Reknown french film critic and spiritual father of the French New Wave directors André Bazin once described the western genre as “the americen cinema par excellence.” As one of the oldest cinematic genres in film’s young history, it goes without saying that the genre has undergone many paradigma changes throughout its life. As the world faced and faces revisions on several ideological and cultural discourse levels, this is reflected upon the arts and mass media, for example through films. Taking the western genre as an example, these cultural changes have lead to the evolution of the themes and treatments within the genre.

Historically speaking, one can look at a certain genre and divide it into periods -according to scholars, there are five stages in western film history: the naiive westerns (1900-1920), the epic westerns (1920-1930), the dramatic/psychological westerns (1930-50), the revisionist western (1950-1970/80) and the late western (1980-onwards)- but that’s not what we’re gonna talk about here. Today I’d like to take a look at the americen cinema par excellence under three thematic and dramaturgical lenses: the classic western, the anti-western and the neo-western. Now, because such labels are basically ideologically linked to their time periods they do appear in a sort of chronological fashion, but that doesn’t mean they have to be bound to the five time periods proposed by film scholars. So now, let’s take a look at our first category.

Classic Westerns

The most prolific period for the genre came in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Legends of the genre were made and the standards for what the genre was about was established. Directors like John Ford, Howard Hawkes, William Wyler and Budd Boetticher all created timeless pieces that solidified the western as cinema’s most beloved genre at the time. Though many countries of the world were making westerns, even since the very beginnings of film history, we’ll focus here on the american side of all this. By the time these movies were being made, the US had recently won WW2 and their economy was booming. It was a time of prosperity, and pop culture should refeclet this. The western told simple, black and white stories which left the viewers with lessons on justice, bravery and the right thing to do. These movies were made on the spirit of America’s desire to become “the greatest country on earth”, so they created stories about its humble rustical origins and how the country’s expansion served the greater good. Also, this was the time of the cold war, and many westerns were produced with highly patriotic (sometimes borderline nationalistic) themes and a harsh demonization of the “others”, presented as the wild indigineous people, presumably a stand in for their soviet enemies.

Dramaturgically speaking the classic western presents a claer plot structure, scholar Will Wright identifies four types: the classical plot, the vengeance variation, the professional plot and the transition theme. I’d like to focus more on the first type, the classical plot, by example of George Stevens’ 1953 “Shane”, which in spite of being from the “dramatic western” period, it exhibits all the characteristics of a classic western plot: the hero (in this case Shane) begins as an outsider, arrives at a society (the valley) but he is greeted with mistrust and skepticism, but then the society is threatened by the villains (Ryker and his gang), the hero stands up for the threatened society and after some escalation he defeats the villains, thus earning the society’s trust, but the hero can’t remain and be part of that society, since he’s an outsider, a man of the west.

Anti Westerns

Also known as Post-Westerns, the anti-westerns belong namely to the so called revisionist period of the genre. The trend was probably kickstarted by or at least gained prominence thanks to the spaghetti westerns being made in Italy. As outside spectators filmmakers such as Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci took a critical approach towards the american history that was portrayed through westerns and the themes, subject matter and morals that came with such framing. They subverted the classical tropes of the genre and put into question their black-and-white morality, presenting gritty and dirty worlds where distinguishing right from wrong became impossible. Such westerns probably reflected the time period more accurately than their predecessors, by showing a wild west where treachery and cunning went a longer way than bravery and honour. Of course, not only the italians were taking such a stance towards the narratives the americans were telling the world, since even the soviets came up with their own subgenre known as the Red Western or Ostern, by which they tried to demystify the old west idylle and showing it for what they perceived it actually was. An example for this would be east german production of 1966 “The Sons of the Great Mother Bear” (Joseph Mach), which assumed the perspective of the native americans and showed how they were savagely exploited.

Of course, such an approach towards the genre (and contemporary culture in general) did eventually find its way to the US. In the late 60s and 70s a growing sentiment of mistrust towards authority and institutions started to take hold. With events such as the Kennedy assasination, the Vietnam war fiasco and Watergate, people started to lose their trust on the government and their role as protectors. The movies of the time presented a morally corrupt system and the heroes trying to change it (this is especially true for the political thriller genre, but it applies to westerns as well). The heroes were now outlaws, who were previously portrayed as the antagonists, while they stand against institutional oppression and injustice, whereas the villains were now business tycoons with an expansionist business mindset that threatened the peace and lives of innocent civilians. The ideological difference with the westerns of the past is clear as day.

Neo Western

Now, it is important to note that the days in which the western was the most beloved genre in cinema are long gone. Sure, there are still a couple of westerns that get released each year and some times they do become big hits, but the conditions of the cinema landscape have changed since the old glory days of John Ford and John Wayne, and each time a new outing under the western umbrella is released it is seen more of an oddity rather than the usual week-in, week-out jazz of the 40s and 50s (that spot has been taken over by superhero films nowadays, but I digress). Still, the interest of filmmakers to deal with the west in the films is still there. While the revisionist aspects of the anti-westerns are still in full force in many modern westerns, the loosely defined “Neo-Western” goes a step further and takes that spirit and places it in a contemporary setting against contemporary issues. Yet, the cynicism towards the genre itself of the revisionist western is (kind of) left behind, since many neo-westerns retake many of the props and traditions of the classical period and updates them to modern values. Thus, the roles of women and native-americans isn’t that of background characters or simple amorphe wild forces, they’ve become integrated and integral to the modern western narrative. Just think of Taylor Sheridan’s works such as “Hell or High Water” (2016), where a pair of outlaw brothers fight back against a banking system which threatens their family bank while they are pursued by a texas ranger and his native american partner, or “Wind River” (2017), where a female FBI agent tries to solve a crime in an indian reservation. These westerns, instead of directly subverting the classic genre tropes, take familiar plot structures and ask the question of how they would play out in a modern world.

Conclusion

There’s still a lot that can be said about the genre and its categorizations. There’s at least a dozen of subgenres that I haven’t even touched upon, plus there’s always a lot to explore deeper into the aforementioned categories. Some people do consider that classic, anti and neo westerns are all subgenres of the broader western genre, and while I won’t say that that isn’t true, I think that these labels share an insight deeper than simple genre differentiations: they reflect the positions of a society, particularly american society, towards itself and towards the cultural representations of their history, and through the examination of the presented values more than a couple of interesting conclusions about the genre and the culture that produced it can be made.

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