The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

 A moody revisionist western cemented by haunting cinematography and Humphrey Bogart's increasingly unhinged performance.

Directed by: John Huston

Cinematography by: Ted D. McCord

Country: United States/Mexico

Genre: Adventure/Drama/Neo-Western

The legendary Hollywood rebel John Huston delivered one of his hardest hitting films in this masterpiece, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a noir-tinged Western from early in his career. Based on the 1927 novel, Huston tackled his favorite theme of moral corruption on-location in Mexico (it was one of the first Hollywood productions filmed outside of the United States) against a haunting backdrop of shattered stones and gnarled trees.

The story follows Fred Dobbs (played by an unhinged Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin, two U.S.-born vagrants driven to Mexico in search of work. Broke and desperate, the two eventually meet an old prospector who entices them with stories of riches, and the three men head to the mountains in search of gold instead, where outside forces and personal greed constantly threaten their safety and sanity.

Ted McCord’s cinematography in this film is darkly magical. He used the type of expressionistic lighting you might see in an old horror movie to maximize the film’s suspenseful atmosphere, managing to make the surroundings of nearly every scene look menacing, expertly complimenting the characters’ paranoia that letting their guard down for even a second could have dire consequences.

His stylized cinematography is most apparent later in the film where it takes on hallucinatory levels of contrast; his lighting makes each branch of every tree look like clawed hands and tendrils reaching out from the grave, their gripping shadows poised across Bogart’s face and body as if they’re going to reach inside of him and tear out his very soul, trapping his spirit eternally in a forest of the damned.

I also really wonder if J.R.R. Tolkien used Dobbs as an influence for Gollum in the Lord of the Rings novels, or if Peter Jackson or Andy Serkis used Bogart’s performance in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre as an influence for their portrayal of Gollum in the LOTR film adaptations, because the resemblance in mannerisms and personality between the two characters is striking.

The image of Bogart crouched by the fire, eyes plotting and burning with an inhuman vengeance really sticks out in comparison. Even more similarities between the two: Dobbs suffers from feverish bouts of paranoia that slowly drag him to the brink of sanity, he begins talking to himself constantly, and he often switches from fearful to wrathful at the crack of a whip, as if there’s a split in his psyche, each side fighting for control of a man catastrophically warped by greed.

Distributed by: Warner Bros.