Western

Western

The Western is an American genre in literature and film. Westerns are art works – films, literature, sculpture, television and radio shows, and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the American West, often portraying it in a romanticized light.

While the Western has been popular throughout the history of movies, it has begun to diminish in importance as the United States progresses farther away from the period depicted.

Definition
Westerns, by definition, are set in the American West, almost always in the 19th century, generally between the Antebellum period and the turn of the century. Many incorporate the Civil War into the plot, or into the background, although the west was not touched by the war to the extent the east was. However, their setting may extend further back to the time of the American colonial period or forward to the mid-twentieth century. They may also range geographically from Mexico to Canada.

Many westerns involve semi-nomadic characters who wander from town to town, their sole possessions consisting of clothing, a gun, and (optionally) a horse. The high technology of the era – such as the telegraph, printing press, and railroad – may appear, occasionally as a development just arriving, and usually symbolizing the impending end of the frontier lifestyle which will soon give way to the march of civilization.

The Western takes these simple elements and uses them to tell morality tales, usually setting them against spectacular American landscapes. In some movies, scenery becomes almost the star of the movie. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape for example in The Searchers (1956) and Open Range (2003). However, this desert landscape is not as evident in High Noon (1952), which is set in a gritty, dirty western town and shows a juxtaposition between the dirty town and the beautiful landscape.

Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses, the isolated homestead, the saloon or the jail. Other iconic elements in westerns include Stetsons and Spurs, Colt .45s, prostitutes and the faithful steed.

Common themes
The western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier.

The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor, rather than the law, in which persons have no social order larger than their immediate peers, family, or perhaps themselves alone. Here, one must cultivate a reputation by acts of violence; or they can be generous, because generosity creates a dependency relationship in the social hierarchy.

These themes unite the Western, the gangster movie, and the revenge movie in a single vision. In the Western, these themes are forefronted, to the extent that the arrival of law and "civilization" is often portrayed as regrettable, if inevitable.

Origins of the "Western idea"
The idealized version of the "Wild West" can be traced at least as far back as Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows which began in 1883. In literature, Owen Wister's The Virginian, published in 1902, was an American start (though not the first Western published in the United States); but the German writer Karl May was writing Wild West stories as early as 1876. His books were a major influence on the founder of Universal Pictures, the German immigrant Carl Laemmle; and May himself traced ideas at least to the American writer James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote Last of the Mohicans in 1826.

Thus, the "western idea" has a long history. The western was a distinct literary genre before the rise of motion pictures; other important writers were Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour and Elmore Leonard.

It has been said that there are four principal elements which contributed to the form of the western genre:
• A structure drawn from 19th century melodramatic literature, involving a virtuous
hero and a wicked villain who menaces a virginal heroine.
• An action story, composed of violence, chases and crimes appropriate to a place
like the American West in the 19th century.
• The introduction of the history of the migration westwards and the opening of the
frontier signalled in such films as The Covered Wagon (1924) and The Iron Horse
(1924).
• The revenge structure, which was present by the time of Billy The Kid in 1930.

These have been claimed for the 'premise' from which westerns were developed and from which all subsequent westerns have emerged.

Western literature
Western fiction got its start in the "penny dreadfuls" and later the "dime novels" that first began to be published in the mid-nineteenth century. These cheaply made books were published to capitalize on the many fanciful yet supposedly true stories that were being told about the mountain men, outlaws, settlers and lawmen who were taming the western frontier. By 1900, the new medium of pulp magazines also helped to relate these adventures to easterners. Meanwhile, non-American authors like the German Karl May picked up the genre, went to full novel length, and made it hugely popular and successful in continental Europe from about 1880 on, though they were generally dismissed as trivial by the literary critics of the day.

The western in American Literature began to emerge with the novels of James Fenimore Cooper. although arguably it did not begin to be a separate genre until the publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister in 1902. Popularity grew with the publication of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage in 1912. When pulp magazines exploded in popularity in the 1920s, western fiction greatly benefited (as did the author Max Brand, who excelled at the western short story). The simultaneous popularity of Western movies in the 1920s also helped the genre. In the 1940s several seminal westerns were published including The Ox-Bow Incident (1940) by Walter van Tilburg Clark, The Big Sky (1947) and The Way West (1949) by A.B. Guthrie, Jr., and Shane (1949) by Jack Schaefer. Many other western authors gained readership in the 1950s, such as Luke Short, Ray Hogan, and Louis L'Amour. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the tremendous number of westerns on television (though television did help hasten the demise of western short fiction pulp magazines in the early 1950s). The burnout of the American public on television westerns in the late 1960s seemed to have an affect on the literature as well, and interest in western literature began to wane. In the 1970s, the work of Louis L'Amour began to catch hold of most western readers and he has tended to dominate the western reader lists ever since. Readership as a whole began to drop off in the mid- to late '70s and has reached a new low today, so much so that most bookstores, outside of a few western states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books in comparison to other genres. Western authors have an organization that represents them called the Western Writers of America, who present the annual Golden Spur Awards.

Western films
A genre in which description and dialogue are lean, and the landscape spectacular, is well suited to a visual medium. Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio like other early Hollywood movies, but when locations shooting became more common, producers of Westerns used desolate corners of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado or Wyoming, often making the landscape not just a vivid backdrop, but a character in the movie.

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. Often fights with Indians are depicted, although "revisionist" Westerns give the natives sympathetic treatment. Other recurring themes of westerns include western treks, and groups of bandits terrorizing small towns such as in The Magnificent Seven.

The Classical Western film
The Great Train Robbery, the first narrative film produced in the United States, was a Western

The western film traces its roots back to The Great Train Robbery, a silent film directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Broncho Billy Anderson. Released in 1903, 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 (comedy, drama, tragedy, parody, musical, 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. Ford's 1939 epic, Stagecoach is considered one of the best westerns ever made.

Spaghetti Westerns
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 chosen for their cheapness and for the similarity of their landscapes to those of the Southwestern United States (southern Spain was the most popular choice). Spaghetti Westerns were characterised 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. Clint Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although they were also to provide a showcase for other such considerable talents as Lee van Cleef, James Coburn, Klaus Kinski and Henry Fonda.

Revisionist Westerns
Beginning in the 1960s, in part due to the impact of the Spaghetti Westerns, many American filmmakers began to question many traditional themes of westerns. Aside from the portrayal of the Native American as a "savage", such as Major Dundee and Ulzana's Raid, audiences began to question the simple hero versus villain dualism, and the use of violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right. Examples of "revisionist westerns" include Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven. Some "modern" Westerns give women more powerful roles, such as Comes a Horseman, Open Range and The Missing. In 1969, Claudia Cardinale had a starring lead in Once Upon a Time in the West.

Genre studies and Westerns
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) a 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 became 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; and so forth. 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). Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven uses every one of the original conventions, only reverses the outcomes (instead of dying bravely or stoicly, characters whine, cry, and beg; instead of a good guy saving the day, unredeemable 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 movie. Hud, starring Paul Newman, and Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai), are possible examples of these. Likewise, it has been pointed out that films set in the old American West, may not necessarily be considered "Westerns."

Influences on and of the Western
During the late 1950s, the Western movie became a template for the Bills, a Congolese youth subculture.

Many westerns after 1960 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 reputably inspired by Red Harvest, an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. It should also be noted that Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced from American Westerns, especially the works of John Ford. Senses of Cinema

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 Fallout.

Many elements of space travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the western genre. 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.

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.

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, and Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles.

George Lucas's Star Wars films use many elements of a western, and indeed, Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalize 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.

Television Westerns
The Saturday Afternoon Movie was a pre-TV phenomenon in the US which often featured western series. Audie Murphy, Tom Mix, and Johnny Mack Brown became major idols of a young audience, plus "Singing cowboys" such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Rex Allen. Each had a co-starring horse such as Rogers' Golden Palomino, Trigger, who became a star in his own right. Other B-movie series were Lash La Rue and the Durango Kid. Herbert Jeffreys, as Bob Blake with his horse Stardust, appeared in a number of movies made for African American audiences in the days of segregated movie theaters. Bill Pickett, an African American rodeo performer, also appeared in early western films for the same audience.

When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a staple of small-screen entertainment. A great many B-movie Westerns were aired on TV as time fillers, while a number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right. Notable TV Westerns include Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, The Rifleman, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Maverick, The High Chaparral and many others. The peak year for television westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during prime-time.

The 1970s saw a revision of the western, with the incorporation of many new elements. McCloud, which premiered in 1970, was essentially a fusion of the sheriff-oriented western with the modern big-city crime drama. Hec Ramsey was a western who-dunnit mystery series. Little House on the Prairie was set on the frontier in the time period of the western, but was essentially a family drama. Kung Fu was in the tradition of the itinerant gunfighter westerns, but the main character was a Chinese monk who fought only with his formidable martial art skill. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was a family adventure show about a gentle mountain man with an uncanny connection to wildlife who helps others who visit his wilderness refuge.

The 1990s saw the networks getting into filming Western movies on their own. Like Louis L'Amour ‘s Conagher, Tony Hillerman’s The Dark Wind, The Last Outlaw, The Jack Bull etc. A few new comedies like The Cisco Kid, The Cherokee Kid, and the gritty TV series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years.

This century started off with Louis L'Amour’s Crossfire Trail, Monte Walsh, and Hillerman’s Coyote Waits, & A Thief of Time. DVDs offer a second life to TV series like Peacemakers, and HBO’s Deadwood.

Also, in 2002 a show called Firefly (created by Joss Whedon) mixed in a perfect and original way the identity of both western genre with science-fiction. Now, it became a critically successful saga which closure took place in the acclaimed movie Serenity.

It is clear that the Western is not dead, but have moved smoothly from the first color TV series The Cisco Kid, through the half hour, shoot-um-ups, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Have Gun — Will Travel, " of the 1950’s. Later hour long adult westerns, to the slickly packaged made for TV westerns of today.

Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Westerns is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most of them were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said "demythologized") many of the conventions of earlier Westerns - partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds. The term was originally used disparagingly, but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard.

The best-known and perhaps archetypal spaghetti Westerns were the so-called Man With No Name trilogy (or Dollars Trilogy) directed by Sergio Leone, starring American actor Clint Eastwood and with musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone (all of whom are now synonymous with the genre): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The last is one of the most famed Westerns of all time (although, atypically for the genre, it had a relatively high budget in excess of 1 million USD).

Many of the films were shot in the Spanish desert region of Almería, which greatly resembles the landscape of California. (A few were shot in Sardinia.) Because of the desert setting and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits and the border zone between Mexico and the USA.

Spaghetti westerns are known as "macaroni western" in Japan.

Other "Food Westerns"
The name led to various other non-US westerns being associated with food and drink.

Sometimes the names chorizo/paella Western are used for similar films financed by Spanish capital, although Leone's earlier films were actually shot in Andalucia. Publicity for the Japanese comedy film Tampopo coined the phrase "Noodle Western" to describe the parody made about a noodle restaurant. Robert Rodriguez's Westerns have been called "Burrito Westerns." Sometimes Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's Viking movies are called "Cod Westerns". The German Westerns of the 1960s, which were successful in Europe before the Italian Westerns, were made after novels by Karl May and mostly filmed in former Yugoslavia. German Westerns are often called "Kraut Western". The Red Dwarf episode Gunmen Of The Apocalypse has been described as the world's only "Roast Beef Western". John Woo's Western movies were described by Roger Ebert as Dim Sum Western. The Red Western or Ostern is the Soviet and eastern bloc's take on the genre. (Time magazine dubbed the animated TV series Samurai Jack, which combined elements of—among others—anime and the Sergio Leone films, a "sashimi Western.")