John Wayne may be dead but the Western still lives on. We all have an idea in our head that pops up whenever we think of the Western. Certain characteristics come to mind such as horses, six-guns, cowboy hats, dusty streets or savage wilderness, all of which is usually set in the mid to late 1800s. Of course, this is what generally makes up the genre’s Golden Age but since then the tropes and ideologies have been altered and often inverted. Films by legendary Western directors like John Ford and Anthony Mann were transformed by filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. Classic films like Stagecoach (1939) and The Man from Laramie (1955) led to revisionist films such as Unforgiven (1992) and The Shootist (1976). The Western has the largest classic period (arguably from late 1930s through the late 1960s) and has been subject to revisionist and nostalgic interpretations ever since. The Western is a perfect avenue to observe genre evolution because of the numerous ways it explores race, gender and identity.

One of the latest explorations of the genre is in The Philosophy of the Western (2010), edited by Jennifer L. McMahon and B. Steve Csaki. The book is an anthology of essays that deal with the Western in terms of the myths created in both history and cinema. This compilation deals primarily with the philosophy surrounding identity, ethics and gender that dominate the American Western. In addition, the authors incorporate the intersection of philosophy and Western myth, each at different lengths and depths. Co-editors McMahon and Csaki say that “while rooted in history, the myth of the American West quickly took on a life of its own” (2). The blurred line between fact and fiction of the Wild West has continually been carried by the American film industry since the early 1900s. This book shows that the famous line, “when legend becomes fact, print the legend,” from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962) still rings true. Hollywood continues to print (or revise) the legend to this day.

The academic field studying the Western is almost as large as the genre itself. Many of the original studies are still useful from Robert Warshow’s influential essay “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner” (1954) to Jim Kitses Horizon’s West (1969) and John G. Cawelti’s The Six-Gun Mystique (1970), (the last two have updated versions). The Western may get more notice recently due to the Coen brother’s 2010 Oscar nominated film True Grit. The Coen’s film is a true exploration of nostalgia (which they have done for numerous genres such as noir and gangster), but to understand their sentimental approach to the Western one must have a grasp of the films that founded the genre as we know it today. Thought of the Western will generally draw quick images of Ford’s Monument Valley or Mann’s rigid mountain tops or gunfighting protagonists like Shane (Alan Ladd in Shane, 1953) and John T. Chance (John Wayne in Rio Bravo, 1959). It is this legend/myth created by these films and characters that keep audiences and scholars interested.

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Only in a political vacuum would anyone be surprised “The Dark Knight” was all but snubbed by Academy voters this morning. The defense will be that it’s a comic book movie, as though “Frost/Nixon” isn’t.

What happened to all the “modern day masterpiece” talk? This, perhaps?

If you look at today’s Best Picture nominees and ask yourself which one of these nominees people will still be watching a few years from now, the best possible answer is, “Lemme think.” Throughout its 81 year history, the Academy has overlooked a number of timeless films for best picture nominations; here, in my opinion, are the five best films completely overlooked, not counting “Dark Knight”: (more…)