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(Redirected from Western films)
The 'Western' is a fiction genre seen in film (when it can also be known as an "oater"), television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West), but also in Western Canada and Mexico. Closely related to the Western is the gaucho literature of Argentina, tales of the European settlement of the Australian Outback, and the ''charro'' or "rural" film genre in Mexico (see Golden Age of Mexican cinema). In film, the genre was most popular from the 1930s and into the 1960s, and the number of Westerns made since that time has declined significantly.
Westerns are usually set in the Western United States during the period from about 1860 to the end of the so-called "Indian Wars" at Wounded Knee in 1890. Some westerns incorporate the American Civil War. The genre has expanded its focus to include films about the Battle of the Alamo in 1836; and the Mexican Revolution as late as 1920. Additionally, the Western genre has been adapted to the historical and mythological circumstances of other countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Russia and even fictional space colonies.
An important characteristic of Westerns is the portrayal of modes of existence perceived as primitive and obsolete giving way to modern counterparts, usually through a symbolic confrontation between characters. In the early stages of the Western continuity, this manifests as a conflict between natives and settlers or cavalry. In later stages, ranchers, settlers and gunslingers may be threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the pressures exerted by big business, and the centralization of political power in urban centers. Whatever stage of history the Western is representing, the thrust is consistently towards the subordination of nature, the domination of collective over individual values, and the emergence of the modern state.
In traditional American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s, progress is positively associated with the American values of innocence, honor and sacrifice that resonated during the post-war years. Westerns made in the 1960s and 1970s often have a decidedly more pessimistic view towards progress, glorifying the individual and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality in the American experience.
The popular perception of the Western is a movie that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter, whose possessions include a canteen; period clothing that might include a large Stetson hat, a bandanna, spurs and buckskins; a revolver or rifle; and a saddle, but not necessarily a horse. The horse itself, the "faithful steed", can be a major character in the story.
Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape. Specific settings include isolated forts, ranches and homesteads; the Native American village; or the small frontier town with its saloon, general store, livery stable and jailhouse. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasises that this is the "Wild West": it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), girls (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.
This genre maximizes film as a medium because typically the description and dialogue are lean, and the landscape spectacular. Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio like other early Hollywood movies, but when location shooting became more common, producers of Westerns used desolate corners of New Mexico, California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Kansas, Texas, Colorado or Wyoming, often making the landscape not just a vivid backdrop, but a character in the movie. Productions were also filmed on location at movie ranches.
The Western genre itself has sub-genres, such as the epic Western, the shoot 'em up, singing cowboy Westerns, and a few comedy westerns. The Western re-invented itself in the revisionist Western.
Cowboys and gunslingers play prominent roles in Western movies. The films often depict fights with Native Americans. Early Westerns frequently portray the "Injuns" as dishonorable villains. Other westerns, especially later "revisionist" Westerns, give the natives more sympathetic treatment. Other recurring themes of westerns include western treks and groups of bandits terrorising small towns such as in ''The Magnificent Seven''.
While many Westerns were filmed in California and Arizona, most of them depicted Texas. This was done consistently, despite the fact that the landscapes of Arizona and California have distinguishing traits that make them very different from Texas. For example, the famous Saguaro cactus, with its characteristic "arms", grows only in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and Mexico. Also, many westerns set in Texas show landscapes with Joshua trees in the background. Joshua trees grow only in California and Arizona.
Western films, until recent times, were loaded with anachronisms, particularly the firearms. Winchester 1892-model rifles were frequently used in movies set in the 1870s. One reason for this was that many actors portraying cowboys in cheaply-made, early films were hired with their own horses and gear. The Model 92 was far more popular in the early 20th century than were earlier repeating and single-shot rifles which would have been more appropriate, and this is what they brought to the set. A few moviemakers preferred accuracy and realism, but until audiences began to demand this in the late 1960s, the Winchester 92 was the rifle of choice in Hollywood, and the Colt Single Action Army-type revolver is known worldwide as the "cowboy pistol," despite the fact that the vast majority of revolvers carried in the Old West were of the cap-and-ball type. Since the late 1960s, however, films have shown more of the wide variety of arms used during the period. For instance, Arthur Hunnicutt carries a revolving rifle during part of ''El Dorado'' (1967).
Westerns were extremely popular in the Communist countries of eastern Europe. An entire subgenre of locally produced films, called ''Ostern'' ("Eastern" in German) grew up, often featuring Yugoslavs or Turkic peoples in the role of Indians.
The western film traces its roots back to 1903's ''The Great Train Robbery'', a silent film directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Broncho Billy Anderson. The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star, making several hundred Western movie shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon had competition in the form of William S. Hart.
In the United States, the western has had an extremely rich history that spans many genres (action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, tragedy, parody, musical, science fiction, etc.). The golden age of the western film is epitomised by the work of two directors: John Ford (who often used John Wayne for lead roles) and Howard Hawks.
Main articles: Spaghetti Western
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" or "Italo-Westerns". Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs as well as their similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood westerns.
But the best of the genre, notably the films directed by Sergio Leone, have a parodic dimension (the strange opening scene of ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' being a reversal of Fred Zinnemann's ''High Noon'' opening scene) which gave them a different tone to the Hollywood westerns. Charles Bronson, Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although they were also to provide a showcase for other noted actors such as Jason Robards, James Coburn, Klaus Kinski and Henry Fonda.
Main articles: Ostern
Westerns from the United States were popular in Communist countries, and were a particular favorite of Joseph Stalin. An entire genre of "Red Western" or "Ostern" films developed in Eastern Europe. These films usually portrayed the American Indians sympathetically, as oppressed people fighting for their rights, in contrast to American westerns of the time, which frequently portrayed the Indians as villains. They frequently featured Yugoslavians or Turkic people in the role of the Indians, due to the shortage of authentic Indians in Eastern Europe.
Gojko Mitić is famous for his portrayals of righteous, kindhearted and charming Indian chiefs ("Die Söhne der großen Bärin" directed by Josef Mach). He became honorary chief of the tribe of Sioux when he visited the United States of America in the 90s and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one his movies. American actor and singer Dean Reed, an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films.
Main articles: Revisionist Western
"Revisionist" is a term used in genre studies to describe films that change traditional elements of a genre.
After the early 1960s, many American film-makers began to question and change many traditional elements of westerns. One major change was in the increasingly positive representation of Native Americans who had been treated as "savages" in earlier films. Audiences were encouraged to question the simple hero-versus-villain dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right. Some recent Westerns give women more powerful roles. One of the earlier films that encompasses all these features was the 1956 adventure movie ''The Last Wagon'' in which Richard Widmark played a white man raised by Commanches and persecuted by Whites, with Felicia Farr and Susan Kohner playing young women forced into leadership roles.
Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum identified that in the Sixties and Seventies, there was an attempt at a sort of makeshift genre he called the acid western, associated with people like Dennis Hopper, Jim McBride, and Rudy Wurlitzer, as well as movies like Monte Hellman's ''The Shooting'', Alejandro Jodorowsky's ''El Topo (The Mole)'', and Robert Downey Sr.'s ''Greaser's Palace''. Recent films include Alex Cox's ''Walker'', and Jim Jarmusch's ''Dead Man''. Rosenbaum describes the "acid western" as "formulating a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify its hallucinated agenda." Ultimately, the "acid western" expresses a counterculture sensibility to critique and replace capitalism with alternative forms of exchange.[1]
Contemporary Westerns, as the name implies, are films that have contemporary American settings but nevertheless utilise Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious antihero, open plains and landscapes, climactic gunfights, etc.). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth century. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice, as in Tommy Lee Jones' ''The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada''. Other examples include Sam Peckinpah's ''Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia '' (1974), John Sayles' ''Lone Star'' (1996), Robert Rodríguez's ''Once Upon a Time in Mexico'' (2003), Ang Lee's ''Brokeback Mountain'' (2005) and Wim Wenders' ''Don't Come Knocking'' (2005).
In the 1960s academic and critical attention to cinema as a legitimate art form emerged. With the increased attention, film theory was developed to attempt to understand the significance of film. From this environment emerged (in conjunction with the literary movement) an enclave of critical studies called genre studies. This was primarily a semantic and structuralist approach to understanding how similar films convey meaning. Long derided for its simplistic morality, the western film genre came to be seen instead as a series of conventions and codes that acted as a short-hand communication methods with the audience. For example, a white hat represents the good guy, a black hat represents the bad guy; two people facing each other on a deserted street leads to the expectation of a showdown; cattlemen are loners, townsfolk are family and community minded, etc. All western films can be read as a series of codes and the variations on those codes.
Since the 1970s, the western genre has been unraveled through a series of films that used the codes but primarily as a way of undermining them (''Little Big Man'' and ''Maverick'' did this through comedy). Kevin Costner's ''Dances with Wolves'' actually resurrects all the original codes and conventions but "reverses the polarities" (the Native Americans are good, the U.S. Cavalry is bad). ''Unforgiven'', written by David Webb Peoples and directed by Clint Eastwood, uses every one of the original conventions, only reverses the outcomes (instead of dying bravely or stoically, characters whine, cry, and beg; instead of a good guy saving the day, irredeemable characters execute revenge; etc.).
One of the results of genre studies is that some have argued that "Westerns" need not take place in the American West or even in the 19th century, as the codes can be found in other types of movies. For example, a very typical Western plot is that an eastern lawman heads west, where he matches wits and trades bullets with a gang of outlaws and thugs, and is aided by a local lawman who is well-meaning but largely ineffective until a critical moment when he redeems himself by saving the hero's life. This description can be used to describe any number of Westerns, as well as the action film ''Die Hard''. ''Hud'', starring Paul Newman, and Akira Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', are other frequently cited examples of movies that don't take place in the American West but have many themes and characteristics common to Westerns. Likewise, films set in the old American West may not necessarily be considered "Westerns."
.jpg)
Many Westerns after the mid 1950s were heavily influenced by the Japanese samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. For instance ''The Magnificent Seven'' was a remake of Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', and both ''A Fistful of Dollars'' and ''Last Man Standing'' were remakes of Kurosawa's ''Yojimbo'', which itself was inspired by ''Red Harvest'', an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett.
It should also be noted that Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced by American Westerns and was a self-proclaimed fan of the genre, most especially, the Westerns of John Ford. Kurosawa noted on several occasions that his films were heavily influenced by Westerns; this can be seen in literature accompanying the Criterion Collection DVDS of some of his films.[2]
Despite the Cold War, the western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so called 'Red Western' or ''Ostern''. Generally these took two forms: either straight westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution and civil war and the Basmachi rebellion in which Turkic peoples play a similar role to Mexicans in traditional westerns.
An offshoot of the western genre is the "post-apocalyptic" western, in which a future society, struggling to rebuild after a major catastrophe, is portrayed in a manner very similar to the 19th century frontier. Examples include ''The Postman'' and the ''Mad Max'' series, and the computer game series ''Fallout''.
Many elements of space travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the western genre. This is particularly the case in the space western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams' ''Outland'' transferred the plot of ''High Noon'' to interstellar space. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the ''Star Trek'' series, once described his vision for the show as "''Wagon Train'' to the stars". More recently, the space opera series ''Firefly'' used an explicitly western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds. Anime shows like ''Cowboy Bebop'', ''Trigun'' and ''Outlaw Star'' have been similar mixes of science fiction and Western elements. The science fiction Western can be seen as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction.
Elements of western movies can be found also in some movies belonging essentially to other genres. For example, ''Kelly's Heroes'' is a war movie, but action and characters are western-like. The British film ''Zulu'' set during the Anglo-Zulu War has sometimes been compared to a Western, even though it is set in South Africa.
The character played by Humphrey Bogart in such films as ''Casablanca'', ''To Have and Have Not'' or ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' - an individual fighter bound only by his own private code of honour - has, whatever the film's setting, a lot in common with the classic western hero despite being classic noir films. In turn, the western, which has been so influential on noir film, has progressed back into noir, as with the film ''Sugar Creek'', which combines classic elements of both noir and western films.
In many of Robert A. Heinlein's books, the settlement of other planets is depicted in ways explicitly modeled on American settlement of the West. For example, in his ''Tunnel in the Sky'' settlers set out to the planet "New Cannan", via an interstellar teleporter portal across the galaxy, in conestoga wagons, their captain sporting moustaches and a little goatee and riding a Palomino horse - with Heinlein explaining that the colonists would need to survive on their own for some years, so horses are more practical than machines.
Stephen King's ''The Dark Tower'' is a series of seven books that meshes themes of westerns, high fantasy, science fiction and horror. The protagonist Roland Deschain is a gunslinger whose image and personality are largely inspired by the "Man with No Name" from Sergio Leone's films.
In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting.
The western genre has been parodied on a number of occasions, famous examples being ''Support Your Local Sheriff!'', ''Cat Ballou'', Mel Brooks's ''Blazing Saddles'', and ''Rustler's Rhapsody''.
George Lucas's ''Star Wars'' films use many elements of a western, and indeed, Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalise cinematic mythology, a part the western once held. The Jedi, who take their name from Jidaigeki, are modeled after samurai, showing the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley Cantina is much like an old west saloon.
Main articles: Western genre in other media
The Western genre has touched all of comic books to computer and video games and role playing games.
Main articles: Television Westerns, List of TV Westerns
Main articles: Western fiction
The popularity of Western fiction rose and fell with the popularity of the western in film. Popular authors include Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Max Brand and Elmore Leonard.
Main articles: Artists of the American West, List of Artists of the American West
A number of visual artists focused their work on representations of the American Old West. The most well-known of these artists is the painter and sculptor Frederic Remington.
Main articles: List of Western film actors
:''See Singing cowboy''
1. ''Acid Western: Dead Man''
2. Patrick Crogan. "Translating Kurosawa." ''Senses of Cinema''.
★ Cowie, Peter, ''John Ford and the American West'', Harry Abrams Inc., New York, 2004 ISBN 0810949768
★ Yezbick, Daniel. The Western, ''St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture'', 2002
★ Top Fifty Westerns on Imdb
★ Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
★ Western Writers of America website
★ Cowboy Pal
★ Sethi, Arjun, ''No Escaping the Violence: The Emergence of the Maimed Hero'', University of Maryland 2006 Online Article
Justus D. Barnes, from ''The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)''
Monument Valley, on the Utah-Arizona border, became a common setting for westerns, especially after several of John Ford's films made it famous
The 'Western' is a fiction genre seen in film (when it can also be known as an "oater"), television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West), but also in Western Canada and Mexico. Closely related to the Western is the gaucho literature of Argentina, tales of the European settlement of the Australian Outback, and the ''charro'' or "rural" film genre in Mexico (see Golden Age of Mexican cinema). In film, the genre was most popular from the 1930s and into the 1960s, and the number of Westerns made since that time has declined significantly.
Definition and themes
Westerns are usually set in the Western United States during the period from about 1860 to the end of the so-called "Indian Wars" at Wounded Knee in 1890. Some westerns incorporate the American Civil War. The genre has expanded its focus to include films about the Battle of the Alamo in 1836; and the Mexican Revolution as late as 1920. Additionally, the Western genre has been adapted to the historical and mythological circumstances of other countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Russia and even fictional space colonies.
An important characteristic of Westerns is the portrayal of modes of existence perceived as primitive and obsolete giving way to modern counterparts, usually through a symbolic confrontation between characters. In the early stages of the Western continuity, this manifests as a conflict between natives and settlers or cavalry. In later stages, ranchers, settlers and gunslingers may be threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the pressures exerted by big business, and the centralization of political power in urban centers. Whatever stage of history the Western is representing, the thrust is consistently towards the subordination of nature, the domination of collective over individual values, and the emergence of the modern state.
In traditional American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s, progress is positively associated with the American values of innocence, honor and sacrifice that resonated during the post-war years. Westerns made in the 1960s and 1970s often have a decidedly more pessimistic view towards progress, glorifying the individual and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality in the American experience.
Perception
Western Set at Universal Studio in Hollywood
The popular perception of the Western is a movie that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter, whose possessions include a canteen; period clothing that might include a large Stetson hat, a bandanna, spurs and buckskins; a revolver or rifle; and a saddle, but not necessarily a horse. The horse itself, the "faithful steed", can be a major character in the story.
Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape. Specific settings include isolated forts, ranches and homesteads; the Native American village; or the small frontier town with its saloon, general store, livery stable and jailhouse. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasises that this is the "Wild West": it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), girls (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.
Western films
This genre maximizes film as a medium because typically the description and dialogue are lean, and the landscape spectacular. Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio like other early Hollywood movies, but when location shooting became more common, producers of Westerns used desolate corners of New Mexico, California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Kansas, Texas, Colorado or Wyoming, often making the landscape not just a vivid backdrop, but a character in the movie. Productions were also filmed on location at movie ranches.
The Western genre itself has sub-genres, such as the epic Western, the shoot 'em up, singing cowboy Westerns, and a few comedy westerns. The Western re-invented itself in the revisionist Western.
Cowboys and gunslingers play prominent roles in Western movies. The films often depict fights with Native Americans. Early Westerns frequently portray the "Injuns" as dishonorable villains. Other westerns, especially later "revisionist" Westerns, give the natives more sympathetic treatment. Other recurring themes of westerns include western treks and groups of bandits terrorising small towns such as in ''The Magnificent Seven''.
While many Westerns were filmed in California and Arizona, most of them depicted Texas. This was done consistently, despite the fact that the landscapes of Arizona and California have distinguishing traits that make them very different from Texas. For example, the famous Saguaro cactus, with its characteristic "arms", grows only in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and Mexico. Also, many westerns set in Texas show landscapes with Joshua trees in the background. Joshua trees grow only in California and Arizona.
Western films, until recent times, were loaded with anachronisms, particularly the firearms. Winchester 1892-model rifles were frequently used in movies set in the 1870s. One reason for this was that many actors portraying cowboys in cheaply-made, early films were hired with their own horses and gear. The Model 92 was far more popular in the early 20th century than were earlier repeating and single-shot rifles which would have been more appropriate, and this is what they brought to the set. A few moviemakers preferred accuracy and realism, but until audiences began to demand this in the late 1960s, the Winchester 92 was the rifle of choice in Hollywood, and the Colt Single Action Army-type revolver is known worldwide as the "cowboy pistol," despite the fact that the vast majority of revolvers carried in the Old West were of the cap-and-ball type. Since the late 1960s, however, films have shown more of the wide variety of arms used during the period. For instance, Arthur Hunnicutt carries a revolving rifle during part of ''El Dorado'' (1967).
Westerns were extremely popular in the Communist countries of eastern Europe. An entire subgenre of locally produced films, called ''Ostern'' ("Eastern" in German) grew up, often featuring Yugoslavs or Turkic peoples in the role of Indians.
The classical Western film
The western film traces its roots back to 1903's ''The Great Train Robbery'', a silent film directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Broncho Billy Anderson. The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star, making several hundred Western movie shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon had competition in the form of William S. Hart.
In the United States, the western has had an extremely rich history that spans many genres (action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, tragedy, parody, musical, science fiction, etc.). The golden age of the western film is epitomised by the work of two directors: John Ford (who often used John Wayne for lead roles) and Howard Hawks.
Spaghetti Westerns
Main articles: Spaghetti Western
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" or "Italo-Westerns". Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs as well as their similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood westerns.
But the best of the genre, notably the films directed by Sergio Leone, have a parodic dimension (the strange opening scene of ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' being a reversal of Fred Zinnemann's ''High Noon'' opening scene) which gave them a different tone to the Hollywood westerns. Charles Bronson, Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although they were also to provide a showcase for other noted actors such as Jason Robards, James Coburn, Klaus Kinski and Henry Fonda.
Ostern
Main articles: Ostern
Westerns from the United States were popular in Communist countries, and were a particular favorite of Joseph Stalin. An entire genre of "Red Western" or "Ostern" films developed in Eastern Europe. These films usually portrayed the American Indians sympathetically, as oppressed people fighting for their rights, in contrast to American westerns of the time, which frequently portrayed the Indians as villains. They frequently featured Yugoslavians or Turkic people in the role of the Indians, due to the shortage of authentic Indians in Eastern Europe.
Gojko Mitić is famous for his portrayals of righteous, kindhearted and charming Indian chiefs ("Die Söhne der großen Bärin" directed by Josef Mach). He became honorary chief of the tribe of Sioux when he visited the United States of America in the 90s and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one his movies. American actor and singer Dean Reed, an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films.
Revisionist Westerns
Main articles: Revisionist Western
"Revisionist" is a term used in genre studies to describe films that change traditional elements of a genre.
After the early 1960s, many American film-makers began to question and change many traditional elements of westerns. One major change was in the increasingly positive representation of Native Americans who had been treated as "savages" in earlier films. Audiences were encouraged to question the simple hero-versus-villain dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right. Some recent Westerns give women more powerful roles. One of the earlier films that encompasses all these features was the 1956 adventure movie ''The Last Wagon'' in which Richard Widmark played a white man raised by Commanches and persecuted by Whites, with Felicia Farr and Susan Kohner playing young women forced into leadership roles.
Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum identified that in the Sixties and Seventies, there was an attempt at a sort of makeshift genre he called the acid western, associated with people like Dennis Hopper, Jim McBride, and Rudy Wurlitzer, as well as movies like Monte Hellman's ''The Shooting'', Alejandro Jodorowsky's ''El Topo (The Mole)'', and Robert Downey Sr.'s ''Greaser's Palace''. Recent films include Alex Cox's ''Walker'', and Jim Jarmusch's ''Dead Man''. Rosenbaum describes the "acid western" as "formulating a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify its hallucinated agenda." Ultimately, the "acid western" expresses a counterculture sensibility to critique and replace capitalism with alternative forms of exchange.[1]
Contemporary Westerns
Contemporary Westerns, as the name implies, are films that have contemporary American settings but nevertheless utilise Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious antihero, open plains and landscapes, climactic gunfights, etc.). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth century. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice, as in Tommy Lee Jones' ''The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada''. Other examples include Sam Peckinpah's ''Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia '' (1974), John Sayles' ''Lone Star'' (1996), Robert Rodríguez's ''Once Upon a Time in Mexico'' (2003), Ang Lee's ''Brokeback Mountain'' (2005) and Wim Wenders' ''Don't Come Knocking'' (2005).
Genre studies and Westerns
The promotional poster for ''Unforgiven'', directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
In the 1960s academic and critical attention to cinema as a legitimate art form emerged. With the increased attention, film theory was developed to attempt to understand the significance of film. From this environment emerged (in conjunction with the literary movement) an enclave of critical studies called genre studies. This was primarily a semantic and structuralist approach to understanding how similar films convey meaning. Long derided for its simplistic morality, the western film genre came to be seen instead as a series of conventions and codes that acted as a short-hand communication methods with the audience. For example, a white hat represents the good guy, a black hat represents the bad guy; two people facing each other on a deserted street leads to the expectation of a showdown; cattlemen are loners, townsfolk are family and community minded, etc. All western films can be read as a series of codes and the variations on those codes.
Since the 1970s, the western genre has been unraveled through a series of films that used the codes but primarily as a way of undermining them (''Little Big Man'' and ''Maverick'' did this through comedy). Kevin Costner's ''Dances with Wolves'' actually resurrects all the original codes and conventions but "reverses the polarities" (the Native Americans are good, the U.S. Cavalry is bad). ''Unforgiven'', written by David Webb Peoples and directed by Clint Eastwood, uses every one of the original conventions, only reverses the outcomes (instead of dying bravely or stoically, characters whine, cry, and beg; instead of a good guy saving the day, irredeemable characters execute revenge; etc.).
One of the results of genre studies is that some have argued that "Westerns" need not take place in the American West or even in the 19th century, as the codes can be found in other types of movies. For example, a very typical Western plot is that an eastern lawman heads west, where he matches wits and trades bullets with a gang of outlaws and thugs, and is aided by a local lawman who is well-meaning but largely ineffective until a critical moment when he redeems himself by saving the hero's life. This description can be used to describe any number of Westerns, as well as the action film ''Die Hard''. ''Hud'', starring Paul Newman, and Akira Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', are other frequently cited examples of movies that don't take place in the American West but have many themes and characteristics common to Westerns. Likewise, films set in the old American West may not necessarily be considered "Westerns."
Influences on and of the Western
.jpg)
Movie poster for ''Seven Samurai
Many Westerns after the mid 1950s were heavily influenced by the Japanese samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. For instance ''The Magnificent Seven'' was a remake of Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', and both ''A Fistful of Dollars'' and ''Last Man Standing'' were remakes of Kurosawa's ''Yojimbo'', which itself was inspired by ''Red Harvest'', an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett.
It should also be noted that Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced by American Westerns and was a self-proclaimed fan of the genre, most especially, the Westerns of John Ford. Kurosawa noted on several occasions that his films were heavily influenced by Westerns; this can be seen in literature accompanying the Criterion Collection DVDS of some of his films.[2]
Despite the Cold War, the western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so called 'Red Western' or ''Ostern''. Generally these took two forms: either straight westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution and civil war and the Basmachi rebellion in which Turkic peoples play a similar role to Mexicans in traditional westerns.
An offshoot of the western genre is the "post-apocalyptic" western, in which a future society, struggling to rebuild after a major catastrophe, is portrayed in a manner very similar to the 19th century frontier. Examples include ''The Postman'' and the ''Mad Max'' series, and the computer game series ''Fallout''.
Many elements of space travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the western genre. This is particularly the case in the space western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams' ''Outland'' transferred the plot of ''High Noon'' to interstellar space. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the ''Star Trek'' series, once described his vision for the show as "''Wagon Train'' to the stars". More recently, the space opera series ''Firefly'' used an explicitly western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds. Anime shows like ''Cowboy Bebop'', ''Trigun'' and ''Outlaw Star'' have been similar mixes of science fiction and Western elements. The science fiction Western can be seen as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction.
Elements of western movies can be found also in some movies belonging essentially to other genres. For example, ''Kelly's Heroes'' is a war movie, but action and characters are western-like. The British film ''Zulu'' set during the Anglo-Zulu War has sometimes been compared to a Western, even though it is set in South Africa.
The character played by Humphrey Bogart in such films as ''Casablanca'', ''To Have and Have Not'' or ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' - an individual fighter bound only by his own private code of honour - has, whatever the film's setting, a lot in common with the classic western hero despite being classic noir films. In turn, the western, which has been so influential on noir film, has progressed back into noir, as with the film ''Sugar Creek'', which combines classic elements of both noir and western films.
In many of Robert A. Heinlein's books, the settlement of other planets is depicted in ways explicitly modeled on American settlement of the West. For example, in his ''Tunnel in the Sky'' settlers set out to the planet "New Cannan", via an interstellar teleporter portal across the galaxy, in conestoga wagons, their captain sporting moustaches and a little goatee and riding a Palomino horse - with Heinlein explaining that the colonists would need to survive on their own for some years, so horses are more practical than machines.
Stephen King's ''The Dark Tower'' is a series of seven books that meshes themes of westerns, high fantasy, science fiction and horror. The protagonist Roland Deschain is a gunslinger whose image and personality are largely inspired by the "Man with No Name" from Sergio Leone's films.
In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting.
The western genre has been parodied on a number of occasions, famous examples being ''Support Your Local Sheriff!'', ''Cat Ballou'', Mel Brooks's ''Blazing Saddles'', and ''Rustler's Rhapsody''.
George Lucas's ''Star Wars'' films use many elements of a western, and indeed, Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalise cinematic mythology, a part the western once held. The Jedi, who take their name from Jidaigeki, are modeled after samurai, showing the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley Cantina is much like an old west saloon.
Westerns in other media
Main articles: Western genre in other media
The Western genre has touched all of comic books to computer and video games and role playing games.
Television Westerns
Main articles: Television Westerns, List of TV Westerns
Westerns in literature
Main articles: Western fiction
The popularity of Western fiction rose and fell with the popularity of the western in film. Popular authors include Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Max Brand and Elmore Leonard.
The Western in Visual Art
Main articles: Artists of the American West, List of Artists of the American West
A number of visual artists focused their work on representations of the American Old West. The most well-known of these artists is the painter and sculptor Frederic Remington.
Significant actors
Main articles: List of Western film actors
Significant actresses
Significant directors
Singing cowboys
:''See Singing cowboy''
★ Rex Allen ★ Gene Autry ★ Sons of the Pioneers |
See also
References
1. ''Acid Western: Dead Man''
2. Patrick Crogan. "Translating Kurosawa." ''Senses of Cinema''.
★ Cowie, Peter, ''John Ford and the American West'', Harry Abrams Inc., New York, 2004 ISBN 0810949768
External links
★ Yezbick, Daniel. The Western, ''St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture'', 2002
★ Top Fifty Westerns on Imdb
★ Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
★ Western Writers of America website
★ Cowboy Pal
★ Sethi, Arjun, ''No Escaping the Violence: The Emergence of the Maimed Hero'', University of Maryland 2006 Online Article
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