Western film

Last updated

The Western is a film 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 the new frontier." [1] Generally set in the American frontier between the California 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 – including Northern Mexico, the Northwestern United States, Alaska, and Western Canada – as well as stories that take place before 1849 and after 1890. Western films comprise part of the larger Western genre, which encompasses literature, music, television, and plastic arts.

Contents

Western films derive from the Wild 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 the silent era (1894–1929) and continued to grow in popularity during the sound 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, including John Wayne and Randolph Scott, who developed personae that they maintained across most of their films. [7] Director John Ford is often considered the genre's greatest filmmaker. [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 the revisionist 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 of American culture and national mythology. [11] [12]

Characteristics

Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz from 1954. Gary Cooper 2.jpg
Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz from 1954.

The American Film Institute defines Western films as those "set in the American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier". [1] The term "Western", used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World magazine. [13]

Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th-century popular Western fiction, and were firmly in place before film became a popular art form. [14] [ page needed ] Film critic Philip French has said that the Western is "a commercial formula with rules as fixed and immutable as the Kabuki Theater." [15] : 12 

Western films commonly feature protagonists such as sheriffs, cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, who are often depicted as seminomadic wanderers who wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, and buckskins, 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]

History

John Wayne in The Comancheros (1961) John Wayne - 1961.JPG
John Wayne in The Comancheros (1961)

Origins

Film Westerns derive from the Wild West shows that began in the 1870s. [3] : 48  These shows, which included stage plays and outdoor exhibitions, culminated in Buffalo 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 in Motion Picture World magazine. [4]

The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. These featured veterans of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show exhibiting skills acquired by living in the Old West – they included Annie Oakley (shooting) and members of the Sioux (dancing). [18]

Silent era

Western films were enormously popular in the silent-film era (1894–1927). The earliest known Western narrative film is the British short Kidnapping by Indians , made by Mitchell and Kenyon in Blackburn, England, in 1899. [19] [20] The Great Train Robbery (1903, based on the earlier British film A Daring Daylight Burglary ), Edwin S. Porter's film starring Broncho Billy Anderson, is often erroneously cited as the first Western, though George N. Fenin and William K. Everson point out that the "Edison company had played with Western material for several years prior to The 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 from Tom Mix and William S. Hart. [22]

1930s

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 as Dodge City starring Errol Flynn, Jesse James with Tyrone Power, Union Pacific with Joel McCrea, Destry Rides Again featuring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, and especially John Ford's landmark Western adventure Stagecoach starring John 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 the leading man in director Raoul Walsh's spectacular widescreen The Big Trail , which failed at the box office in spite of being shot on location across the American West, including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the giant redwoods, due in part to exhibitors' inability to switch over to widescreen during the Great Depression.

"Golden Age"

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:

Revivals

There have been several instances of resurgence for the Western genre. According to Netflix, 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 from Italy became popular worldwide; this was due to the success of Sergio Leone's storytelling method. [27] [28]

Although experiencing waning popularity during the 1980s, the success of films such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and Unforgiven (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 of the trilogy and according to some a departure from the 1985 original (a sci-fi) and the 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 of Americana mythology, appreciation for the vaquero folklore within Mexican culture and the US Southwest, interest in the Western lifestyle's music and clothing, along with popular videos games series such as Red Dead. [32] [33] [34] [35]

Themes and settings

Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies Western films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters' taxonomy, claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, crime, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, and war. [36]

Western films often depict conflicts with Native 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 in The 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 of Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming. These settings gave filmmakers the ability to depict vast plains, looming mountains, and epic canyons. [42] Productions were also filmed on location at movie 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 as Cinemascope (1953) and VistaVision used the expanded width of the screen to display spectacular western landscapes. [44] [45] John Ford's use of Monument Valley as an expressive landscape in his films from Stagecoach to Cheyenne 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]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayne</span> American actor (1907–1979)

Marion Robert Morrison, professionally known as John Wayne and nicknamed "the Duke", was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades and appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spaghetti Western</span> Film genre

The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians.

<i>Stagecoach</i> (1939 film) American film by John Ford

Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his breakthrough role. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group primarily composed of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western (genre)</span> Multimedia genre

The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890, and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ford</span> American film director (1894–1973)

John Martin Feeney, known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and producer. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and was one of the first American directors to be recognized as an auteur. In a career of more than 50 years, he directed over 140 films between 1917 and 1965, and received six Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monument Valley</span> American West area with distinctive buttes and mesas

Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor. The most famous butte formations are located in northeastern Arizona along the Utah–Arizona state line. The valley is considered sacred by the Navajo Nation, the Native American people within whose reservation it lies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western fiction</span> Literary genre

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid-20th century. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yakima Canutt</span> American rodeo rider, actor and stuntman (1895–1986)

Enos Edward "Yakima" Canutt was an American champion rodeo rider, actor, stuntman, and action director. He developed many stunts for films and the techniques and technology to protect stuntmen in performing them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revisionist Western</span> Western film subgenre

The revisionist Western is a sub-genre of the Western film. Called a post-classical variation of the traditional Western, the revisionist subverts the myth and romance of the traditional by means of character development and realism to present a less simplistic view of life in the "Old West". While the traditional Western always embodies a clear boundary between good and evil, the revisionist Western does not.

Western music is a form of music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Western music celebrates the lifestyle of the cowboy on the open range, along the Rocky Mountains, and among the prairies of Western North America. The genre grew from the mix of cultural influences in the American frontier and what became the Southwestern United States at the time, it came from the folk music traditions of those living the region, those being the hillbilly music from those that arrived from the Eastern U.S., the corrido and ranchera from Northern Mexico, and the New Mexico and Tejano endemic to the Southwest. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the western genre with that of similar folk origins, instrumentation and rural themes, to create the banner of country and western music, which was simplified in time to country music.

<i>Lemonade Joe</i> 1964 film

Lemonade Joe, or the Horse Opera is a 1964 Czechoslovak musical comedy film, directed by Oldřich Lipský and written by Jiří Brdečka, based on his novel and stage play.

<i>The Big Trail</i> 1930 film by Raoul Walsh

The Big Trail is a 1930 American pre-Code Western early widescreen film shot on location across the American West starring 23-year-old John Wayne in his first leading role and directed by Raoul Walsh. It is the final completed film to feature Tyrone Power Sr. before his death in 1931, as well as his only sound role.

Western lifestyle or cowboy culture is the lifestyle, or behaviorisms, of, and resulting from the influence of, the attitudes, ethics and history of the American western cowboy. In the present day these influences affect this sector of the population's choice of recreation, western wear, partaking of western cuisine and Southwestern cuisine, and enjoyment of the western genre and western music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space Western</span> Subgenre

Space Western is a subgenre of science fiction that uses the themes and tropes of Westerns within science-fiction stories in an outer space setting. Subtle influences may include exploration of new, lawless frontiers, while more overt influences may feature actual cowboys in outer space who use rayguns and ride robotic horses. Although initially popular, a strong backlash against perceived hack writing caused the genre to become a subtler influence until the 1980s, when it regained popularity. A further critical reappraisal occurred during the 2000s due to critical acclaim for Firefly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Singing cowboy</span> Archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films

A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier. The original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. This continues with modern vaquero traditions and within the genre of Western music, and its related New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country music styles. A number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and Riders in the Sky and individual performers such as Marty Robbins, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker and other "singing cowboys". Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Anthony (actor)</span> American actor

Tony Anthony is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director best known for his starring roles in Spaghetti Westerns, most of which were produced with the aid of his friends and associates Allen Klein and Saul Swimmer. These films consist of The Stranger series - A Stranger in Town (1967), The Stranger Returns (1967), The Silent Stranger (1968) and Get Mean (1975) - and the Zatoichi-inspired Blindman (1971). Anthony also wrote, produced and starred in Comin' at Ya! (1981) and Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983), the first film being largely credited with beginning the 1980s revival of 3D films in Hollywood.

<i>The Three Mesquiteers</i> American film series

The Three Mesquiteers is the umbrella title for a Republic Pictures series of 51 American Western B-movies released between 1936 and 1943. The films, featuring a trio of Old West adventurers, was based on a series of Western novels by William Colt MacDonald. The eponymous trio, with occasional variations, were called Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin. John Wayne, who played Stony Brooke in eight of the films in 1938 and 1939, was the best-known actor in the series. Other leads included Bob Livingston, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Max Terhune, Bob Steele, Rufe Davis and Tom Tyler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gothic Western</span> Contemporary subculture

Gothic Western is a subculture, artistically similar to gothic Americana, but blends goth and Western lifestyles that are notably visible in fashion, music, film and literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contemporary Western</span> Genre of fiction

Contemporary Western is a sub-genre of the Western genre that includes contemporary settings and uses Old West themes, archetypes, and motifs, such as a rebellious antihero, open plains and desert landscapes, or gunfights. This sub-genre includes the post-Western, neo-Western, and urban Western genres that include "the cowboy cult" in a modern setting that involves the audience's feelings and understanding of Western movies. A neo-Western can be said to use Western themes set in the present day. According to Stephen Teo in Eastern Westerns: Film and Genre Outside and Inside Hollywood, there is little difference between the neo-Western and post-Western, and the terms may often be used interchangeably.

References

  1. 1 2 "America's 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres". American Film Institute . Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  2. 1 2 Rubin, Joan Shelley; Casper, Scott E., eds. (2013). The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-976435-8.
  3. 1 2 3 Simmon, Scott (2003-06-30). The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-55581-4.
  4. 1 2 McMahan, Alison. Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema. Continuum. p. 122. ISBN   978-1-5013-4023-9.
  5. ↑ Verhoeff, Nanna (2006-01-01). The West in Early Cinema: After the Beginning. Amsterdam University Press. p. 123. ISBN   978-90-5356-831-6.
  6. ↑ Aron, Stephen (2015). The American West: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 110. ISBN   978-0-19-985893-4.
  7. ↑ Munn, Michael (2005-03-01). John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. Penguin. p. 50. ISBN   978-1-101-21026-0.
  8. ↑ Matheson, Sue (2016-02-18). The Westerns and War Films of John Ford. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 20. ISBN   978-1-4422-6106-8.
  9. ↑ MacDonald, J. Fred (1987). Who Shot the Sheriff?: The Rise and Fall of the Television Western. Praeger. pp. xi. ISBN   978-0-275-92326-6.
  10. ↑ Lusted, David (2003). The Western. Pearson/Longman. p. 78. ISBN   978-0-582-43736-4.
  11. ↑ Parks, Rita (1982). The Western Hero in Film and Television: Mass Media Mythology. UMI Research Press. p. 57. ISBN   978-0-8357-1287-3.
  12. ↑ Day, Kirsten (2016-05-31). Cowboy Classics: The Roots of the American Western in the Epic Tradition. Edinburgh University Press. p. 14. ISBN   978-1-4744-0247-7.
  13. ↑ McMahan, Alison (2014-08-22). Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 133. ISBN   978-1-5013-0268-8.
  14. ↑ Smith, Henry Nash (1978). Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-93955-4.
  15. 1 2 French, Philip (1973). Westerns: Aspects of a Movie Genre and Westerns Revisited. Carcanet. ISBN   978-1-85754-747-4.
  16. ↑ Indick, William (2014-11-21). The Psychology of the Western: How the American Psyche Plays Out on Screen. McFarland. pp. 8, 12. ISBN   978-0-7864-9211-4. [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.
  17. ↑ Sarf, Wayne Michael (1983). God Bless You, Buffalo Bill: A Layman's Guide to History and the Western Film. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 237. ISBN   978-0-8453-4732-4.
  18. ↑ "Sioux ghost dance". Library of Congress. 1894. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
  19. ↑ "World's first Western movie 'filmed in Blackburn'". BBC News. 2019-10-31. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  20. ↑ "Kidnapping by Indians". BFI. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  21. ↑ Fenin, George N.; Everson, William K. (1962). The Western: From Silents to Cinerama. New York City: Bonanza Books. p. 47. ISBN   978-1-163-70021-1.
  22. ↑ "Bronco Billy Anderson Is Dead at 88". The New York Times. 21 January 1971. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  23. ↑ New York Times Magazine (November 10, 2007).
  24. ↑ Indick, William (2008-09-10). The Psychology of the Western: How the American Psyche Plays Out on Screen. McFarland. p. 2. ISBN   978-0-7864-3460-2.
  25. ↑ Gittell, Noah (2014-06-17). "Superheroes Replaced Cowboys at the Movies. But It's Time to Go Back to Cowboys". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-07-21.
  26. 1 2 "Why Are Westerns Still Popular?". Netflix Tudum. December 27, 2021. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  27. ↑ Butler, Nancy (January 27, 2023). "Inventing America: Spaghetti Westerns and Sergio Leone". Italy Segreta. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  28. ↑ Gray, Tim (January 4, 2019). "Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns Made a Fistful of Dollars and Clint Eastwood a Star". Variety. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  29. ↑ Gilmore, Brad (2021). Back From the Future: A Celebration of the Greatest Time Travel Story Ever Told. Coral Gables: Mango Publishing Group. pp. 36–37. ISBN   9781642507249 . Retrieved October 30, 2023.
  30. ↑ Busby, Mark; Buscombe, Edward; Pearson, Roberta E. (1999). "Back in the Saddle Again: New Essays on the Western". The Western Historical Quarterly. 30 (4). Oxford University Press (OUP): 520. doi:10.2307/971437. ISSN   0043-3810. JSTOR   971437.
  31. ↑ Kollin, Susan (1999). "Theorizing the Western". Western American Literature. 34 (2). Project Muse: 238–250. doi:10.1353/wal.1999.0081. ISSN   1948-7142. S2CID   166137254.
  32. ↑ Leyda, Julia (2002). "Black-Audience Westerns and the Politics of Cultural Identification in the 1930s". Cinema Journal. 42 (1). [University of Texas Press, Society for Cinema & Media Studies]: 46–70. doi:10.1353/cj.2002.0022. ISSN   0009-7101. JSTOR   1225542. S2CID   143962868 . Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  33. ↑ "Why Everyone Suddenly Loves Westerns Again". Men's Health. December 15, 2022. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  34. ↑ Penny, Daniel (June 23, 2021). "Cowboy Boots in the City? Why Western Style Is Trending". WSJ. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  35. ↑ "Western Fashion 2023: Western Boots, Dresses, and Shirts to Shop". Harper's BAZAAR. August 12, 2022. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  36. ↑ Williams, Eric (2017-09-05). The Screenwriters Taxonomy: A Collaborative Approach to Creative Storytelling. Taylor & Francis. p. 21. ISBN   978-1-351-61066-7.
  37. ↑ Indick, William (2014-11-21). The Psychology of the Western: How the American Psyche Plays Out on Screen. McFarland. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-7864-9211-4. 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.
  38. ↑ Larson, Stephanie Greco (2006). Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 51. ISBN   978-0-8476-9453-2.
  39. ↑ Hanfling, Barrie (2016-04-21). Westerns and the Trail of Tradition: A Year-by-Year History, 1929-1962. McFarland. p. 14. ISBN   978-1-4766-0836-5.
  40. ↑ Grant, Barry Keith (2003). John Ford's Stagecoach. Cambridge University Press. p. 9. ISBN   978-0-521-79743-6.
  41. ↑ Ferrell, William K. (2000-02-28). Literature and Film as Modern Mythology. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 59–60. ISBN   978-0-313-00286-1.
  42. 1 2 Indick, William (2014-11-21). The Psychology of the Western: How the American Psyche Plays Out on Screen. McFarland. pp. 16–17. ISBN   978-0-7864-9211-4. [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.
  43. ↑ "Paramount Ranch: Old Movie Town & Westworld Filming Location in Agoura Hills". California Through My Lens. 2014-03-10. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  44. ↑ Bandy, Mary Lea; Stoehr, Kevin L. (October 2012). Ride, Boldly Ride: The Evolution of the American Western. University of California Press. p. 88. ISBN   978-0-520-25866-2.
  45. ↑ Lenihan, John H. (1980). Showdown, Confronting Modern America in the Western Film. University of Illinois Press. p. 72. ISBN   978-0-252-01254-9.
  46. ↑ Cowie, Peter (2004). John Ford and the American West. New York: Harry Abrams Inc. p. 12. ISBN   978-0-8109-4976-8.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.