Hud

On a Texas cattle ranch a man who cannot get on with his elderly father wants to run things his own way. When disease appears in the herd, the split between them becomes plain. The film makes its central character attractive and never puts him in the right; the narrative makes the question of whom his young nephew will take as a model its real subject. The black and white widescreen gives the flat country a sense of emptiness. Martin Ritt directed. Paul Newman stars; Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas won acting Oscars. A real warning: there is an attempted sexual assault and a scene of mass culling of animals. The second is long and distressing.