigger hit with Freudian film critics than with general audiences, which makes the rumours that Hollywood want to remake it seem even more perverse.
PS: I've never thought of it in terms of Kenneth Anger but now you mention it I definitely know what you mean. Like Anger meeting Mario Bava in a wild west saloon.
Anyway, just watched ...
Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
I generally like Robert Rodriguez but this just feels like a bit of a mess. Johnny Depp's great (along with Mickey Rourke's chihuahua and Eva (Salma Who?) Mendes' sheer Eva Mendesness) but other than that it just drags on from one predictably absurdist action sequence to the next. And killing off Danny Trejo half way through has to be seen as an almost criminal waste of top class action-movie talent. In the end I think Rodriguez did it all far better the first time round, with El Mariachi.
But Eva Mendes. With a gun. Jesus flippin' Christ!
