The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half CenturyThe Invention of the Western Film ranges across literature, visual arts, social history, ideology, and legend to provide, for the first time, an in-depth exploration of the early Western, from short kinetoscopes of the 1890s through "classic" features of the 1940s. By examining the American Indian's rise and demise during the silent era, B- Westerns of the 1930s, and film noir-influenced Westerns of the 1940s, Scott Simmon's pioneering study silhouettes the genre's evolution against a myriad of cultural forces. This lively, encyclopedic book revitalizes familiar Western icons John Wayne and John Ford, and recovers forgotten masterworks from the Western film's formative years. |
From inside the book
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Page xiv
... begin with the " en- counter " between Native and European worlds . I've gone back to un- cover a new history of the rise and fall of the Indian in silent film , which , I'll argue , is a story more central to both film history and Amer ...
... begin with the " en- counter " between Native and European worlds . I've gone back to un- cover a new history of the rise and fall of the Indian in silent film , which , I'll argue , is a story more central to both film history and Amer ...
Page xv
... begin . It has , however , seemed worth carrying cer- tain topics beyond any strict chronological cutoff , and especially at the end of Part Three we'll trace the fate of " classic " Western principles through more recent decades . If ...
... begin . It has , however , seemed worth carrying cer- tain topics beyond any strict chronological cutoff , and especially at the end of Part Three we'll trace the fate of " classic " Western principles through more recent decades . If ...
Page 4
... begin to find the wide vistas , rolling grasslands , arid deserts , and those savage Great Plains Indian wars that now appear so fundamental to the genre . The earlier styles and stories seem bound up with the industrial origins of U.S. ...
... begin to find the wide vistas , rolling grasslands , arid deserts , and those savage Great Plains Indian wars that now appear so fundamental to the genre . The earlier styles and stories seem bound up with the industrial origins of U.S. ...
Page 5
... begin surveys of Western - film history around the time of Grif- fith's best - known Western , 1913's The Battle at Elderbush Gulch , with glances back at Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery ( 1903 ) and at the first cowboy hero ...
... begin surveys of Western - film history around the time of Grif- fith's best - known Western , 1913's The Battle at Elderbush Gulch , with glances back at Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery ( 1903 ) and at the first cowboy hero ...
Page 9
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Contents
Indians to the Rescue | 6 |
The Eastern Western | 12 |
Our Friends the Indians | 19 |
The Death of the Western 1911 | 32 |
The FarWestern | 36 |
Wars on the Plains | 44 |
The Politics of Landscape | 51 |
Pocahontas Meets Custer The Invaders | 55 |
Rambling into Surrealism The BWestern | 150 |
Dont Cry Pat Its Only a Western A Note on Acting | 171 |
Time Space and the Western | 178 |
THAT SLEEP OF DEATH JOHN FORD AND THE DARKNESS OF THE CLASSIC WESTERN IN THE 1940S | 193 |
My Darling Clementine and the Fight with Film Noir | 197 |
Out of the Past | 209 |
Shakespeare? In Tombstone? | 219 |
Get Outta Town and Stay Out | 234 |
No Indians Wanted | 79 |
The West of the Mohicans | 89 |
Desert Places | 94 |
ITS TIME FOR YOUR HISTORY LESSON DEAR JOHN WAYNE AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY IN THE HOLLYWOOD WESTERN OF T... | 99 |
The Big Trail and the Weight of History | 105 |
Whats the Big Idea? | 114 |
Philosophies of the Land | 115 |
Philosophies of Faith | 124 |
Philosophies of Politics | 130 |
Manifestations of Destiny | 138 |
A Lot of Nice People around Here | 243 |
Who Do We Shoot? | 256 |
The Revenge of Film Noir | 266 |
25 The Return of the Earps | 273 |
Ford Fonda and the Death of the Classic Western | 281 |
Notes | 295 |
347 | |
363 | |
375 | |
Other editions - View all
The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First ... Scott Simmon No preview available - 2003 |
The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First ... Scott Simmon No preview available - 2003 |
The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First ... Scott Simmon No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
actors American Film American West Apache argues argument audience B-Western battle Big Trail brother Buffalo Bill California Press cavalry character Cheyenne Chihuahua Cinema civilization Clanton classic Western Clementine's cowboy Culture D. W. Griffith dark Darling Clementine death desert dialogue Doc Holliday early eastern Western empty far-Western fight Figure film noir film's filmmakers Fonda Ford's Frontier Marshal genre's gunfight Henry hero heroism horse Ince's Indian intertitle Invaders James Fenimore Cooper John Ford John Wayne John Wayne's land landscape look Mohicans Movies murder Myth narrative Native Americans novel O.K. Corral Old West Outlaw Picture pioneers played plot political postwar Puritan quoted ranch Richard Slotkin Robert saloon scene shooting shot showdown silent Sioux Stagecoach star story style surviving Thomas tion Tombstone town University Press Vanishing American Vintage Books visual wagon Western film Western genre wilderness woman women World Wyatt Earp York