pale rider (1985)

it amazes me just how much variation clint eastwood brought to the western genre. from the days of "rawhide", through the european revisionist time of the dollars trilogy (wherein he learnt his craft), the late 70's revisionist period he kickstarted with "the outlaw josey wales" and the 90's post-modern of "unforgiven", he has continually managed to update what is considered by many to be an overly familiar genre. "pale rider" fell between "the outlaw josey wales" and "unforgiven", with eastwood starring as a mysterious preacher with a mysterious past.

as is to be expected with the later work of eastwood, we are given the topics of fidelity and authoritarian abuse to deal with. the anti-corporate message underlying the plight of the gold miners is clearly a reaction to the politics and business ethics pf the 1980's.