Michael Blowhard links to
Ann Thompson's criticism of the Western Writers of America's list of Best Westerns.
A posting of this vintage piece; my list of the ten most conservative westerns, seems appropriate.
Here are the first five.
“They love the unbelievable being made believable and above all the fact that good always prevails over evil. To me this is the most reassuring of their reactions,
and all goes well for the eventual salvation of the world because, theirs is the future and it's up to them to make as they want it to be. Hope springs eternal...”—Peter Cushing
Regardless of its current box office status, the Western has always occupied a key position in the heart of every red-blooded American male.
Looking retrospectively at this expired genre, the experience of a coroner is not necessary to determine the cause of its death.
The Western rapidly become unique among historical sagas, even in the early days of silent film. As a popular cash cow in Hollywood it was hijacked in the 1930s by agenda-driven screenwriters who turned out experimental Westerns, socially correct Westerns, Westerns filled with contemporary memes and the sensibilities and social constructs of the eras they were created in.
By the 1960s, the graphic violence of Spaghetti Westerns had eliminated the last vestiges of realism in the genre. Like Science Fiction, the Western had ceased to be a youthful vehicle of triumphant, expansionism and instead become dark, obsessive and self-loathing. So determined were the makers of modern Westerns, to flagellate themselves for the alleged sins of their ancestors that they succumbed to the same snare as their parent’s generation did, and indulged themselves in viewing history through modern eyes, instead of as it was and has always been.
Entertaining films cannot be preachy and dramatized. Westerns were made primarily to appeal to white men, so making middle-class white men the principle villains of every, single western made in the last thirty years, can hardly increase such a movie’s appeal.
Stereotypes killed the western. Negative stereotypes to be exact. For time immemorial the hoi polloi have rejoiced at typecasting, the portrayal of the handsome hero, his “Old Coot,” sidekick, the damsel in distress, firmly strapped to the railroad tracks by the dastardly villains.
But the consistent moralizing of modern Westerns and their stock evil characters has become tedious to the multitudes.
The bigoted preacher, the misled bourgeois vigilantes who constantly manage to hang the wrong man, the unreconstructed Confederate racialist and the Noble Savage and NOBLER black homesteaders whom he oppresses—all these images unconsciously assault the mind of the viewer. To save the day and attract the Whites, the hero of the story must be a single white man, sent to aid his hypothetical inferiors against the nefarious and numerous White villains. For a love interest, an androgynous female, who rides astride and defies every known convention, is thrown into the mix solely to romance the hero in an obligatory, tastefully shot sex scene.
The hero himself is a gunslinger, interventionist, socialist, brutal, amoral, nihilistic—in the best traditions of modern American culture, and differing from Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western character that no one was meant to find heroic or noble. To this day, Hollywood actually expect its male audiences to identify with the scruffy, loner because he takes the little man’s side, and commits outrages in the name of the people in the most profoundly Menshevik style.
Such Westerns are profoundly degrading, not only to Whites, who are wholly villainized, but also to Hispanics, American Indians and Blacks, all of whom assume the roles of minorities persecuted by oppressive bourgeois White settlers.
This ceaseless depiction of subjugated, downtrodden minorities protected and sustained by the White hero deprives all three races of the principle, and equally important role, which they played in the settlement of the Old West.
The contributions of black men like Jim Beckwourth, Nat Love and Bass Reeves have been entirely neglected, even within the genre of blaxploition Westerns, which preferred to obsess over the ill treatment of black settlers on the frontier, rather than their numerous accomplishments.
Just as black filmmakers took their cue from self-loathing Whites, Hispanics followed such filmmakers as Mario Van Peebles in creating “Victimization” westerns. While there are plenty of noble, Hispanic heroes of the old west like Elfego Baca, the legendary gunfighter and self-appointed lawman, directors and producers, since the 1960s have ignored them to their own commercial detriment.
Native Americans have been hardest hit by politically correct Westerns. Always shown as the Noble, Enlightened, Considerate, Mistreated Savage, Indian actors have been typecast to death.
Wes Studi who rivals Christopher Walken as a dramatic actor is cast repeatedly in the same basic role, in dozens of films.
His best Indian-Western, Geronimo cast him in the title role—but as a secondary character, supplanted by characters played by Jason Patric and Robert Duval.
John Milius, who originally scripted the movie, remarked in an interview that he had written the original script with Geronimo the focal character, as an ‘anti-government’ rebel.
Walter Hill’s re-write however presented the principle plot as two conflicted army officers who feel guilt over their betrayal of Geronimo, and in one scene, not at all germane to the story, gun down some scalp hunters, they meet in a saloon.
Geronimo’s story is basically an aside. According to the movie, he is a chieftain not a Medicine Man, and the murder of his family was committed not by Mexicans but whites.
Walter Hill stated in an interview that his movie was an expression of guilt for the betrayal of the American Indians, but he made this film at the expense of a great man and guerilla fighter who for years waged a successful insurgency against two armies in two countries. His story was far more fascinating than the contrived one, which Walter Hill attempted to tell.
From a paleo-conservative perspective, very few historically correct, and entertaining Westerns have ever been.
Only ten movies come to mind, which an old-school male could find worth watching.
Hombre.
An Ayn Rand western if there ever was one, Hombre was avant-garde, once upon a time. Not wholly Objectivist to Randian purists, this Western is perhaps more Randian than Rand herself.
Unhappily married, Rand found the perfect mates only in her fictional creations, men who endeavored and persevered and in the succeeded, against all odds.
Howard Roark and John Galt are tragic figures, who triumph. John Russell, the protagonist of Hombre is a tragic figure that dies performing his single act of unselfish sacrifice throughout the movie. Yet his death is a stark reinforcement of Objectivist from a masculine point of view, as the audience is forced to ask themselves if Russell’s death to save the unintelligent wife of a corrupt, despicable government bureaucrat was worth the effort.
They might also note that the John Russell does not intentionally seek to sacrifice himself. His plan is sabotaged by the unconsciously actions of the woman he seeks to rescue.
John Russell is one of Hollywood’s rare, positive portrayals of a businessman. A white man rose by Indians, he is amused, but not bothered by the insensible, liberal racialism of his fellow passengers.
A superior man in both words, Russell’s every action is motivated by blatant self-interest.
His fellow passengers are no different; they obscure their selfishness behind a liberal veneer. The villains are government officials and lawmen.
True Grit.
One of John Wayne’s greatest films, this Western is among the best coming of age/revenge Westerns ever made. True Grit’s west is as it was.
In our modern-day world producers seem to believe that to attract audiences, the crimes committed in Western movies must be as garish and atrocious as the murders and rapes of today are.
The only problem is they weren’t. Atrocities were committed, but the depredations of the Rufus Buck gang, the Mormon Danite Bands, and others pale in comparison to the post-modern brutalities committed on a regular basis.
This was largely due to the repressive nature of Victorian morality, which then permeated American society.
Criminals and psychopaths of the 19th and 20th centuries could cross far beyond every boundary set by suppressive behavior of the day, and still fall short of modern depravity.
Today, men’s minds are given full rein to indulge in the wildest and most weird fantasies they can envision and as a result, criminals have become more creative in rapine, murder and pillage.
Mattie’s father is murdered. She hires a deputy-Marshal to track the killer down. The feisty girl-woman is at one point captured by outlaws, but not mistreated.
Honor and courage, even among the thieves is stressed.
The price Mattie pays for her vendetta and her rambunctious transition from child to woman is spinsterhood.
The Life And Times of Judge Roy Bean.
Justice and legality are never confused in this Western. The two, one finds are almost never interchangeable. They are rarely associated being generally polar opposites of one another.
John Milius, Hollywood’s single conservative writer/director, scripted this Western.
Milius, long believed to be an enabler and promoter of the U.S. military, interventionism, and triumphalism, is in fact an opposer of the Iraqi War. His political philosophy seems to merge “Zen Maoism,” with a powerful anarchistic strain, which appears in movies like Farewell to the King.
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, as a Milius creation was dark, with the usual violence that stretched the bounds of realism in a Western. Working on autopilot, director John Huston brought a lighter touch to this film. The result was an unsuccessful amalgamation of the entertaining mega-hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and any movie by Sam Peckinpah.
While this expansive Western was a commercial failure, it is widely acknowledged as one of Paul Newman’s best performances.
Former ruffian and self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, “knows the law,” having spent the majority of his life, “in its flagrant disregard.”
Bean’s version of the justice, financed by his profitable saloon keeping, brings peace and prosperity to an old west town. Peace and prosperity bring scavengers and parasites; lawyers and politicians who subtly expel the Judge from his own town.
He returns in the end, to protect his daughter’s property and administer justice to the town, cleansing it of corrupt law enforcement and lawyers.
Outlaw Josey Wales.
Josey Wales: “Governments don’t live together, people live together.”
Ten Bears: “These things you say we will have, we already have.”
Josey Wales: “That's true. I am not promising you nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.”
Ten Bears: “It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life.”
Clint Eastwood’s most original tour de force, this is arguably the greatest libertarian Western ever made.
Each and every movie exercises a powerful impact upon the culture and The Outlaw Josey Wales, which appeared on the heels of the burgeoning Libertarian movement, was no exception.
Outlaw Josey Wales was based on the novel, Gone To Texas, written by Forrest Carter, self-proclaimed Indian-rights activist and adherent of the old Southern Ku Klux Klan. While Carter’s book promoted the Neo-Confederate movement, which underwent a resurgence in the 1970s, and has since been linked to libertarianism, it was left to Clint Eastwood to inject the philosophy of freedom and self-reliance into this classic “live and let live story.”
Josey Wales, by turns a neutral farmer, brutal bushwacker and scarred veteran, who finally reverts to a pastoral role after forgiving his penitent betrayer.
The Outlaw Josey Wales is fundamentally anti-government and anti-military, while not denigrating the traditions and veracities of the Old West, or the men who settled it. It’s Indians are not saints, it’s frontiersmen, despite their lack of character, are just humans seeking to cope and survive, within a hostile environment.
Jeremiah Johnson.
Also scripted by John Milius, this intense, solitary Western is the fairly true story of a soldier who for undisclosed reasons deserts the U.S. army during the Mexican War and journeys to the Rocky Mountains to live as a fur trapper.
One of Robert Redford’s favorite films, this sparsely populated film is principally the depiction of one man’s struggle for survival in a rugged and primitive environment.
It is Jeremiah Johnson’s desire to escape the deleterious, debasing and emasculating influences of civilization. Yet even in sparsely populated American west of the 1850s civilization arises to interfere with Johnson’s dreams.
Guiding a party of soldiers to the rescue of a beleaguered wagon train, trapped by winter snows, Johnson is persuaded by an appropriately shrill bureaucrat to abandon his honor and lead the troops through an Indian burial ground. In revenge, the Crow Indians slaughter his makeshift family. Johnson initiates an enduring vendetta against this tribe, only to find civilization once again seeking to secure a foothold in his mountains.
Jeremiah Johnson is not a conservationist film, but rather a serious homage to the Mountain Men, that merchant-ventures who braved the new lands and made their quests financially remunerative by the toughness and initiative which only individuals can display.
This Western is a tribute to Individualism, or at least to the conception of the intrepid Individuals who braves the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the conquest of a new land, only to be supplanted by the masses, upon his arrival.
