Preacher = Ghost ?
Is Preacher a ghost?
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Fill Your Hands You Son of a Bitch!
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MovieChat Forums > Pale Rider (1985) Discussion > Preacher = Ghost ?
Speaking only from what can be directly inferred from the film, it's left purely ambiguous. There are all sorts of references to the horsemen of the apocalypse, etc, with requisite coincidences and non-sequiters, but Stockburn's demonstrated last act of killing was the bullet through the forehead, which is also how Preacher ended him. To bring it full circle, Preacher would never remove his hat in order to preserve the question. However, in one scene, Preacher can be seen without hat indoors at the dinner table, and we've seen his six bullet holes, but obviously no hole in his forehead. Therefore it's left strictly ambiguous -- obviously intentionally -- whether Preacher is an avenging angel.
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I don't understand how so many people in this thread actually admit that the man who directed(Clint Eastwood)Pale Rider has said that his character is in fact a ghost.Yet after they mention that fact that SHOULD end the debate on is he a ghost or not.These same people say they still believe he isn't a ghostHuh? Why wouldn't you take the DIRECTOR of HIS movie word for it?Clint Eastwood has been on record basically letting it be known what his intention was with the preacher(HE'S A GHOST).I can understand after finding out the director(Clint Eastwood) made a comment that should end the debate about the preacher(He's a ghost),might have disappointed you.However in that case wouldn't it make sense to accept he's a ghost(because the DIRECTOR Clint Eastwood said The Preacher is a Ghost) and just not like the movie as much as you did prior to you finding out the truth of what the preacher really is?Than admitting Clint Eastwood(The Director)set the record straight on the preacher in fact being a ghost but you choose to ignore what the man(Clint Eastwood) who made the movie said? I guess even when a director thinks he's setting the record straight so there won't be any debate about a PARTICULAR part of his movie.There will still be people who say it's open to interpretation and who can care less what a director have to say about his or her movie.
shareamariscoley makes the point that what Eastwood said about the film should be seen as dispositive. I understand the point, but there are cases I can think of where directors have made questionable statements about their films after they have been made. Why would someone do that? Perhaps they out of some over the top self criticism have become overly critical of the film, and this affects how they see it. Perhaps they may have intended a film to be seen a certain way, and then see people disagree about it for what are actually good reasons, because the film AS MADE is actually more ambiguous than the director intended. In short there are reasons why a director should not always be taken at his word in describing a film.
But... having said that I do here tend to agree with Eastwood. It is not that ambiguous, and there are plenty of indications why the Pale Rider could not have been "merely" human.
But on the other side there are also issues that more or less concern the question exactly what kind of ghost is this? How does he seem to contain not only a human presence, including not only the physical but desires, but also to contain indications of having lived a past life? Been a person before who may have died, come back to life?
An interesting observation above holds that the character may have somehow survived the six bullet holes through his chest indicated by the scars on his back. Aside from that being extremely unlikely, I am not sure what it adds to the story. The conventional narrative of a lone gunman who tries to live the non-violent life but for others must return to his violent past is essentially argued to be evident in the act of changing out his collar for the two handguns and belt. I get the argument, but do not think it is persuasive. As a minister, to be exact a person posing as a minister, he gave those he dealt with both the possibility of earning/seeking redemption, and also to fail to achieve that. LaHood for example was put off by the preacher being such, but ultimately hired Stockburn, anyway.
Once it became clear that the persona of a minister was no longer going to serve the situation as it were, the collar came off and the guns present. In fact I do not recall the preacher having a visible collar when the film began, until he appeared for dinner.
In short and instead I think the preacher was a ghost, but a particular kind of one that had been a person, one who had been killed by Stockburn, who came back in physical form, and then at the film's end went back up into the mountains, returning to his spirit state.
I think symbolically he's a ghost hes a real person though in the movie with a past that he obviously tryed to escape in this little tin pan town and caught up to him .
character is habitual action, we are what we do habitually.
The preacher is death the pale rider, brought there by Megan's prayer for a miracle. He is enacting God's will - devine retribution. In other words: the angel of death, sent down as the ghost of a man previously murdered by Stockton to protect the miners who are God's children and to wipe out the evil doers against them. Clint Eastwood, and others involved have been really clear about this. Hell, who he was is even the title.
shareThat is the way I took it was that the Preacher is a ghost or avenging spirit sent to bring justice or LaHood and Stockburn and his deputies. You could see it in the end when Stockburn shot the Preacher point blank in the chest and the Preacher was not harmed and that is where Stockburn hollered you! you!. I studied some commentary by Clint Eastwood about this project and I am led to believe that the Preacher's backstory was that he had been one of Stockburn's deputies. When he saw that Stockburn was going over to the dark side and going mercenary that he called him on it and Stockburn put those bullets into his back that were seen when he had his shirt off. Also, when he rides into the mountain he and the horse fade into the mist just like they did into the heat in High Plains Drifter where I get that he was also an avenging angel. AS can be seen in the context of these stories, an avenging angel is there to bring justice to the villains and help the victims recover justice. That is a really good shootout sequence from the time the Preacher rides into town and is in the coffee shop until he shoots Stockburn. It should be listed as one of the top shootout scenes.
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