Shootin' Irony

 If the question was asked, "How can you make a western without guns?" I would have to answer, "Use your imagination."

Maybe that kind of exercise could have saved a life. If you're not up on the news from out west, the cinematographer of a film in which Alec Baldwin was acting was shot and killed. By Alec Baldwin. If you are familiar with the periodically troubled life of Mister Baldwin, you might expect that this tragedy somehow fits into some drunken rage that shadows this movie star. Not so. Instead, the shooting was accidental, a product of poor planning and execution with a prop gun. 

And if this is news to you, you are probably asking the question on everyone's lips: "Don't they use blanks?" And if you asked this question, you might expect a simple answer. None was immediately forthcoming. Instead there was a lengthy series of discussions about all the different ways that things go bang bang on a movie set. And with all the talk about "hot and cold" weapons, and the projectiles that even blank cartridges shoot, there was still no full understanding about why a real bullet was in a gun on any movie set. 

Which will be unraveled over time, but the horrible irony of someone dying through gun violence as a part of anything connected with Hollywood remains. A short time ago I opined about the body count in the most recent James Bond film. I am beginning to wonder how many more stories I need to see with rifles and pistols a-blazin'. The carnage I have witnessed as an avid cinephile is almost unfathomable. 

And I have made a point, over the years, of defending the movie industry when it comes to the question of violence in film. My argument has always centered on how movies are a reflection of society. So here we are with an accidental death. A death by gun violence in the United States? Just another day. To go along with the other ninety-nine or so Americans who die the same way every day. This one involves a movie star? Probably shouldn't be a surprise. Could it have been avoided?

What if they made a western without any guns?