About this Book

Texas Jack Vermilion, this is Turkey Creek Johnson.

("Hour of the Gun," 1967)."

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.

Pat Garrett: How does it feel?

Billy the Kid: It feels like times have changed.

Garrett: Times, maybe. Not me.

("Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," 1973)."

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."