It was to be a deeply psychedelic movie, a western characterised more by its out-there visuals than by any moral message. Massot based his screenplay on Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha (1922), a tale of two friends and their divergent paths towards enlightenment. There, while Harrison and John Lennon were locked in a meditative stand-off to see who had the stronger resolve, Massot was struck by the idea of two friends duelling in the desert for spiritual supremacy. Following its release, Massot found himself in India, engaged in transcendental meditation alongside the Beatles. Zachariah was dreamt up by writer-director Joe Massot, whose debut feature Wonderwall (1968) had been scored by George Harrison.
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Like Kelly Reichardt's recent First Cow (2019), and Jane Campion's Oscar-tipped The Power of the Dog (2021), Zachariah shot back at the genre's fatalistic masculinity by celebrating peace, pacifism and, most remarkably, intimate male friendship. But it's in the communion between its protagonists Zachariah and Matthew that the film's most meaningful messages are found. Ostensibly set in the late-1800s, it boasted an anachronistic, diegetic soundtrack from 1960s rock acts such as the James Gang, White Lightning and Joe McDonald, and plays out as part dusty Woodstock concert film, part acid western à la El Topo (1970), and part pre- Blazing Saddles (1974) genre parody. Released in 1971 and billed as "the first electric western", Zachariah was chiefly a musical comedy. The legacy of The Good, the Bad and the Uglyīut amid these hard-boiled westerns came a different, and softer, film. Why El Topo is the weirdest western ever made
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Though ostensibly designed to convey the death of the Old West, these end-of-the-line westerns also echoed the way the flower-power fantasy wilted in the wake of the Tate-LaBianca murders, the violence at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, and the escalating tensions of the Vietnam War.
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Many more westerns of the era had similarly shocking, symbolic conclusions. Released in 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Desperados, and The Wild Bunch all ended in calamity and bloodshed, all their key players slain. But the western had it in its sights too. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) foretold the death of the hippie dream. As the idealistic 1960s gave way to the cynical 1970s, US cinema began serving up increasingly nihilistic and psychologically complex stories, all with sour endings to match.