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Jan 15, 2019 · The remakes of 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit show just how much has changed in the Western since their originals.
- The Early Years: The Silent Cowboys Learn to Talk
- They Won’T Shut Up: The Singing Cowboys
- Tall in The Saddle: John Wayne, Gary Cooper and The ‘Man’S Man’ Cowboy
- Maureen O’Hara: The only Leading Lady You Will Ever Need
- Television: The Simultaneous Rise and Fall
- The Revisionist Western: Historical Anachronisms and The Western with ‘Ray Guns’
- Tom Selleck and The ‘Marlboro Men”
- Django Unchained and Onward
Westerns were an early hit in the silent era of films and included many great classic films. One example is The Great Train Robbery,often considered to be the first Western film. Those first Westerns were silent films that relied on action and over-exaggeration to tell their story. Plots were basic and simple to follow and generally built around ch...
As talkies became the norm and studios felt the need to fill movies with noise just because they could, along came the singing cowboy. The movie musical had not yet reached its current, more recognizable form when the first of the singing cowboys started making films. The singing cowboy was an outgrowth of genuine cowboy culture combined with the r...
Once John Wayne made the jump from singing to regular cowboy, the genre began to shift to a new kind of leading man. Previously the leading men were a little on the scruffy side or were dandy-ish. This new cowboy as realized by Wayne and Gary Cooper, was rugged and quiet, a man of few words whose word would be his bond. Many actors of the day made ...
Already a screen star when she did her first western, it didn’t take very long for Maureen O’Hara to cement herself as the perfect Western leading lady. Ms. O’Hara starred in over 50 films and only a few of those were Westerns, but what Westerns they were! She starred with John Wayne in three Westerns and two non-westerns. Rio Grande (1950), The Qu...
As television grew in popularity the movie industry began to suffer. Many people decided that they could just stay home with the family and watch TV rather than go out for an expensive night at the movies. Following the audience, the Western, along with most other genres, began appearing on the small screen. Unfortunately, the Western genre was hea...
As the 1960’s came to a close the era of the classic western was winding down. In its place was a new kind of western film. Sometimes apologetic, sometimes attempting to rewrite history but mostly a fairly dark and often violent version of what had come before. Films like Sam Pekinpah’s The Wild Bunch changed the way the western was made and a host...
In the last couple of decades a new western hero archetype has emerged in tune with a new audience. As exemplified by actors like Tom Selleck, this new rugged western hero is vulnerable and honest; usually flawed or wounded and almost always a man of honor who is not afraid to take action. Mixing the best aspects of most of the earlier cowboy arche...
We come back then to where we first met, modern Westerns like Django Unchained and The Lone Ranger (releasing this summer), along with a very mixed bag of films from the last few years. No Westerns released in 2012 other than Django made an impact at the box office. 2011 had a moderate hit with the animated adventure Rango and a near miss with Cowb...
Jun 20, 2016 · The Western has been around almost as long as cinema itself, with the first film Westerns appearing in the 1890s just as the concept of the movie was taking hold in the public consciousness. 1903’s...
- Hell or High Water (2016) 7.6. Fubo, Hulu, Prime Video. From Taylor Sheridan, the mastermind behind Yellowstone (2018-present), Hell or High Water is a must-watch neo-Western crime drama.
- The Hateful Eight (2015) 7.8. Netflix. The epic Western The Hateful Eight combines action, violence, and humor for a memorable film taking place in post-Civil War America.
- The Power of the Dog (2021) 6.8. Netflix. The Power of the Dog is based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name. The award-winning revisionist Western psychological drama deals with the emotions of love, grief, resentment, and jealousy.
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) 7.3. Netflix. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a Western anthology film following the adventures of outlaws and settlers on the formidable American frontier.
- Staff Writer
- The Proposition (2005) The following entry contains mention of rape. After an outlaw (Guy Pearce) and his younger brother survive a gunfight with the police, the police captain (Ray Winstone) makes the outlaw a proposition he can't refuse.
- Logan (2017) It may be a superhero film, but Logan is also a blood-soaked love letter to the Old West. Set in a bleak post-apocalyptic future where mutants are nearly extinct, the titular former X-Men member (Hugh Jackman) is getting old and losing his healing powers.
- Meek’s Cutoff (2010) One of the great 21st-century Westerns that prove the genre isn't dead, Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff is a contemplative study of genre conventions.
- Concrete Cowboy (2020) When a 15-year-old boy (Caleb McLaughlin) from Detroit is forced to live and reconnect with his father (Idris Elba) in Philadelphia, the former discovers Black urban cowboy culture while the latter struggles with getting accepted by his son.
Oct 13, 2017 · How the Western has changed over the decades. Notions of good vs evil, Native American portrayal and, god help us, Adam Sandler... tracking the evolution of the Western. Clint Eastwood, Emilio ...
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Jun 17, 2014 · June 17, 2014. In recent years, the cowboy has been replaced by the superhero as the most common expression of American values in blockbuster filmmaking. But the decline of the western—the...
