Abstract of article and why it matters
Understanding The Magnificent Seven helps us understand civilization itself. The original version of The Magnificent Seven is a philosophical treatise on civilization and worthy of deep analysis.
By contrasting the life of people in civilization, people on the fringe of civilization (gunmen) and people outside civilization (bandits), the movie explains what is the best way to live a civilized life and why. In a culture obsessed with living exciting lives, this movie says boring is best.
Analysis
We will not discuss the Denzel Washington version even though it is a nice Western, snazzy and gritty, because the theme of good triumphing over evil despite odds is quite straightforward. Now, the original with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen is much less polished and a few scenes are unnecessarily melodramatic. But that movie is a philosophical treatise on civilization and that makes it far more interesting a subject for intellectual dissection.
I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. I hope to see it sometime. But for now, I shall simply analyze the movie I have seen.
1. Gunmen vs. bandits
The bandits
The Magnificent Seven begins by introducing us to the antagonist. Eli Wallach plays Calvera, the head of a gang of bandits that regularly loots a village. He complains to a villager about how little religion some people have because in a recent loot of a church he got very little money. Clearly, he sees nothing wrong in looting the village because he compares himself to a father providing food to his hungry men. He thinks it is sacrilegious to worry about the farmers, justifying his actions as having divine sanction. “If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.” He never takes all the food of the village, leaving them enough to go on, but is otherwise oblivious to his dependence on the village to keep him alive and murders a villager who stands up to him.
The villagers have had enough of this injustice and lack help from the local police. Therefore, they send three farmers, namely Hilario, Tomas, and Miguel, to buy guns from a town up north to protect themselves from Calvera. Those three villagers find out that hiring gunmen is cheaper than buying guns and thus begins the recruitment of the magnificent seven.
The gunmen
They witness gunman Chris Adams, played by Yul Brynner, stand up to the racist elements of the town and help the undertaker bury a Native American in a white people’s cemetery. They seek his help and at first, he politely refuses. But they explain that their offer includes food and “everything of value in the village”. Chris is touched and remarks that he has been offered a lot for his work, but never everything. He agrees to help them recruit gunmen and still insists that he hasn’t decided to go with them. But really, he has. As we find out through the movie, he is an honorable man and will always do the right thing.
Vin Tanner, played by Steve McQueen, assists Chris in standing up to the racist elements of the town. He has a lot in common with Chris. He too, is fearless, a good gunman and is drifting along, looking for a suitable job. The civilized world with “people all settled down, like” can only afford him a job as a crackerjack clerk at a grocery store. He thinks the pay of the job of protecting the village is so low that it is ridiculous and wouldn’t even pay for his bullets. But can he refuse? When the villager remarks that it makes sense that he should take the grocery store job with its steady work and pay, the background score tells us that a steady job is the ridiculous choice for a man like Vin. He couldn’t be a civilized grocery store clerk without suffocating his soul to death. He is a gunman and could be nothing else.
Harry Luck, an acquaintance of Chris, volunteers for the mission, convinced that the meagre payout being offered is a cover for a bigger caper. Bernardo O’Reilly, an Irish Mexican, joins them, hoping to feel a sense of belonging to his Mexican roots. Britt, an expert with knives and guns, who doesn’t care for money but simply enjoys competing with himself, joins for the challenge. Lee, a war veteran who deserted his side after losing his nerve in battle, joins them to hide out south of the border.
The final member is Chico, played by Horst Buchholz. A hot-headed young man and son of a Mexican farmer, he is determined to join them and follows them without an invitation. His persistence pays off and he becomes a part of the Magnificent Seven.
How the villagers view the gunmen
The villagers fear the gunmen. They first hide from them entirely. Chico berates them for being chickens, not showing respect to the gunmen and only caring about the safety of their crops. In doing so, he hits upon an important part of the theme of the movie. Just like the bandits, the gunmen are not part of civilization. Therefore, the villagers cannot seem to distinguish between these two different types of men. It is also important to note that none of the other six gunmen object to the cold reception from the village. They seem to accept that they are viewed unfavorably by civilization. Chico, the son of a farmer, however, cannot tolerate being equated to a bandit.
The villagers cannot seem to distinguish between the gunmen and the bandits.
The gunmen kill some of Calvera’s men who came to spy on the village. Then they train the villagers to use the guns from those dead men and build fortifications to face Calvera. Yet, the villagers do not trust the gunmen. All the girls in the village, except the very little ones, have been kept hidden from the gunmen because the villagers fear that the gunmen will rape the girls.
When one of the girls, Petra, is discovered by Chico, she immediately attacks him without any provocation. Chris is not too happy that the villagers did not even give them the benefit of the doubt but seems to still understand. Chico, however, is extremely angry at being viewed as a potential rapist. He is very curt with Petra, who, in turn is just as mad at him for his curtness. Vin, who had earlier remarked on the lack of girls, however, shows old-fashioned chivalry to the girls. Unfortunately for him, his interest in the general female population is not reciprocated by any member of the population.
The difference between the gunmen and the bandits
When Calvera comes to loot the village again, he is surprised that the villagers could afford so many gunmen in the meagre means he left for them. In a very interesting conversation, Chris tells him that there won’t be trouble if he rides on.
Calvera: Ride on? I’m going into the hills for the winter. Where am I going to get food for my men?
Chico: Buy it or grow it.
O’Reilly: Or maybe even work for it.
Calvera: Somehow, I don’t think you’ve solved my problem.
Chris: Solving your problems isn’t our line.
Vin: We deal in lead, friend.
Calvera: So do I. We’re in the same business, huh?
Vin (shakes his head): Only as competitors.
Calvera: Why not as partners?… What do you say?
Chris: Ride on.
This conversation underlines both the similarity and the distinction between the bandits and the gunmen. They both depend on civilization to feed them and they both deal in lead, but only as competitors. While the bandits loot from civilization, the gunmen work for civilization to earn their living. Though Calvera doesn’t realize it, the bandits are effectively destroying civilization like leeches sucking out its lifeblood. But the gunmen protect civilization.
The gunmen and bandits both depend on civilization to feed them and they both deal in lead, but only as competitors.
A fight ensues and Calvera’s men are driven out, but three bandits return making the villagers worry that they may not have scared Calvera enough. One of the farmers asks Chris, “If you were Calvera, you’d go away, wouldn’t you? If you had paid the price we made him pay, you would go.” To this, Chris replies with a wry grin, “Yes, I would. Only, I am not Calvera.” An elegant way to show the difference between the gunmen and the bandits.
2. Gunmen vs. civilized people
The civilized people
Around this time, the relationship between the gunmen and the villagers begins to improve. The gunmen had found out that despite the villagers’ obvious fear of them, they are being much better fed than the villagers themselves. So they graciously share food with the village. The children of the village draw straws to pick the gunman that they will avenge if he dies.
The similarities between the gunmen and the civilized people
Up until his point, the gunmen have only been contrasted against the bandits. But now the movie takes a turn and begins to compare them to civilized society as shown in these three situations.
When the three bandits attack the village again, the gunmen set off in search of them. Hilario accompanies Vin to track the bandits. He remarks that his hands are sweating, and Vin replies that his hands sweat every time before a gunfight. Hilario confesses that he is frightened.
Vin: Yeah. I guess right about now you kinda wish you had given your crops to Calvera, huh?
Hilario: Yes and no, both at the same time. Yes, when I think of what he might do. No, when I remember the feeling in my chest this morning as I saw him run away. From us. Man, that’s a feeling worth dying for. Have you ever felt something like that?
Vin (wistfully): Not for a long, long time. I… envy you.
When Lee has a nightmare and he relives the trauma of some terrifying confrontation, Tomas tells him, “We know what fear is. We live with it all our lives. Only the dead are without fear.”
When the village boys call their fathers cowards, O’Reilly gets angry and replies, “They are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun. Your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility… Nobody says they have to do this. They do this because they love you and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage.”
The movie is, therefore, making the statement that civilized people and gunmen both experience fears and triumphs, show courage and shoulder responsibilities.
For the sake of completeness, I want to spell out here that this sets them both apart from the bandits. The bandits do not fear anyone but not because they are courageous. They do not fear anyone because they value very little. They do not feel a sense of triumph when they gain something; it is not something they earned, and they know it. And their sense of responsibility is warped beyond recognition because we can agree that Calvera is not the responsible father to his men that he claims to be.
The difference between the gunmen and the civilized people
However, the similarity between civilized people and the gunmen ends there. Lee’s fears are understandably all-consuming from being battle-weary. Vin’s fears, on the other hand, are more in line with the fear that the other gunmen feel. These fears don’t plague him – he has just become numb to them. O’Reilly says that the gunmen do not have sustained courage, only copious amounts of courage in bursts. The gunmen do take responsibility, but again, it is not the sustained kind. It is the kind that makes them risk their life for a second time for the villagers with mind-blowing low odds of success.
The villagers feel fear, but it is only an occasional interruption to life. Their triumphs are few but exhilarating. And they show sustained courage and sense of responsibility. The movie’s theme centers around this, as we will see in section 4.
Civilized people and gunmen both experience fears and triumphs, show courage and shoulder responsibilities. But civilized people feel fear only as an occasional interruption to life. Their triumphs are few but exhilarating. And they show sustained courage and sense of responsibility.
3. The life of the gunmen
Before we proceed, we should first understand what drives the gunmen to be different from civilized people and what is their end in the movie. Chris tells the three farmers, “Men in this line of work are not all alike. Some care about nothing but money. Others, for reasons of their own, enjoy only the danger.” Vin adds, “And the competition.”
The gunmen that die
Harry, the antithesis of Chris, is so driven by money that he cannot believe any gunman would risk his life unless there was a large bounty to be had. He still has enough goodness in him to earn his place in the magnificent seven and therefore comes back to save Chris from certain death. And yet, he hopes he is dying in the pursuit of a grand treasure. Artistically, that is also why he is the first gunman to die.
Lee is the tragic archetype of a gunman who has lost every reason to live and is only limping along, tortured by his past. As the second gunman to die, Lee is, in fact, freed by his death.
Britt, the expert gunman and knife-thrower, who is in a league of his own, is ironically killed by a stray bullet. Artistically, as we will see soon, everyone except Chris, Vin and Chico necessarily had to die, and therefore Britt also necessarily must get bested not by skill but by sheer rotten luck.
O’Reilly, who desperately wants to belong to his roots, is adopted by three boys from the village who constantly hang around him and give him that sense of belonging. Therefore, he necessarily must die to protect the boys, as he does.
The gunmen that live
There are only three gunmen who survive, and Vin is one of them. As we saw before, Vin has no choice in the matter of being a gunman. He is not built to lead a civilized man’s life. His soul would wither and die. But he still wishes he could do so. He says to Chris, “The first day we got here, I started thinking, maybe I could put my gun away and settle down and get a little land, raise some cattle. Things that these people know about me – a credit, wouldn’t work against me.”
As noted earlier, he is chivalrous to the ladies, hoping for a romantic connection. Throughout the movie, he shows humor, kindness, understanding and empathy – all abilities that makes a perfectly civilized man. And when all is said and done, he still leaves the village because he just cannot be anything other than a gunman. He cannot help it. He is to remain forever conflicted since what he wants and what he is are incompatible.
Vin is to remain forever conflicted since what he wants and what he is are incompatible.
One side of Vin’s conflict is embodied by Chris. Chris cares deeply about people. He is a true friend to Vin, a father figure to Chico and an honorable protector to the villagers. Unlike Vin, though, he is not conflicted about his life as a gunman. He values civilization without needing to be a part of it. When Vin tells him about his dream of settling down in the village, Vin is trying to comfort him because as Vin puts it, “I just didn’t want you to think you were the only sucker in town.”
On hearing this, Chris respectfully looks at Vin but as soon as Vin walks away, we see that he is mildly amused because he did not share those dreams. He was not a “sucker”, and he is alright being the outsider in civilization. This is what allows him to be equanimous when the villagers first all hide from the gunmen and then hide the girls from the gunmen. It is also what allows him to be the only gunman to leave the village without any regrets and to make the decision for Chico to stay in the village.
Chico, the other side of Vin’s conflict, wants to be a gunman. But deep down, he is a farmer boy, one that got tired of being bullied by people with guns. And he thinks if you can’t beat them, join them. But he has too much morality to be a bandit and therefore chooses to be a gunman. He bristles at the idea of being an outsider in civilization. He holds civilized people in disdain for not being able to defend themselves and still not respecting the gunmen who are helping them.
In a humorous but very touching scene, Petra apologizes for assuming he would rape her and says that her father warned her to “stay away from those men. They are brutes. They are cruel.” Chico determinedly says, “He’s right. Do you know that? He’s right. Now go home.” But even as he says this, his hands twist around and paw his gun, his desperation palpable at the idea that in order to not stay a helpless farmer he may indeed have to become a cruel brute. When Petra replies, “He’s wrong,” Chico is momentarily stunned at her conviction but then gets annoyed and replies, “Go home anyway.”
His annoyance stems from having his primary dilemma solved by Petra’s conviction (he is not and never will be a cruel brute, but being a good gunman already, he is also not and never will be helpless) causing his secondary dilemma to come into full focus – whether he will act on his attraction to Petra and settle into civilization or continue being a gunman. Later, he tries to tell her that he has decided to be a gunman and not “a farmer, a peasant” and that she should not expect him to stay with her. And yet at the end, he is torn, and Chris gives Chico the permission he needs to follow his heart. Chico is ultimately a farmer at his core, just like Chris and Vin are ultimately gunmen at their core.
Chico is ultimately a farmer at his core, just like Chris and Vin are ultimately gunmen at their core.
4. Boring is best
After Calvera’s gang of bandits is completely killed off thanks to the gunmen, a wise old man from the village says to Chris, “Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind blowing over the land and passing on.”
Chris and Vin leave, since they cannot be part of civilization. But Chico stays and Chris remarks that, “Only the farmers have won. We lost. We always lose.”
The decisions of the three surviving gunmen make the movie’s message clear. Chris and Vin are the wind that can never settle. Chico is part of the land that tries to fly with the wind but is drawn back to the land. And Chris and Vin leave, having lost.
In a moving scene where Chico is extremely excited at the first confrontation with Calvera’s gang, Chris downplays the episode saying it is only a matter of shooting a gun and Vin lists all the things they have lost by being gunmen – their so-called friends are bartenders, they have no home, wife or kids, and they have zero prospects in life. Therefore, the movie is making the statement that a calm and predictable life is preferable to an exciting life, because that excitement comes at a steep price. It says that boring is best because only boring wins.
Boring is best because only boring wins.
References
- Wikipedia link to new version of the movie
- Wikipedia link to original version of the movie
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Article image courtesy: Photographer unknown. Distributed by Fox Film Corporation. – Scan via Imgur. Retouched from original image; see upload history below for unretouched original., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=88145443
