Download or read book Hollywood Westerns and American Myth written by Robert B. Pippin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking book one of America’s most distinguished philosophers brilliantly explores the status and authority of law and the nature of political allegiance through close readings of three classic Hollywood Westerns: Howard Hawks’ Red River and John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Searchers.Robert Pippin treats these films as sophisticated mythic accounts of a key moment in American history: its “second founding,” or the western expansion. His central question concerns how these films explore classical problems in political psychology, especially how the virtues of a commercial republic gained some hold on individuals at a time when the heroic and martial virtues were so important. Westerns, Pippin shows, raise central questions about the difference between private violence and revenge and the state’s claim to a legitimate monopoly on violence, and they show how these claims come to be experienced and accepted or rejected.Pippin’s account of the best Hollywood Westerns brings this genre into the center of the tradition of political thought, and his readings raise questions about political psychology and the political passions that have been neglected in contemporary political thought in favor of a limited concern with the question of legitimacy.
Download or read book Great Hollywood Westerns written by John Howard Reid and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2006-09-20 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A round-up of favorite westerns from "Aces and Eights" to "River of No Return," from "Colorado Sundown" to "Under California Stars," from "Big Calibre" to "The Yodellin' Kid from Pine Ridge." Featured stars include Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Bill Boyd, Charles Starrett, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Bob Steele, Rex Bell, Tex Ritter, Ken Maynard, Tim McCoy, Jack Perrin, Johnny Mack Brown, Robert Mitchum, Randolph Scott.
Download or read book Eastern Westerns written by Stephen Teo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-01-12 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The western, one of Hollywood’s great film genres, has, surprisingly, enjoyed a revival recently in Asia and in other parts of the world, whilst at the same time declining in America. Although the western is often seen as an example of American cultural dominance, this book challenges this view. It considers the western from an Asian perspective, exploring why the rise of Asian westerns has come about, and examining how its aesthetics, styles and politics have evolved as a result. It analyses specific Asian Westerns as well as Westerns made elsewhere, including in Australia, Europe, and Hollywood, to demonstrate how these employ Asian philosophical and mythical ideas and value systems. The book concludes that the western is a genre which is truly global, and not one that that is purely intrinsic to America.
Download or read book A History of Western American Literature written by Susan Kollin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American West is a complex region that has inspired generations of writers and artists. Often portrayed as a quintessential landscape that symbolizes promise and progress for a developing nation, the American West is also a diverse space that has experienced conflicting and competing hopes and expectations. While it is frequently imagined as a place enabling dreams of new beginnings for settler communities, it is likewise home to long-standing indigenous populations as well as many other ethnic and racial groups who have often produced different visions of the land. This History encompasses the intricacy of Western American literature by exploring myriad genres and cultural movements, from ecocriticism, settler colonial studies and transnational theory, to race, ethnic, gender and sexuality studies. Written by a host of leading historians and literary critics, this book offers readers insight into the West as a site that sustains canonical and emerging authors alike, and as a region that exceeds national boundaries in addressing long-standing global concerns and developments.
Download or read book Movie Westerns written by John Howard Reid and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No less than 150 classic western movies are surveyed, ranging from super productions like "The Big Country", "Destry Rides Again", "The Mark of Zorro", "Red River", "The Searchers", "The Spoilers" and "Unconquered" to the output of such popular "B" western film stars as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott, William Boyd, Johnny Mack Brown, Tim Holt and Wayne Morris. Plus a big tip of the sombrero to Charles Starrett and John Wayne.
Download or read book Hollywood s West written by Peter C. Rollins and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2005-11-11 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.
Download or read book Westerns written by Janet Walker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book The Landscape of Hollywood Westerns written by Deborah A. Carmichael and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume scrutinize the special place of nature and landscape in films--including silent, documentary, and feature length film--that are specifically American and Western.
Download or read book Hollywood Westerns and the 1930s written by Peter Stanfield and published by Presses Université Laval. This book was released on 2001 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, this book tells the 'lost' story of the 1930s Western. Written from a concern to understand Western films primarily as products of Hollywood's studio system, it recovers the context in which Westerns were produced, exhibited and viewed in the 1930s. Peter Stanfield highlights the hitherto marginalised 'B' or 'series' Western, the significance of female audiences, the role of independent exhibitors and of censorship in shaping film production. The book includes illustrations from the following films: Arizona, The Big Trail, Billy the Kid, Cimarron, Destry Rides Again, Dodge City, In Old Arizona, In Old Santa Fe, Jesse James, The Lash, Let Freedom Ring, Oh, Susanna!, Oklahoma Kid, The Plainsman, Ramona, Santa Fe Trail, Stand Up and Fight, Three Godfathers, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Union Pacific, Virginia City, The Virginian, and The Westerner.
Download or read book Ride Boldly Ride written by Mary Lea Bandy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-10 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is a survey of the movie Western that covers its history from the early silent era to recent spins on the genre in films such as No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, True Grit, and Cowboys & Aliens. The authors provide fresh perspectives on landmark films such Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Wild Bunch, and they also pay tribute to many underappreciated Westerns including 3 Bad Men, The Wind, The Big Trail, Ruggles of Red Gap, Northwest Passage, The Westerner, The Furies, Jubal, and Comanche Station. The book explores major phases of the Western's development--silent era oaters, A-production classics of the 1930s and early 1940s, and the more psychologically complex presentations of the Westerner that emerged in the post-World War II period.. They examine various forms of genre-revival and genre-revisionism that have recurred over the past half-century, culminating especially in the masterworks of Clint Eastwood. Central themes of the book include the inner life of the Western hero, the importance of the natural landscape, the tension between myth and history, the depiction of the Native American, and the juxtaposing of comedy and tragedy"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Still in the Saddle written by Andrew Patrick Nelson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the 1960s, the Hollywood West of Tom Mix, Randolph Scott, and even John Wayne was passé—or so the story goes. Many film historians and critics have argued that movies portraying a mythic American West gave way to revisionist films that influential filmmakers such as Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman made as violent critiques of the Western’s “golden years.” Yet rumors surrounding the death of the Western have been greatly exaggerated, says film historian Andrew Patrick Nelson. Even as the Wild Bunch and John McCabe rode forth, John Wayne remained the Western’s number one box office draw. How, then, could there have been a revisionist reckoning at a time when the Duke was still in the saddle? In Still in the Saddle, Nelson offers readers a new history of the Hollywood Western in the 1970s, a time when filmmakers tried to revive the genre by appealing to a diverse audience that included a new generation of socially conscious viewers. Nelson considers a comprehensive filmography of releases from 1969 to 1980 in light of the visual tropes and narratives developed and reworked in the genre from the 1930s to the present. In so doing, he reveals the complexity of what is probably the most interesting period in Western movie history. His incisive reevaluations of such celebrated (or infamous) films as The Wild Bunch and Heaven’s Gate and examinations of dozens of forgotten and neglected Westerns, including the final films of John Wayne, demonstrate that there was more to the 1970s Western than simple revision. Instead, we see not only important connections between canonical and lesser-known films of the period, but also continuities between these and older Westerns. Nelson believes an ongoing, cyclical process of regeneration thus transcends established divisions in the genre’s history. Among the books currently challenging the prevailing “evolutionary” account of the Western, Still in the Saddle thoroughly revises our understanding of this exciting and misunderstood period in the Western’s history and adds innovatively and substantially to our knowledge of the genre as a whole.
Download or read book High Noon written by Glenn Frankel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Searchers, the revelatory story behind the classic movie High Noon and the toxic political climate in which it was created. It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just thirty-two days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favorite film, celebrating moral fortitude. Yet what has been often overlooked is that High Noon was made during the height of the Hollywood blacklist, a time of political inquisition and personal betrayal. In the middle of the film shoot, screenwriter Carl Foreman was forced to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his former membership in the Communist Party. Refusing to name names, he was eventually blacklisted and fled the United States. (His co-authored screenplay for another classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, went uncredited in 1957.) Examined in light of Foreman's testimony, High Noon's emphasis on courage and loyalty takes on deeper meaning and importance. In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel tells the story of the making of a great American Western, exploring how Carl Foreman's concept of High Noon evolved from idea to first draft to final script, taking on allegorical weight. Both the classic film and its turbulent political times emerge newly illuminated.
Download or read book Hollywood s Melodramatic Imagination written by Geoff Mayer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-12-22 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melodrama is the foundation of American cinema. It is, however, a poorly understood term. While it is a pervasive and persuasive dramatic mode, it is not tied to any specific moral or ideological system. It is not a singular genre; rather, it operates as a "genre generating machine" capable of determining the aesthetics and structure of the drama within many genres. Melodrama centers the conflict around the clash between good and evil and provides a sense of poetic justice--but the specific values embedded in notions of good and evil are determined by the culture, and they shift from nation to nation, region to region, and period to period. This book explores the "populist" westerns of the 1930s, the propaganda films that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the popularity of Sax Rohmer's master villain Fu Manchu. "Melodramas of passion" and film noir also offer a challenge to melodrama with its seemingly alienated protagonists and downbeat endings. Yet, with few exceptions, Hollywood was able to assimilate these genres within its melodramatic imagination.
Download or read book Spaghetti Westerns written by Aliza S. Wong and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the silent days of cinema, Westerns have been one of the most popular genres, not just in the United States but around the world. International filmmakers have been so taken by westerns that many directors have produced versions of their own, despite lacking access to the American West. Nowhere has the Western been more embraced outside of the United States than Italy. In the 1960s, as Hollywood heroes like John Wayne and Randolph Scott were aging, Italian filmmakers were revitalizing the western, securing younger American actors for their productions and also making stars of homegrown talent. Movies directed and produced by Italians have been branded “spaghetti westerns”—a genre that boastsseveral hundred films. In Spaghetti Westerns: A Viewer’s Guide, Aliza S. Wong identifies the most significant westerns all’italiana produced as well as the individuals who significantly contributed to the genre. The author profiles such American actors as Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef; composers including Ennio Morricone and Carlo Rustichelli; and, of course, directors like Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone. The most memorable movies of the genre are also examined, includingCompañeros, Django; A Fistful of Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; and They Call Me Trinity. In addition to citing pivotal films and filmmakers, this volume also highlights other relevant aspects of the genre, including popular shooting locations, subgenres like the Zapata western, and the films and filmmakers who were inspired by the spaghetti western, including Quentin Tarantino, Richard Rodriguez, and Takashi Miike. An introduction to a unique homage of American cinema, Spaghetti Westerns: A Viewer’s Guide allows fans and scholars alike to learn more about a genre that continues to fascinate audiences.
Download or read book Westerns written by Gary R. Edgerton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly two centuries, Americans have embraced the Western like no other artistic genre. Creators and consumers alike have utilized this story form in literature, painting, film, radio and television to explore questions of national identity and purpose. Westerns: The Essential Collection comprises the Journal of Popular Film and Television’s rich and longstanding legacy of scholarship on Westerns with a new special issue devoted exclusively to the genre. This collection examines and analyzes the evolution and significance of the screen Western from its earliest beginnings to its current global reach and relevance in the 21st century. Westerns: The Essential Collection addresses the rise, fall and durability of the genre, and examines its preoccupation with multicultural matters in its organizational structure. Containing eighteen essays published between 1972 and 2011, this seminal work is divided into six sections covering Silent Westerns, Classic Westerns, Race and Westerns, Gender and Westerns, Revisionist Westerns and Westerns in Global Context. A wide range of international contributors offer original critical perspectives on the intricate relationship between American culture and Western films and television series. Westerns: The Essential Collection places the genre squarely within the broader aesthetic, socio-historical, cultural and political dimensions of life in the United States as well as internationally, where the Western has been reinvigorated and reinvented many times. This groundbreaking anthology illustrates how Western films and television series have been used to define the present and discover the future by looking backwards at America’s imagined past.
Download or read book John Ford Made Westerns written by Gaylyn Studlar and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001-04-22 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Western is arguably the most popular and longlived form in cinematic history, and the acknowledged master of that genre was John Ford. His Westerns, including The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, have had an enormous influence on contemporary U.S. filmmakers, and on everything from Star Wars to Taxi Driver.In nine majors essays from some of the most prominent scholars of Hollywood film, John Ford Made Westerns: Filming The Legend in The Sound Era situates the sound era westerns of John Ford within contemporary critical contexts and regards them from fresh perspectives. These range from examining Ford's relation to other art forms (most notably literature, painting and music) to exploring the development of the director's public reputation as a director of Westerns. Articles also address the intricacies of Ford's shifting approach to storytelling and the subtle techniques whereby Ford's films guide spectator interpretation and emotional engagement.While giving attention to film style and structure, the volume also explores the ways in which these much loved films engage with notions of masculinity and gender roles, capitalism and community, as well as racial and sexual identity. Authors also examine how Ford's sound-era Westerns create a complex relationship to the genre's traditional project of "defining an American nation" and how they uphold up but also question popular culture depictions of history and nationhood, to offer a commentary that engages with both the past, the present and the future.In addition to new scholarship, the volume also offers a dossier section of out of the way magazine articles that illuminate the issues raised by essays, including the director's tribute to John Wayne as well as a moving posthumous appraisal of the director published by the Director's Guild of America.
Download or read book 100 Greatest Western Movies of All Time written by Philip Armour and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fun, opinionated, illustrated look at Westerns—with great photographs from great movies This unique compendium of short essays about, and evocative photos from, the 100 greatest Western movies of all time is the authoritative new resource on the subject—and the ideal illustrated gift book for all cowboy enthusiasts and cinema fans. Beyond being eminently browseable and lavishly illustrated, the book—compiled by the editors of the popular Western magazine American Cowboy—is sure to generate hot debate over its “top 100” list, and it covers plenty of movies that appeal to a wide variety of ages and tastes—from The Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, and Shane to The Wild Bunch, High Plains Drifter, and Unforgiven. Each essay makes the case for why the selected movie belongs in the top 100—and included are five movies you’ve never heard of but should immediately put high on your list. The introduction sets forth the criteria for the selections while also presenting a short history of the genre.
