The Outlaw Shot in BETTER CALL SAUL, BREAKING BAD and THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

Edwin Porter's 1903 western THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY is best known for a gimmicky closing shot: a bandit aims his pistol at the camera and fires. This trope gets used in dozens of movies, here Martin Scorcese explains why he used the outlaw shot as the coda in GOODFELLAS. 

The outlaw shot is also seen in television -- especially in shows by Vince Gilligan. Here are all the times someone points a gun at the camera in BREAKING BAD and BETTER CALL SAUL. 

Ralph Bakshi and The Great Train Robbery

I attended a screening COONSKIN (aka STREET FIGHT) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is part of their Series on Ralph Bakshi. 


I noticed that when one character points his pistol to the camera it played like the end of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. 

After the screening Bakshi was signing merchandise and the person in front of me was buying an animation cell of that very scene. So I asked Bakshi if this was, in fact, a reference. 

He said "No."

The one-word answer felt pretty loaded, as if to say "No, you over-educated pencil-neck geek. Don't believe everything they tell you in college." (It was like he was Jimmy James and I was Lisa Miller.) 

My friend Eric said that THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY has so permeated film culture that it may have been an unconscious homage. 

I agree. 

But saying that to Bakshi would just be me digging my ditch even deeper. 

Not that fancy-pants college boys know about digging ditches.