One of the best-loved classics of Canadian cinema, director Phillip Borsos’ turn-of-the-century western follows the adventures of Bill Miner, an old-fashioned stagecoach robber who’s released from prison after three decades into a world he barely recognises. The ‘gentleman thief’ quickly adapts, however, switching from stagecoaches to steam-trains, and soon has the Pinkerton detective agency in pursuit. Starring the late, great Richard Farnsworth (last seen in David Lynch’s The Straight Story), this is a thoughtful, elegiac movie, marking the transition from the Old West to the New and set in the breathtaking mountain country of the Pacific Northwest.
1982. Colour. Panavision anamorphic. 110 mins.
Plus The Heart of the World, cult director Guy Madden’s exhilarating short that evokes Soviet silent cinema and propaganda movies in a mythic story about a female scientist and the two brothers who vie for her love while she tries to save the world.
2000. Black and white. 5 mins.