The Western

Like most major genres, the Western actually predates the invention of motion pictures,. Westward expansion fascinated European Americans from the time the “frontier” was just a few hundred miles inland from the Atlantic Coast. The Last of the Mohicans by John Fenimore Cooper was considered to be the first popular novel exploring the tension between “civilization” and the “wilderness.” It was reputable as a work of literature.

Some 25 years later, however, less reputable literature (such as the dime novel) and short novellas written for young men and semi- literates, delivered sensational adventures of fictional cowboys, outlaws, and adventures. By the 1870s, stage productions and traveling circus- like shows featured reenactments of famous battles and events in the Then the film industry got into the act and capitalized on the world’s preoccupation with the West. Some of the earliest included Thomas Edison’s 46 second, one shot vignette Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene (1899) and Edwin Porter’s groundbreaking Great Train Robbery (1903).

Although history inspired the genre, America’s preoccupation with it has become almost mythological. It revolves around the self- sufficient American individualist taming a savage wilderness. This is many cases was true, but in many other cases exaggerated or made up. This simply acknowledges parts of American history that have been amplified and modified to serve a cultural need.

The wilderness conflict can take many forms, including the form of antagonistic forces in direct conflict with settlers, such as in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) or Stagecoach (1939), or George Steven’s Shane (1953), or it can take a metaphorical form such as in John Ford’s 3 Godfathers in the form of the outlaw protagonist’s self-interest which is put in direct opposition with civilization and social responsibility when the bandits discover an infant orphaned in the desert.

This duality is frequently present in the Western. In Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven (1992) the lawmen are actually antagonists and even one lawman protagonist is a former gunfighter. Cowboys embody the blurred borders between the West’s thematic forces. Cowboys may fight the Indians, but they are also the symbols of rootless resisters of encroaching development. Western icons from the earliest times to now (such as John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Clint Eastwood) are outsized by their relatively subdued performers.

Character duality is ever present in the Western. Native Americans are both ruthless savages and noble persons of dignity and honor. Prostitutes are products of lawlessness but often long for marriage and families. Schoolmarms are educated and cultured, but irresistibly drawn to the frontier and the men who roam it. The educated man of the East in an inexperienced bumbler who must transform into a skilled gunfighter/cowboy/lawman in the West.

More than any other American film genre, the American Western is linked to place, a general place, be it the open prairie, the mountains, or the desert. For this reason the Westerns are dominated by daylight exterior shots and scenes, and were the first to be shot almost exclusively on location. They favor extreme long-shots in which the landscape dwarfs the character and the primitive outposts of civilization.

Some important Westerns include: – The Iron Horse (1924, dir. John Ford) – Tumbleweeds (1925, King Baggot) – The Big Trail (1930 Raoul Walsh) – Destiny Rides Again (1939, George Marshall) – The Ox-Bow Incident (1943, William Wellman) – Duel in the Sun (1946, King Vidor) – Fort Apache (1948, John Ford) – Red River (1948, Howard Hawkes and Arthur Rosson) – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949, John Ford) – The Gunfighter (1950, Henry King) – Winchester ‘73 (1950, Anthony Mann) – The Naked Spur (1953, Anthony Mann) – 3:10 to Yuma (Delmar Daves) – Forty Guns (1957, Samuel Fuller) – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, John Ford) – Major Dundee (1965, Sam Peckinpah) – Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone) – The Wild Bunch (1969, Sam Peckinpah) – Little Big Man (1970, Arthur Penn) – Silverado (1985, Lawrence Kasdan) – Dances With Wolves (1990, Kevin Costner) – Dead Man (1995, Jim Jarmusch) – The Missing (2003, Ron Howard) – Appaloosa (2008, Ed Harris)