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Are Westerns making a comeback in Hollywood?
- Michael Barnes
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15 Jan 2008 12:39 #744
by Michael Barnes
Replied by Michael Barnes on topic Re:Are Westerns making a comeback in Hollywood?
DUCK YOU SUCKER is fucking fantastic...I haven't seen in it in years, but I loved it.
I'm also not much of a fan of the "Trad Western", although it's hard to deny the impact of films like STAGECOACH, THE SEARCHERS, WINCHESTER '73 (a really damn good one), MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, SHANE...some really great films, although I'm totally at odds with some of the ideologies and attitudes on display there.
NO COUNTRY is definitely a western to me...you could transpose pretty much everything in it to a setting 100 years earlier and it could be exactly the same story...except for the fact that it's about the decline of morality and decency in western civilization.
Any of you guys read Cormac McCarthy? BLOOD MERIDIAN is without a doubt the finest western novel ever written.
I'm also not much of a fan of the "Trad Western", although it's hard to deny the impact of films like STAGECOACH, THE SEARCHERS, WINCHESTER '73 (a really damn good one), MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, SHANE...some really great films, although I'm totally at odds with some of the ideologies and attitudes on display there.
NO COUNTRY is definitely a western to me...you could transpose pretty much everything in it to a setting 100 years earlier and it could be exactly the same story...except for the fact that it's about the decline of morality and decency in western civilization.
Any of you guys read Cormac McCarthy? BLOOD MERIDIAN is without a doubt the finest western novel ever written.
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- Million Dollar Mimring
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15 Jan 2008 19:21 #790
by Million Dollar Mimring
Replied by Million Dollar Mimring on topic Re:Are Westerns making a comeback in Hollywood?
Remind me to never bring up Firefly again.
On the Kurosawa subject, I had been aware of the relation between the two films. In the essay for the Criterion collection of Yojimbo, the essayist Alexander Sesonske makes it a point to mention that with Yojimbo Kurosawa was going to show his audience just how western he could be. He also mentions, "The lineage shows forth from the start. In a classic Western setting, with dust and leaves blowing across the wide, empty street that runs the length of a village, a lone stranger passes as frightened faces peer from behind shutters. Advised to leave because civil war is imminent, he prefers to stay, of course."
It's really no wonder that Yojimbo is so easily adapted into so many American films. Two that spring to my mind are the films Last Man Standing and Miller's Crossing. But I do feel that there is a connection between the Samurai and the American Western. Obviously, you're going to run into a lot of cultural differences, but the general feel of both genres seem to share a lot in common. I really want to call the Samurai films Easterns, but the old east just doesn't have the same ring to it as the old west.
Using theme as a common framework, I think you can easily draw a connection between No Country and the western genre. And within those same genre conventions, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada can be nothing else but a western. Simply, the western doesn't have to rely on time or place to be considered a part of the genre.
If we begin arguing that the western must take place in the Old West, we must also rule out the Proposition as a western.
Regardless, I'm now afraid to throw out Cowboy Bebop for western consideration.
On the Kurosawa subject, I had been aware of the relation between the two films. In the essay for the Criterion collection of Yojimbo, the essayist Alexander Sesonske makes it a point to mention that with Yojimbo Kurosawa was going to show his audience just how western he could be. He also mentions, "The lineage shows forth from the start. In a classic Western setting, with dust and leaves blowing across the wide, empty street that runs the length of a village, a lone stranger passes as frightened faces peer from behind shutters. Advised to leave because civil war is imminent, he prefers to stay, of course."
It's really no wonder that Yojimbo is so easily adapted into so many American films. Two that spring to my mind are the films Last Man Standing and Miller's Crossing. But I do feel that there is a connection between the Samurai and the American Western. Obviously, you're going to run into a lot of cultural differences, but the general feel of both genres seem to share a lot in common. I really want to call the Samurai films Easterns, but the old east just doesn't have the same ring to it as the old west.
Using theme as a common framework, I think you can easily draw a connection between No Country and the western genre. And within those same genre conventions, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada can be nothing else but a western. Simply, the western doesn't have to rely on time or place to be considered a part of the genre.
If we begin arguing that the western must take place in the Old West, we must also rule out the Proposition as a western.
Regardless, I'm now afraid to throw out Cowboy Bebop for western consideration.
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