Yes, the western died of oversaturation but in the sixties, the last decade where you could say that it was a legitimate genre, artists like John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone were finding new things to say through the confines of the western, something I am not sure one could say about superhero movies today. Where is the equival…
Yes, the western died of oversaturation but in the sixties, the last decade where you could say that it was a legitimate genre, artists like John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone were finding new things to say through the confines of the western, something I am not sure one could say about superhero movies today. Where is the equivalent of The Wild Bunch or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the Marvel franchise?
I think the more salient corollary with Marvel, etc. is the movie musical.
I was thinking the same thing while reading this article - the spaghetti westerns were, I think, a direct response to how stale westerns had become. They were redefining and experimenting with the genre, without the spaghetti westerns we would not have graduated to franchises like Dirty Harry.
A lot of the later Westerns were about the end of wild west. Movies like Shane, the Searchers, the Wages of Violence, the Last Gunfighter and so on. Some of it echoed the end of World War II and a return to peace much as a lot of entertainment at the end of the Cold War echoed the end of the USSR as a superpower. It was a creative era, and there was a new theme that spoke to the present.
The musical, like animation, is less a genre than a form. It never entirely goes away - although the rise of the jukebox musical over the last few decades is definitely another example of the kind of staleness HB is talking about.
Yes, the western died of oversaturation but in the sixties, the last decade where you could say that it was a legitimate genre, artists like John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone were finding new things to say through the confines of the western, something I am not sure one could say about superhero movies today. Where is the equivalent of The Wild Bunch or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the Marvel franchise?
I think the more salient corollary with Marvel, etc. is the movie musical.
I was thinking the same thing while reading this article - the spaghetti westerns were, I think, a direct response to how stale westerns had become. They were redefining and experimenting with the genre, without the spaghetti westerns we would not have graduated to franchises like Dirty Harry.
One of the reasons Westerns died is that chasing Indians and killing them became socially unacceptable.
A lot of the later Westerns were about the end of wild west. Movies like Shane, the Searchers, the Wages of Violence, the Last Gunfighter and so on. Some of it echoed the end of World War II and a return to peace much as a lot of entertainment at the end of the Cold War echoed the end of the USSR as a superpower. It was a creative era, and there was a new theme that spoke to the present.
Agree Robert, or True Grit. Great stories
True Grit is my favorite
At some point you got Western Satire with films like Blazing Saddles and Support your Local Gunfighter.
The musical, like animation, is less a genre than a form. It never entirely goes away - although the rise of the jukebox musical over the last few decades is definitely another example of the kind of staleness HB is talking about.