Once Upon a Time in Westwood

Alex Cox looks back with laughter

Comments (0) By Jim Ruland Tuesday, Nov 4 2008

Of all his films, Walker, which was recently added to the Criterion Collection, is clearly Cox’s favorite. “Walker is my best, my most expensive and my least-seen film.” Set in the distant past in a remote foreign country, the film had two strikes against it before the first scene was shot. Then consider that it was made with the aid of the Sandinistas in the midst of a Reagan-ordered embargo. Not even the blistering performance by Ed Harris and the haunting score by Joe Strummer, to whom Cox was close, could rescue the film from obscurity.

In his prose, as in his films, Cox holds nothing back, but what makes X Films such a pleasure to read is Cox’s generosity. He doesn’t have an ax to grind. Although he admits to “loathing the contest,” he clearly loves the collaboration and camaraderie of filmmaking.

Photo by Sam Jones

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Beneath the skin of the radical beats the heart of a romantic, whose favorite moments include wandering the wilderness of Almeria, Spain (where Sergio Leone filmed numerous spaghetti Westerns), and Monument Valley, Utah (where John Ford shot The Searchers). Again and again, Cox stumbles upon the sets of his cinematic forebears.

Chalk it up to the lattice of coincidence? Not really. As Alex Cox knows, every spaghetti Western begins the same way, with a solitary figure in a wide-open desert.

X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker | By ALEX COX | Soft Skull | 312 pages | $18 softcover