Whatever Happened to the Western Movie Genre?

[Bruce Wayne]

And no, Cowboys & Aliens can't count.

http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marias_sp12.html

 

[AtomicEraTom]

[video=youtube;X7ymC7ipQWk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ymC7ipQWk[/video]

 

[Doctor Strange]

Good article. As I've stated here before, Liberty Valance is my favorite western, so I was happy to see it get such a big writeup.

The western myth simply no longer speaks to young Americans. Today's popular films are nearly all based on science fiction, comics superheroes, fantasy, and modern-weapon action with cops and soliders. I think it reflects the zeitgeist having moved away from the mythic American Frontier to a more technology-based mindset. It's hard to believe now that there were something like thirty western TV series running at once in the late fifties, the days of just three networks... But that was when the winning of the west wasn't even a hundred years in the past. Now, it's so far in the past as to be nearly incomprehensible (especially if you don't live in the west and have a sense of the landscape and history) and it's lost its resonance, especially to the young.

My own college-student kids, who I've successfully shown virtually everything from silent two-reelers to heavy Ingmar Bergman films, have no interest in or patience for westerns. They grudgingly admit that films like The Searchers and High Noon are important for their influence, but don't like them. They made me turn off The Magnificent Seven halfway through! Even a more modern film that's about the mythmaking itself - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I think is brilliant, if a bit too long and draggy in the second act) - left them cold.

Yes, it's a sad time for one of the great, truly American art forms...

 

[Worf]

Sad to say but true. The commentary sums it up quite nicely and neatly. But why have we become so averse to that kind of "frontier justice" he hints at it but doesn't nail it. To harken back to those stories of violence and revenge is dangerous for there are many here that view such tales with lust and envy. Here in America we are only a razor's width removed in time from the days of posse's, lynch mobs, vigilante violence armed mobs roaming the streets and may be returning to those times if truth be told. Indeed, if recent news stories and events are to be believed we are regressing in this regard as a good portion of America arms itself to the teeth over fears real and imagined. In vast portions of the south and southwest grown men are no longer playing dress up but pursuing perceived threats and issuing "frontier justice" and are often widely praised when they do.

No, I may be sad for the demise of Western but I do not long for a return to the days of sudden death by the whim of needlessly scared or the offended. No thanks.

Worf

 

[scottyrocks]

Movie aliens are easy, convenient enemies. They’re not real (as far as we know). Nobody has to like them. No one has an excuse being offended by anything done to them. Today’s special effects technology naturally lends itself to making them look menacingly convincing on screen.

Movies such as the new release of Battleship allow many different people on this planet to come together to battle a completely different enemy that we can line up against together and fight. Indepenence Day was another of these titles. With the world fracturing as it is these days, this is one of Hollywood's 'feel good' tactics.

Westerns don’t need any of this technology. Although not an alien movie, I knew something was horribly amiss when the Will Smith version of Wild Wild West (1999) was released. What a mess that was. Modern technology was used to bring ‘era-appropriate’ steampunk to larger than life ‘reality.’ That movie was a huge slap in the face to the traditional Western.

I haven’t seen Cowboys and Aliens. I’m afraid of what it has done to further erode the traditional Western.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I think some concepts have always been with us. The only difference is that the imagery has changed and the concept has been rebranded. What used to be called "frontier justice" is now known as "street justice."

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I had always considered Independence day, Cowboys and Aliens, Aliens, and all of the Star Wars movies as Westerns. Good guy, Bad guys, good guy wins and rides off into the sunset (usually with the girl). Remember that great Western Rustlers' Rhapsody where the hero is required to be "a confident heterosexual", and couldn't just ride off anymore.

Later

 

[scottyrocks]

Looking at it that way, then many cops-n-robbers movies could be considered Westerns, too. I think a Western has to take place in the American West within a certain period of time, say from post-civil war through the early part of the 20th century, although these parameters are not absolute. The costumes are cowboy-like, at the very least.

Take two movies such as High Noon and Bad Day at Black Rock. Both place the protagonists in small Western towns, into positions where they have to fend for themselves with most of he people around them either against them or afraid to stand up to the antagonist(s). High Noon is a Western. Is Bad Day a Western? It's contemporary for its time. The hero is not a Westerner. It doesn't have many of the trappings of a Western, other than its location. It could have taken place in any small drinkwater anywhere in the country.

High Noon has all the trappings. The location, the characters, the time period. I feel all these are necessary for a film to be a proper Western.

 

[hatophile]

To my wife's chagrin, I'm a huge Western fan (to her credit, however, she's not enamored by "chick flicks").
The latest Western I watched was 3:10 to Yuma, with the updated True Grit just prior to that. I find many of the more modern Westerns beset by violence, although in truth the West just before and after the Civil War was a violent place. I really liked the new interpretation of True Grit, but I also revere the original with the Duke.

In years past, I enjoyed Tombstone and even Dances with Wolves. I loved the banter and colloquialisms in
The Long Riders. I have not seen Cowboys and Aliens, that just doesn't compute with me as a Western.

In the long run, while I enjoyed some of the newer films, the older ones with Wayne, Stewart, etc. to me are just unbeatable. I believe like the article's author, that unfortunately the genre is on it's way out.

 

[Gene]

I personally prefer my westerns to be different and free of the cliched trappings of the 1950s-60s great white (and unusually clean) hero saving the day. "Deadwood" and "Dead Man" spring to mind.

 

[Rathdown]

Sad to say but true. The commentary sums it up quite nicely and neatly. But why have we become so averse to that kind of "frontier justice" he hints at it but doesn't nail it.

First of all, I don't think that people have become adverse to what you have characterized as "frontier justice"-- however that may be defined. Basically there are two kinds of people in the world, Good People and Bad People, and by and large the good people want to get rid of the bad as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This, it would seem, is the core of "frontier justice" and it has, at least in my opinion, absolutely nothing to do with why fewer western films are produced now, than say fifty years ago.

As to comments made by others:

Hollywood doesn't make westerns because it doesn't want to. Questions of "political correctness" aside, westerns aren't made for two pretty good reasons:

(1) It costs more to rent a horse for a day than a car (and far more actors can drive than can ride a horse);
&
(2) Very few writers today can turn out a credible western (the same applies, by the way, to Hollywood musicals, or screwball comedies).

So, it's really down to cost and a lack of good scripts.

As to the other factors involved, Señor Marías, has them pretty much nailed to the wall.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

So do you like Clint Eastwoods "Unforgiven" or is it too modern for you?

The moral of the story is not too far off from this:

It does not accept that while some are horrified by what they are obliged or choose to do, others are not, and are prepared to bear whatever responsibility or sentence falls to them.

I did enjoy reading of this article but I don't care all that much about western myself. I didn't knew Javier Marías writes in blogs though^^

 

[Undertow]

I disagree with this article.

Westerns, as a genre, aren’t declining anymore than cinema is declining overall; and it’s not even that cinema is declining so much as it’s being diluted. Every genre is seeing a dilution of quality as the market is flooded by producers trying to make money with material that is fair to worse.

This isn’t a new thing, either. Consider films coming out of the late 50’s like Ed Wood’s Plan 9, or the slasher films of the early 80’s like Friday the 13th. Personally, I think those films were brilliant and entertaining in their own context, but you simply cannot argue that they were well done, or even enjoyed by the masses.

I also don’t think it’s fair to criticize movies, especially sequels, according to some arbitrary standard that’s never really defined by the author, as is done here. For instance, The Assassination of Jesse James wasn’t trying to be a Western so much as a period piece; it wasn’t a fictional movie, per se, as the character was established somewhere in history and the story could only adhere to some kind of reasonable parameters (they obviously couldn’t have James turning into a robot and crashing through Tokyo). Additionally, 3:10 to Yuma, while not as good as the original, was still a fine movie for fans that weren’t familiar with Westerns, much less the original. The acting and directing were convincing enough and the only whimsical aspect was the fact that you had Australian and British actors doing an American Western (which has precedence in the Sergio Leon films anyway).

I agree – cinema is being diluted now more than ever and genres like Western may be hurt in the process. It doesn’t have anything to do with society’s inability to accept complex, contradictory characters, or with society not enjoying Westerns: it has to do with selling tickets to the lowest common denominator. There are still good films with complex and contradictory characters. Take No Country for Old Men – a Western, and a damn good one at that.

There will always be a certain element who enjoy “the sound of two bricks being smashed together”, but there are those of us, all of you included I’m sure, who crave REAL cinema. I’m personally waiting to see if someone will do a superb adaptation of Blood Meridian.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's two kinds of Westerns, and I think a lot of people today don't really grasp the difference anymore -- there's Westerns as in Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers and other kiddie matinee stuff, and then there's John Ford -type Adult Westerns. Usually the black hat-white hat/cowboy-and-Indian stuff that people reject when they reject "Westerns" was the former, but the latter films could be,and usually were much, much more complex than that sort of cheesy stereotype.

The best Western of the past fifty years was a contemporary-setting film hardly anybody saw: "The Three Burials Of Meliquiades Estrada." We ran it for a week about six years ago, and it's burned forever into my mind.

 

[frussell]

Many will disagree, but I thought "All the Pretty Horses" was a great modern western. It stayed fairly close to the book, and the hero stuck to his principles until the end, much like the old-school westerns. I don't mind more morally ambiguous anti-hero type Westerns, but I found this one refreshing because it was so straightforward. Matt Damon (whose stiff acting actually fit his character for a change) wants the girl, and if he can't have her, by God, he's at least going to get his horse back. Lucas Black and Henry Thomas were also excellent as his sidekicks. Frank

 

[Undertow]

...The best Western of the past fifty years was a contemporary-setting film hardly anybody saw: "The Three Burials Of Meliquiades Estrada." We ran it for a week about six years ago, and it's burned forever into my mind.

I've been waiting to see that movie forever.

 

[J.W.]

Well, Hollywood might turn to the "Galaxy Rangers" to merge past and future.
My father is a huge western fan, he is constantly reading western dime novels and he's been doing so ever since he was a young man. He likes to watch the occasional western movie, but I have never really caught on to his passion.
I think westerns helped a lot to establish basic ideas about what is good and what is bad and that you have to come to the aid of a Lady in distress. That's somehow missing from today's world.

 

[gtdean48]

Here is my take on it....all Westerns until Tom Horn & Lonesome Dove came along were romantic visions of what it was like for entertainment & ticket sales.
If you have never seen Steve McQueen in Tom Horn, do so. It & Grey Fox with Richard Farnsworth are close to documentaries IMHO.
The Deadwood series shows the dirty, rough, crude, etc. aspects of the settlement of "the West". Compare it to How the West Was Won.
Silverado was one of the "romantic" ones & Unforgiven one of the "realistic" ones.
When we grew up, we played "army", "cops & robbers", 'cowboys & indians".... my son never did.
They played laser tag, paintball, airsoft, & first person shooters....
I had GI Joe & Johnny West & he had Xmen, Power Rangers, Spiderman, Batman...
The movies have to relate with the masses to get the ticket sales. Just look at the bomb by Disney, John Carter, compared to Avatar.
Avatar in theme, was a Western, but hit the sweet spot of visual effects & sci-fi dead on.
Cowboys & Aliens was a good flick by reaching across the generations.
I like Hell on Wheels & Justified but my kid could care less.
The expense of a Western = horse charges, are nothing compared to sci-fi post production CGI expenses. So I discount that view.
I love War Between the States period movies, so Hatfield & McCoys looks good to me. May as well be a Western to my son.
I am into nostalgia & he is into technology. Ticket sales are in his favor since him & his buddies will go see movies multiple times in the theater.
We used to pay once & watch the same movie multiple time that day!

 

[Atomic Age]

The fact of the matter is that when they make a GOOD western, it does well. The recent True Grit made $250 million dollars. Not too bad for a movie that cost $38 million to make. 3:10 to Yuma didn't do quite as well in theaters, making about $70 million, however it did VERY well on video. Open Range made about $70 million on a $22 million dollar budget.

Whats true for westerns is true for any movie, make a good one and people will show up.

Also the western goes in cycles. There was talk in the mid 1930's that the western was dead, replaced by gangster pictures.

Doug

 

[4spurs]

The western is not dead, never will be, and it won't be because the western provides something that few if other genres can provide; a setting that speaks as loud as any actor in the film; and a good director and a good cinematographer will know how to make that setting speak to the audience.

In a good western the environment, the location, plays as big a role as the protagonist. The vastness of the west communicates so many different things; whether it be Monument Valley, or that view down a long set of railroad tracks that vanishes into a single point, or that endless painted desert, or domes of undulating rock, or the squeak of a windmill lazily turning against a blue sky, or a thunderstorm miles away drawing close, or the wind blowing a tumbleweed across the screen, or the snow covered mountains; they all communicate important themes and messages in a good film. That's all part of the story, and except for the vast emptyness of space or the ocean, no other setting can convey a story's message like a western.

My definition of a western includes great period films such as The Searchers and Red River, but it also includes contemporary films such as Bad Day at Black Rock, Hud, Lonely are the Brave, the Misfits, and even The Last Picture Show where Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion was as real a cowboy in that film as he was in life, and just as real a cowboy as he was in all the films he made with the Duke. In all of those films the location, and the use of the location at different times of the day, during different seasons, are used by the director to communicate a mood, a message, and to put us humans into perspective.

As long as that tool is laying around somebody will pick it up and use it.