What really appears to be chasing Josey (Clint Eastwood, a casting coup) in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) is not the Union army, but the fear of domesticity, the fear of having to readmit himself to the humdrum world of family and farming.
Eastwood Out Of Water
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Eastwood’s film extracts the dramatic tension pent-up in that now-too-legendary final shot of The Searchers (1956) and numerous other notable Westerns, including Shane (1953), and makes it the driving conflict of the narrative.
Scenes From A Household
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The world that Josey leaves behind is one whose stakes are, in actuality, much higher than those of the world he eventually chooses. In the latter, he has nothing to lose but himself while in the other everything he loves is at stake. Josey’s predicament is hinged on the real life irony that (knowingly) embracing a conventional life requires a far greater courage than repudiating it.
Orpheus/Eurydice
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A Cozy House Becomes A Makeshift Barracks
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The Easy Way Out
The Seventh Art 
August 27, 2012 at 2:50 am
JAFB,
A lot of the American westerns of the 60s and the 70s followed a similar trend – they were essentially landscape films wherein the characters spent most of their time negotiating the topography (the central conceit of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid is not whether they can escape the bounty hunters/vigilantes, but if they can climb over the next mountain) or soaking in the atmosphere (Ride the Whirlwind/Hellman is an example). ‘Fear of domesticity’ is an appropriate manner to describe it – alongwith a corollary love of the wilderness, paranoia related to dying unjustly (or without honour), and general Hawksian dude-camaraderie; this is one of the running themes of this era’s Westerns. As such, they could be more centrally devoted to a single character’s private feeling than a commitment to a larger social order. A sign, perhaps, of changing times.
Good stuff.
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September 9, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Sharp comment there, Anuj. Yes, a lot of archetypical Western themes at work here too.
Thanks and cheers!
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September 4, 2012 at 9:50 am
Now this is the Eastwood we all love, not the bumbling fool who embarassed even his Republican brethren at the right wing convention this past week! but his GOP political slant was never really his selling point! Ha! Excellent look at Eastwood’s role here by way of arresting caps, dialogue and themes. Love the Orpheus/Eurydice and the reference points to THE SEARCHERS and SHAME and agree! Wonder post here Srkanth!
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September 9, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Haha. True that, Sam. It’s almost as if Eastwood’s persona on and off screen are two different entities altogether, or at least it seems that way a lot of times.
Thanks so much!
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