Download or read book Westerns and the Trail of Tradition written by Barrie Hanfling and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, the western has fluctuated in popularity. By 2010 it has come to stand, to the dismay of many, at one of its lowest points. Beginning with 1929 and the advent of talkies (In Old Arizona), the author discusses the cultural and industry trends, the directors, producers, studios and especially the stars, and looks at the ways in which their personalities (and financial ups and downs) affected the way westerns were shot. The improvements in technology through the years, the trick horses, the fistfight choreography, the evolution of plotlines--these are fascinating indicators of the way Americans themselves were changing.
Download or read book The Trail to Ogallala written by Benjamin Capps and published by Texas Tradition. This book was released on 1985 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In " The Trail to Ogallala", stampedes, dangerous river crossings, demanding Indians, and struggles for leadership blend to create one of the best Westerns ever written about the harsh realities of a cattle drive.
Download or read book The Sagebrush Trail written by Richard Aquila and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2015-04-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sagebrush Trail is a history of Western movies but also a history of twentieth-century America. Richard Aquila’s fast-paced narrative covers both the silent and sound eras, and includes classic westerns such as Stagecoach, A Fistful of Dollars, and Unforgiven, as well as B-Westerns that starred film cowboys like Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 traces the birth and growth of Westerns from 1900 through the end of World War II. Part 2 focuses on a transitional period in Western movie history during the two decades following World War II. Finally, part 3 shows how Western movies reflected the rapid political, social, and cultural changes that transformed America in the 1960s and the last decades of the twentieth century. The Sagebrush Trail explains how Westerns evolved throughout the twentieth century in response to changing times, and it provides new evidence and fresh interpretations about both Westerns and American history. These films offer perspectives on the past that historians might otherwise miss. They reveal how Americans reacted to political and social movements, war, and cultural change. The result is the definitive story of Western movies, which contributes to our understanding of not just movie history but also the mythic West and American history. Because of its subject matter and unique approach that blends movies and history, The Sagebrush Trail should appeal to anyone interested in Western movies, pop culture, the American West, and recent American history and culture. The mythic West beckons but eludes. Yet glimpses of its utopian potential can always be found, even if just for a few hours in the realm of Western movies. There on the silver screen, the mythic West continues to ride tall in the saddle along a “sagebrush trail” that reveals valuable clues about American life and thought.
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 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent study that should interest film buffs, academics, and non-academics alike” (Journal of the West). Hollywood’s West examines popular perceptions of the frontier as a defining feature of American identity and history. Seventeen essays by prominent film scholars illuminate the allure of life on the edge of civilization and analyze how this region has been represented on big and small screens. Differing characterizations of the frontier in modern popular culture reveal numerous truths about American consciousness and provide insights into many classic Western films and television programs, from RKO’s 1931 classic Cimarron to Turner Network Television’s recent made-for-TV movies. Covering topics such as the portrayal of race, women, myth, and nostalgia, Hollywood’s West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of how Westerns have shaped our nation’s opinions and beliefs—often using the frontier as metaphor for contemporary issues.
Download or read book Sources of the Western Tradition From the Renaissance to the present written by Marvin Perry and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sources of the Western Tradition written by Marvin B. Perry and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 50 Westerns The Best Cowboy Adventures Rider Trails Stories of Outlaws Battles with Indians written by Karl May and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-12-21 with total page 10639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 50 Westerns The Best Cowboy Adventures, Rider Trails, Stories of Outlaws & Battles with Indians represents an unparalleled compilation that traverses the length and breadth of the Western genre. This anthology highlights the rich tapestry of the American frontier, encapsulated through gripping tales of adventure, conflict, and the human spirit. The collection's diversity is not only reflected in the array of narratives that span from intimate personal journeys to epic battles but also in the literary styles that range from classic prose to innovative storytelling techniques. The assembled works, including tales of high-stakes standoffs, nuanced depictions of native cultures, and explorations of the moral compass of the rugged landscape, underscore the anthologys thematic depth and the genres capacity to interrogate the American mythos. The contributors to this collection, including luminaries like Zane Grey, Bret Harte, and Willa Cather, among others, bring a rich mosaic of backgrounds, perspectives, and literary achievements. Their collective oeuvre not only aligned with but also propelled several movements within the Western genre, enriching its narrative complexity and thematic breadth. From the romanticized tales of daring outlaws to the nuanced portrayals of frontier life, this anthology captures a pivotal era in American literature, offering insights into the socio-cultural fabric of the time. The diversity among the authors ensures a multi-faceted exploration of themes such as justice, freedom, and survival, set against the backdrop of the untamed American West. 50 Westerns invites readers on a journey through the rugged landscapes and turbulent times of the American frontier. For enthusiasts and scholars alike, this anthology presents a unique opportunity to engage with the foundational narratives that have shaped the Western genre. Through its wide-ranging selection, the collection fosters a dialogue between different voices and perspectives, enriching the readers understanding of the complexities and contradictions of the American West. This anthology is a doorway to an extensive, immersive experience of the Western literary tradition, promised to captivate, educate, and inspire reflections on the enduring themes of a bygone era.
Download or read book Hollywood s Indian written by Peter Rollins and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2003-12-14 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering both in-depth analyses of specific films and overviews of the industry's output, Hollywood's Indian provides insightful characterizations of the depiction of the Native Americans in film. This updated edition includes a new chapter on Smoke Signals , the groundbreaking independent film written by Sherman Alexie and directed by Chris Eyre. Taken as a whole the essays explore the many ways in which these portrayals have made an impact on our collective cultural life.
Download or read book Western Man and His Tradition written by Savoie Lottinville and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Western Story written by Jon Tuska and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1999-11-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Western Story: A Chronological Treasury consists of twenty Western stories spanning the years 1892 to 1994. For that generation of American writers who saw the frontier in the last century?including Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Owen Wister?it seemed exotic, strange, wonderful. Others, such as Frederic Remington and John G. Neihardt, reflected the clash between various Indian nations and pioneers. These authors prepared the way for the founders of the first Golden Age of the Western story: Willa Cather, who wrote of pioneer life in Nebraska; Zane Grey, who combined wilderness experiences with romance and the search for spiritual truth; B. M. Bower, who portrayed the cowboys and frontier women she knew growing up in Montana; Max Brand, who created dramas in which the psychological and spiritual meaning of life was more important than the physical terrain; and Ernest Haycox, who combined character and drama with historical accuracy. ø Another generation of writers perpetuated this first Golden Age: Peter Dawson and T. T. Flynn, who began writing Western stories in the 1930s; Walter Van Tilburg Clark, who created a masterpiece in The Ox-Bow Incident; Dorothy M. Johnson and Les Savage Jr., who experimented with making the Western story still more realistic; and Louis L?Amour, whose visibility and popularity won legions of new readers to the genre. ø Humanity, depth, and verisimilitude were already part of the Western story when Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, and T. V. Olsen came on the scene to intensify these qualities in their own stories even as they experimented with new perspectives. And Cynthia Haseloff?s story (written especially for this collection), with its symbolism and its simplicity, may be the harbinger of a second Golden Age.
Download or read book Speculative Wests written by Michael K. Johnson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2023-03 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking across the cultural landscape of the twenty-first century, its literature, film, television, comic books, and other media, we can see multiple examples of what Shelley S. Rees calls a “changeling western,” what others have called “weird westerns,” and what Michael K. Johnson refers to as “speculative westerns”—that is, hybrid western forms created by merging the western with one or more speculative genres or subgenres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history. Speculative Wests investigates both speculative westerns and other speculative texts that feature western settings. Just as “western” refers both to a genre and a region, Johnson’s narrative involves a study of both genre and place, a study of the “speculative Wests” that have begun to emerge in contemporary texts such as the zombie-threatened California of Justina Ireland’s Deathless Divide (2020), the reimagined future Navajo nation of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Sixth World series (2018–19), and the complex temporal and geographic borderlands of Alfredo Véa’s time travel novel The Mexican Flyboy (2016). Focusing on literature, film, and television from 2016 to 2020, Speculative Wests creates new visions of the American West.
Download or read book Weird Westerns written by Kerry Fine and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-08 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2021 Top Ten Finalist for the Locus Awards in Nonfiction Joshua Smith's chapter "Uncle Tom's Cabin Showdown" won the 2021 Don D. Walker Prize from the Western Literature Association Weird Westerns is an exploration of the hybrid western genre--an increasingly popular and visible form that mixes western themes, iconography, settings, and conventions with elements drawn from other genres, such as science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Despite frequent declarations of the western's death, the genre is now defined in part by its zombie-like ability to survive in American popular culture in weird, reanimated, and reassembled forms. The essays in Weird Westerns analyze a wide range of texts, including those by Native American authors Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet) and William Sanders (Cherokee); the cult television series Firefly and The Walking Dead; the mainstream feature films Suicide Squad and Django Unchained; the avant-garde and bizarre fiction of Joe R. Lansdale; the tabletop roleplaying game Deadlands: The Weird West; and the comic book series Wynonna Earp. The essays explore how these weird westerns challenge conventional representations by destabilizing or subverting the centrality of the heterosexual, white, male hero but also often surprisingly reinforce existing paradigms in their inability to imagine an existence outside of colonial frameworks.
Download or read book Universal Sound Westerns 1929 1946 written by Gene Blottner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2003 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Fox releasedIn Old Arizona,the first feature length western with sound, in 1929, Universal president Carl Laemmle decided that Universal's westerns should follow suit. Beginning that same year, with the release ofThe Wagon Masterstarring Ken Maynard, up until 1946, when the studio merged with International Pictures, Universal Pictures captivated audiences with its sound westerns. Individual entries for the approximately 180 feature films and serials released by Universal during that period are presented here. Each entry includes the film's title release date, alternate title, cast, credits, songs, location of filming, running time, source if the film was an adaptation, plot synopsis, commentary from the author and from the actors and directors, representative excerpts from reviews, and a tag line from the original advertising. Also provided is a chronological listing of Universal's short western films and a chronological listing of Universal's sound westerns.
Download or read book Westerns written by Victoria Lamont and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2016-08 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At every turn in the development of what we now know as the western, women writers have been instrumental in its formation. Yet the myth that the western is male-authored persists. Westerns: A Women's History debunks this myth once and for all by recovering the women writers of popular westerns who were active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the western genre as we now know it emerged. Victoria Lamont offers detailed studies of some of the many women who helped shape the western. Their novels bear the classic hallmarks of the western--cowboys, schoolmarms, gun violence, lynchings, cattle branding--while also placing female characters at the center of their western adventures and improvising with western conventions in surprising and ingenious ways. In Emma Ghent Curtis's The Administratrix a widow disguises herself as a cowboy and infiltrates the cowboy gang responsible for lynching her husband. Muriel Newhall's pulp serial character, Sheriff Minnie, comes to the rescue of a steady stream of defenseless female victims. B. M. Bower, Katharine Newlin Burt, and Frances McElrath use cattle branding as a metaphor for their feminist critiques of patriarchy. In addition to recovering the work of these and other women authors of popular westerns, Lamont uses original archival analysis of the western-fiction publishing scene to overturn the long-standing myth of the western as a male-dominated genre.
Download or read book Contemporary Westerns written by Andrew Patrick Nelson and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though one of the most popular genres for decades, the western started to lose its relevance in the 1960s and 1970s, and by the early 1980s it had ridden into the sunset on screens both big and small. The genre has enjoyed a resurgence, however, and in the past few decades some remarkable westerns have appeared on television and in movie theaters. From independent films to critically acclaimed Hollywood productions and television series, the western remains an important part of American popular culture. Running the gamut from traditional to revisionist, with settings ranging from the old West to the “new Wests” of the present day and distant future, contemporary westerns continue to explore the history, geography, myths, and legends of the American frontier. In Contemporary Westerns: Film and Television since 1990, Andrew P. Nelson has collected essays that examine the trends and transformations in this underexplored period in Western film and television history. Addressing the new Western, they argue for the continued relevance and vibrancy of the genre as a narrative form. The book is organized into two sections: “Old West, New Stories” examines Westerns with common frontier locales, such as Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Deadwood, and True Grit. “New Wests, Old Stories” explores works in which familiar Western narratives, characters, and values are represented in more modern—and in one case futuristic—settings. Included are the films No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, as well as the shows Firefly and Justified. With a foreword by Edward Buscombe, as well as an introduction that provides a comprehensive overview, this volume offers readers a compelling argument for the healthy survival of the Western. Written for scholars as well as educated viewers, Contemporary Westerns explores the genre’s evolving relationship with American culture, history, and politics.
Download or read book The Traditions of the Western World written by and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 917 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Western written by David Lusted and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Western introduces the novice to the pleasures and the meanings of the Western film, shares the excitement of the genre with the fan, addresses the suspicions of the cynic and develops the knowledge of the student. The Western is about the changing times of the Western, and about how it has been understood in film criticism. Until the 1980s, more Westerns were made than any other type of film. For fifty of those years, the genre was central to Hollywood's popularity and profitability. The Western explores the reasons for its success and its latter-day decline among film-makers and audiences alike. Part I charts the history of the Western film and its role in film studies. Part II traces the origins of the Western in nineteenth-century America, and in its literary, theatrical and visual imagining. This sets the scene to explore the many evolving forms in successive chapters on early silent Westerns, the series Western, the epic, the romance, the dystopian, the elegiac and, finally, the revisionist Western. The Western concludes with an extensive bibliography, filmography and select further reading. Over 200 Westerns are discussed, among them close accounts of classics such as Duel in the Sun, The Wild Bunch and Unforgiven, formative titles like John Ford's epic The Iron Horse, and early cowboy star William S. Hart's The Silent One together with less familiar titles that deserve wider recognition, including Comanche Station, Pursued and Ulzana's Raid.
