"It's not your word...it's who ya give it to!"

Those words were yelled with customary righteous indignation by Ernest Borgnine in one of my favorite movies of all time, The Wild Bunch. I think of those words, however, in relation to one of my favorite films of this year--Appaloosa--which I just watched again this evening.

There's a lot that I love about Ed Harris's western. The friendship between Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), yet another example of how westerns get the idea of friendship just right (in my eyes, anyway). The film's fine balance of the realistic and the romantic. The fact that it pretty much blindsided me with how enjoyable it was--something that happens to me too little anymore, my film taste becoming more weathered and eccentric with each passing year. And, as my friend Stew put it, the fact that it's nice to watch a film upon which the fate of an entire genre doesn't rest.

However, what I'm fixated on right now are two scenes in the film, both involving a man's word being given. In one scene, a stranger gives his word to Cole that he'll testify against the villain (Jeremy Irons) in a court of law. In the other, Cole asks a criminal (Lance Henriksen) for his word to put aside any differences they might have and leave their showdown for a later time, given their need to team up for a spell.

A man's word is given. And taken. With speed. And without question.

I find grand satisfaction in this commonplace honor, however minor the application. Actually, I can't tell you which I find more beguiling: the fact that someone would be willing to keep his word to a stranger, or that someone would be willing to accept the word of a stranger.

And yes, kids, I know this is a concept the movies (particularly the western and the gangster film) and fiction in general excel at promoting. I'm not so naive as that. (Okay, I'm close.)

I can't help it, though. The thought so wholly resonates with me, even though I realize it was probably never that commonplace. It is something, I suppose, that one may still find nowadays...albeit in rare corners.

And I guess that gets me back to why I love the Borgnine quote so much. Because it's not just the weight of your word that does you honor. The choice of whom you would trust with it really is more important, particularly since that person would just as quickly keep theirs to you.

I can't really tell you why all this is on my mind. I think about stuff like this now and then, and as with most things probably way more seriously than I should. If nothing else, I hope you walk away with a good movie recommendation and a couple of minutes' entertainment from me sharing all this with you.

Alright. I'm done for the evening. Now that I've finished Crooked Little Vein, I'm off to figure out what I'm going to read next.

Until next time...


Read: "Gonna Be a Long Drive," "Our Time on the Edge," "I Know, Right," and "Journeys Big and Small." They're all blogs my friends write, and they'll actually give you more entertainment and satisfaction than the books, movies, or music I usually recommend here. Enjoy them, kids.