Character Introductions 009 - The Lady (Ellen McKenzie)
The Quick and the Dead and the Lady Makes Three
When you write a script, you pick pertinent character details to exposit: grizzled or baby-faced, 26 or 62, stubborn or cowardly, bald or brunette, short or Elizabeth Debickian.
When characters appear on screen, style and some attributes are immediately obvious, but personality traits, relationships, ethos, etc. are more shown than told.
This is part of a series of iconic character introductions, and what that first-all-important-impression tells us.
The Quick and the Dead
Soap operatic films which require Larger Than Life characters like iconic opening salvos for a reason.
And the Western is nothing if not all that!
When Ellen appears, she’s a speck on the horizon, but quickly looms larger than life.
On first appearance The Lady is perhaps mistaken to be a man, then presumed to be dead or wounded.
She uses her enemy’s perceptions to her advantage, attacking in a flash so fast you can’t see her face.
When she triumphs, she stands silhouetted against the sun, a bullet hole in her hat creating a bright flare you can’t look at.
Still without saying a word, she tips her hat while leaving a man to his fate, then rides through a graveyard and a sign saying REDEMPTION in all caps before looking over a town and sunset vista.
We learn about her character through actions, but the shots — from low angles to shadowed silhouettes to closeups of her eyes — also tell us about who she is, and who she wants to be perceived as.
The film packs as much symbolism and iconography and summing-up and character revelation as you could ask for within a mere two minutes; an introduction as knowing and referential and quick-shotted as the film itself.
In Conclusion
The prototype for Sara Lance’s Western characters (down to their Quick and Dead riff in “Stressed Western”).
