The Shooting / Ride in the Whirlwind (Criterion Collection)

In the mid-sixties, the maverick American director Monte Hellman (TWO-LANE BLACKTOP) conceived of two westerns at the same time. Dreamlike and gritty by turns, the two films would prove their maker's adeptness at brilliantly deconstructing genre. As shot back-to-back for famed producer Roger Corman (THE WILD ANGELS), they feature overlapping casts and crews, including Jack Nicholson (FIVE EASY PIECES) in two of his meatiest early roles. The films - THE SHOOTING, about a motley assortment of loners following a mysterious wanted man through a desolate frontier, and RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND, about a group of cowhands pursued by vigilantes for crimes they did not commit - are rigorous, artful, and wholly unconventional journeys into the American West.