Film Quote of the Day: Clint Eastwood's 1973 Western Had a Surprisingly Deep Message About Fear

It's kind of staggering how many great Clint Eastwood Westerns there are. We talk about all the famous ones on here a lot, but I wanted to take a beat to spend some time with one I feel like has gone unnoticed.

High Plains Drifter is a movie that takes a classic revenge story and adds some blistering desert heat. It's a story of a town too weak to fight back, and one guy confident and maybe even just bad enough to kill for them.

Some would say this is a study in cowardice, but I think it goes deeper than that. And one line extracts it all from this mining town.

Let's dive in.

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The Scene in Question

The mysterious Stranger (Clint Eastwood) has taken control of the small mining town of Lago, tasked with defending its residents from three vengeful outlaws.

He kills them while also getting a shave, which proves to the citizens that they have their protector.

But this man with no name isn't just some savior; he looks down on this town. These are all cowards who will do anything to push their problems on someone else.

Are they worth saving?

Who knows, but they're oney is good, and they let him do whatever he wants.

Still, the more time he spends with Mordecai (Billy Curtis), a dwarf whom he makes the mayor, the more he realizes these people just don't have killing in them. They only have fear.

After the stranger blows up a bunch of bad guys with dynamite, he has sex with a woman named Sarah, who he has this off-and-on thing going with. I would like to point out that their sex is a tad coercive for modern audiences, though in the morning they both seem to have gotten what they wanted.

Sarah tells him that the nature of the townspeople is that of people who would be afraid of him in any other circumstances, and that's dangerous.

But the stranger delivers a cold observation about human psychology:

“It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.”

The TRUTH about FEAR | Clint Eastwood & Verna Bloom | High Plains Drifter (1973)www.youtube.com

What The Quote Means

This is a movie about having the gumption to do something when you get pushed around. People have it, and some don't. Some have no idea it's inside them.

There's a reason that the third act of this movie is a town uniting to work together with the man with no name to get rid of the bad guys, but not everyone joins them.

Only the ones with that willingness to die for something in their heart.

Only the ones who can be dangerous.

On the surface, High Plains Drifter comes across like a classic revenge movie, and this line hits that.

But you also get this guilt there. Should you have the willingness to kill, can land be dangerous in your heart? In the Old West, that can keep you alive for a long time, but it can also get you shot.

Still, when someone pushes you around and violates your core values, you have to push back.

The fear paralyzing the town is festering and infecting everyone and everything. A flurry of bullets let it out and let them believe in themselves again.

That's a pretty deep message about violence and revenge for this kind of movie.

The whole town arcs thanks to a standoff.

Summing It All Up

Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter reminded audiences that monstrous men are rarely as terrifying as the time you fail to stand up for yourself. This town was not able to see what they had become, but thanks to one guy not afraid of being feared, they were able to find themselves sticking up for one another.