The first time I saw High Plains Drifter was probably in the late 1970s. Clint Eastwood stars in and directs the film. Most westerns are either about cattle drives or cowboys and Indians. High Plains Drifter is different: this is a God's-Judgment-on-the-wicked western.
Clint Eastwood plays a stranger who rides into the town of Lago--and he has a really bad attitude. This stranger is also very good with a side arm. During the course of the film, the stranger ends up killing some bad guys and burning the town of Lago to the ground. There are a couple of flashbacks of one Marshal Jim Duncan being whipped to death. At the end of the film, the audience can see that the stranger was the Second Coming of Marshal Duncan:
The stranger rides out of the town of Lago past the cemetery. This little guy named Mordecai is writing something on a grave marker.
The stranger looks at Mordecai and Mordecai looks up and says, "I'm almost done here."
Then Mordecai asks the stranger, "I never did know your name."
And the stranger replies, "Yes, you do."
As the stranger rides off, the camera shows the grave marker: "Marshal Jim Duncan."
There is a lot of sin (unrepented sin) in the United States and in the world. When people continue to live in sin, eventually God's Judgment falls. The more people try to hide their sin, the greater God's Judgment. The people of Lago tried to hide the murder of Marshal Duncan, but their sin was found out. You can't hide from God.
There is a scene in High Plains Drifter where this lady tells the stranger, "Ever since Marshal Duncan's death, the people in this town are afraid of strangers."
"When the Stranger says: 'What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?'
What will you answer? 'We all dwell together
To make money from each other'? or 'This is a community'?
"Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
"There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger."
--T.S. Eliot
Choruses from "The Rock"
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There is another scene in High Plains Drifter where the people of Lago are meeting at the church. One of the guys is speaking in the front of the church. The camera then pans to the right and shows a bulletin board with this Scripture:
Isaiah 53: 3-4: "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."
The Days of Vengeance
Marshal Jim Duncan was whipped to death; Jesus Christ was at least nine-tenths whipped to death. The stranger riding into Lago (the first scene of the film) is a symbol of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ: not as the Lamb of God, but as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Isaiah 63: 1-6: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth."
Luke 21: 22: "For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled."
I Thessalonians 5:2: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."
The Killer Angels
The Second Coming
The Killer Angels
The Second Coming
High Plains Drifter (short story)
Book Review: High Plains Drifter
A Conversation with a Vietnam Veteran
Book Review: High Plains Drifter
A Conversation with a Vietnam Veteran
