Spahn Ranch Scene - Spoilers


That was my favorite scene, and an edge of the seat one for me. There was an air of menace to it, from the time Cliff (Brad Pitt character) shows up with the hippie girl and begins to realize there's something off there, all the hippie chicks lolling around glaring at him, oozing hostility, and him getting more and more suspicious as he walks around. The girls get more hostile when he says he wants to pay a visit to George Spahn in the old house. Ignoring their hostility, he strolls off toward the house and has a confrontation with Squeaky Fromme at the door, telling her he's coming in no matter what she says. He does and finally has his visit with George, played hilariously by Bruce Dern.

During all this, I kept thinking, is Cliff going to get out of there alive? Are all these girls, 15 or so of them screaming insanely, going to attack him with knives when he comes out? They don't, but the menace ratchets up a little more when he nonchalantly returns to his car and finds a knife sticking out of his now flat tire, and a guy on the fence giggling at him. When Cliff tells the guy to "fix it," the guy giggles some more and tells Cliff to fuck off. Cliff punches the shit out of him, making him change the flat for the spare, and the girls starts to approach. He tells them if they don't stop, he'll knock the guy's teeth out. They do stop. but one of them rides off for Tex, their leader after Manson, and Tex comes riding back on his horse, bringing more of the menacing feel with him.

But all Tex sees is Cliff driving off, his flat fixed by now, and that's it. Whew! I breathed a sigh of relief.

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I didn't get the point of it....He found exactly what they told him he'd find...George...taking a nap...

The way they were acting, it was like Cliff was going to find something they'd have to kill him over....

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The message I took away from that sequence, which was incredible by the way, was that Booth was an outsider, ignoring the rules, and they were so beholden to Manson as their leader, that they bristled at the idea of another man walking around like he owns the place. I also felt that it was clear that Fromme had some level of authority on the ranch, and she had rules about waking George. In any event, I saw their behavior as that of creepy, confused, drug-addled, starved, brainwashed lost souls, not a group worried that they were about to get in trouble.

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That was an awesome scene. Cliff really earned the respect of the audience because it demonstrated he wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. Most people, when they suspect that something is wrong would not have gone out of their way in the manner that he did to make sure that George was okay.

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Cliff really earned the respect of the audience because it demonstrated he wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. Most people, when they suspect that something is wrong would not have gone out of their way in the manner that he did to make sure that George was okay.


Yep, that nailed his character to a tee. That and the mock fight with Bruce Lee.

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