| Part of a series on |
| Westerns |
|---|
 |
TheWestern is afilm genre defined by the American Film Institute as films which are "set in the American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of thenew frontier."[1] Generally set in theAmerican frontier between theCalifornia Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890,[2]: 557 the genre also includes many examples of stories set in locations outside the frontier – includingNorthern Mexico, theNorthwestern United States,Alaska, andWestern Canada – as well as stories that take place before 1849 and after 1890. Western films comprise part of the largerWestern genre, which encompasses literature, music, television, and plastic arts.
Western films derive from theWild West shows that began in the 1870s.[3]: 48 Originally referred to as "Wild West dramas", the shortened term "Western" came to describe the genre.[4] Although other Western films were made earlier,The Great Train Robbery (1903) is often considered to mark the beginning of the genre.[2][5] Westerns were a major genre during thesilent era (1894–1929) and continued to grow in popularity during thesound era (post–1929).
The genre reached its pinnacle between 1945 and 1965 when it comprised roughly a quarter of studio output.[6] The advent of color and widescreen during this era opened up new possibilities for directors to portray the vastness of the American landscape.[3]: 105 This era also produced the genre's most iconic figures, includingJohn Wayne andRandolph Scott, who developed personae that they maintained across most of their films.[7] DirectorJohn Ford is often considered one of the genre's greatest filmmakers.[8]
With the proliferation of television in the 1960s,television Westerns began to supersede film Westerns in popularity.[9] By the end of the decade, studios had mostly ceased to make Westerns. Despite their dwindling popularity during this decade, the 1960s gave rise to therevisionist Western, several examples of which became vital entries in the canon.[10]
Since the 1960s, new Western films have only appeared sporadically. Despite their decreased prominence, Western films remain an integral part ofAmerican culture andnational mythology.[11][12]
TheAmerican Film Institute defines Western films as those "set in the American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of thenew frontier".[1] The term "Western", used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article inMotion Picture World magazine.[13]
Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th-century popularWestern fiction, and were firmly in place before film became a popular art form.[14][page needed] Film criticPhilip French has said that the Western is "a commercial formula with rules as fixed and immutable as theKabuki Theater."[15]: 12
Western films commonly feature protagonists such as sheriffs, cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, who are often depicted as seminomadic wanderers who wearStetson hats,bandannas, spurs, andbuckskins, use revolvers or rifles as everyday tools of survival and as a means to settle disputes using "frontier justice". Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds.[16]
Film Westerns derive from theWild West shows that began in the 1870s.[3]: 48 These shows, which included stage plays and outdoor exhibitions, culminated inBuffalo Bill's Wild West, a touring performance that ran from 1883 to 1913. Wild West shows, which were intended for urban audiences, established many of the elements that came to define Western films, such as the blending of fact and fiction and the romanticization of the frontier.[17] These early films were originally referred to as "Wild West dramas", the term "Western" came to describe the genre. The use of this shortened term appears to have originated with a July 1912 article inMotion Picture World magazine.[4]
The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 byEdison Studios at theirBlack Maria studio inWest Orange, New Jersey. These featured veterans ofBuffalo Bill's Wild West show exhibiting skills acquired by living in the Old West – they includedAnnie Oakley (shooting) and members of theSioux (dancing).[18]
Western films were enormously popular in thesilent-film era (1894–1927). The earliest known Western narrative film is the British shortKidnapping by Indians, made byMitchell and Kenyon inBlackburn, England, in 1899.[19][20]The Great Train Robbery (1903, based on the earlier British filmA Daring Daylight Burglary),Edwin S. Porter's film starringBroncho Billy Anderson, is often erroneously cited as the first Western, though George N. Fenin andWilliam K. Everson point out that the "Edison company had played with Western material for several years prior toThe Great Train Robbery". Nonetheless, they concur that Porter's film "set the pattern—of crime, pursuit, and retribution—for the Western film as a genre".[21] The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first Western star; he made several hundred Western film shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon faced competition fromTom Mix andWilliam S. Hart.[22]
With the advent of sound in 1927–28, the major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns,[23] leaving the genre to smaller studios and producers. These smaller organizations churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. By the late 1930s, the Western film was widely regarded as a "pulp" genre in Hollywood, but its popularity was dramatically revived in 1939 by major studio productions such asDodge City starringErrol Flynn,Jesse James withTyrone Power,Union Pacific withJoel McCrea,Destry Rides Again featuringJames Stewart andMarlene Dietrich, and especiallyJohn Ford's landmark Western adventureStagecoach starringJohn Wayne, which became one of the biggest hits of the year. Released through United Artists,Stagecoach made John Wayne a mainstream screen star in the wake of a decade of headlining B Westerns. Wayne had been introduced to the screen 10 years earlier as theleading man in directorRaoul Walsh's spectacularwidescreenThe Big Trail, which failed at the box office in spite of being shot on location across the American West, including theGrand Canyon,Yosemite, and the giantredwoods, due in part to exhibitors' inability to switch over to widescreen during theGreat Depression.
After the renewed commercial successes of the Western in the late 1930s, their popularity continued to rise until the 1950s, when the number of Western films produced outnumbered all other genres combined.[24]
The period from 1940 to 1960 has been called the "Golden Age of the Western".[25] It is epitomized by the work of several prominent directors including:
There have been several instances of resurgence for the Western genre. According toNetflix, the popularity of the genre is due to its malleability: "As America has evolved, so too have Westerns."[26]
During the 1960s and 1970s,Spaghetti Westerns fromItaly became popular worldwide; this was due to the success ofSergio Leone's storytelling method.[27][28]
Although experiencing waning popularity during the 1980s, the success of films such asDances with Wolves (1990) andUnforgiven (1992) brought the genre back into the mainstream.[26]Back to the Future Part III (1990) was "a full-blown Western" set in 1885; although the least commercially successful ofthe trilogy and according to some a departure fromthe 1985 original (a sci-fi) andthe 1989 sequel (an action adventure),Part III has been regarded by others as a fitting end to the series.[29]
At the turn of the 21st century, Westerns have once again seen an ongoing revival in popularity.[30][31] Largely influenced by the recapturing ofAmericanamythology, appreciation for thevaquero folklore withinMexican culture andthe US Southwest, interest in theWestern lifestyle'smusic andclothing, along with popular videos games series such asRed Dead.[32][33][34][35]
Screenwriter and scholarEric R. Williams identifies Western films as one of eleven super-genres in hisscreenwriters' taxonomy, claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres areaction,crime,fantasy,horror,romance,science fiction,slice of life,sports,thriller, andwar.[36]
Western films often depict conflicts withNative Americans. While early Eurocentric Westerns frequently portray the Native Americans as dishonorable villains,[37] the later and more culturally neutral Westerns gave Native Americans a more sympathetic treatment.[38] Other recurring themes of Westerns include treks (e.g.The Big Trail)[39] or perilous journeys (e.g.Stagecoach)[40] or groups of bandits terrorizing small towns such as inThe Magnificent Seven.[41]
The Western goes beyond simply a cinematic genre, and extends into defining the myth of the West in American culture.[15]: 21–22
Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio, as in other early Hollywood films, but when location shooting became more common from the 1930s, producers of Westerns used desolate corners ofArizona,California,Colorado,Kansas,Montana,Nevada,New Mexico,Oklahoma,Texas,Utah, orWyoming. These settings gave filmmakers the ability to depict vast plains, looming mountains, and epic canyons.[42] Productions were also filmed on location atmovie ranches.[43]
Often, the vast landscape becomes more than a vivid backdrop; it becomes a character in the film.[42] After the early 1950s, various widescreen formats such asCinemascope (1953) andVistaVision used the expanded width of the screen to display spectacular western landscapes.[44][45] John Ford's use ofMonument Valley as an expressive landscape in his films fromStagecoach toCheyenne Autumn (1965), "present us with a mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West, embodied most memorably in Monument Valley, with its buttes and mesas that tower above the men on horseback, whether they be settlers, soldiers, or Native Americans".[46]
[T]he principal archetype of the genre, the Western hero, is analyzed within the context of his various personas: the chivalrous cowboy, the honorable marshal, the lone crusader, and the rebel outlaw... He is more comfortable living in the open fronteir than in the cities, and most importantly, he does not conform to the laws and customs of civilized society. He answers only to his own code of honor and enforces his own personal brand of justice... [W]riters established the cowboy hero as the legendary icon of the West. They dressed him in chaps and a ten-gallon hat, straddled him atop a horse, armed him with a revolver, and set him loose on the Western plains.
The Western hero himself epitomizes the animus archetype. He is a character that is completely and utterly masculine... In turn, the Native American is often portrayed as the shadow archetype, the representative of savage, wild emotions, and the dark adversary for the hero in their oedipal rivalry over the maternal landscape.
[T]he role of the landscape is typically accentuated, making the scenery in the Western as equally import a character as the hero or villain... a good Western must import a strong sense of the frontier landscape... to depict the glory and majesty of the frontier landscape.
