Once upon a
time there was a genre of film called the Western. The Western genre was HUGE in the 40s, slowed
down in the late 60s, and virtually came to a halt in the late 70s . When the Western was in its prime, we had
amazing directors like Howard Hawks and John Ford. I give credit to these two men (especially
Ford) for giving the audience locations to marvel, stories to dazzle and
direction to influence future directors, such as Sergio Leone.
It seems
that the time of the Western, in the 40s – 50s, was a simpler time. We knew who was good. We knew who was bad and we knew what we were
in for - a great adventure across the western frontier at the movies. When Westerns ruled the screen, things were
simple. The stories were tales of
grandeur. We were served stories about
life - working, fighting, grazing; stories of justice and injustice, yet it was
not complex.
Today everything
is more complicated both in the real world and on the screen but why can’t we
go to the movies and just see Gary Cooper protect his town like in Fred
Zinnemann’s classic, 'High Noon' or watch John Wayne try to protect his family
after the Civil War in John Ford’s masterpiece 'The Searchers'? Why is everything so complicated? Here’s the only logic I can come up with.
In the mid
60s, an Italian director came along named Sergio Leone. The man was a great director and he revived
the Western with 'A Fistful of Dollars', 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'The Good
the Bad and the Ugly'. The films would
later be known as, 'The Dollars Trilogy'.
They single handedly launched the career of Clint Eastwood. As the Western was dying in the United States,
Sergio Leone took it to Italy. These
films coined the phrase “The Spaghetti Western”. I don’t know if Leone did this intentionally
but his films are what started making Westerns more complicated (along with the
changing times). As 'The Dollars
Trilogy' progressed, the filmmaking evolved as well as the stories. The films introduced The Man with No
Name. The lead character in all three
of the films (played by Eastwood) never had a name thus raising more questions
and asking more of the audience and the genre became less simple. The trilogy blurred the lines of good and
bad. We had an antihero, a game changer.
Westerns were no longer simple. You had to think a bit more, evaluate and
form an opinion. Things were no longer black and white. Some people would say this was revolutionary
in many ways. I would agree but it was
so revolutionary that there weren’t many Westerns after the trilogy to have a simple
hero. The simplicity was lost and it
changed the Western genre and it changed film.
After 'The
Dollars Trilogy', Leone did one more Western, hailed as one of the greatest of
all time - 'Once Upon A Time in the West'. 'Once Upon A Time in the West' did two things; one, solidified that
there is no simplicity in the west; and two, and possibly more revolutionary,
took a well known actor, who had never played a villain in his life and put him
in the most evil role possible. The
actor was Henry Fonda. Without Henry
Fonda playing Frank, things might have been very different for a very long
time. Fonda’s choice to play an evil
character and Leone’s choice to cast him changed the future of Westerns.
In 1973,
Actor/Director Clint Eastwood stepped onto the stage full force with 'High
Plains Drifter'. The film took literally
everything anyone knew about the Western and flipped it with the lead character
being less of an antihero and more of a villain. A bold move for Eastwood but one that proved
he was here to stay and he was here to change the genre… forever. Eastwood had done other directing work with 'Play Misty for Me' but this was his first shot at directing the West and it
paid off. It paid off big. 'High Plains Drifter' is an intense, violent
and disturbing tale of the West but it is good.
It is REALLY good. After 'Drifter', Eastwood’s next directional Western was 'The Outlaw Josey Wales', a
film that is immensely close to Eastwood and, dare I say, his best
Western. 'Josey' said a TON about
society. The film was and is possibly
one of the most accurate films about what soldiers did to homesteaders during the
Civil War and it is the first scene in the film. The tone is set and off you go. 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' is Eastwood’s Western
masterpiece and was way ahead of its time.
So, as you
can see, as time went by, Western’s evolved. In 1990, after a long halt, the Western tried
to make a comeback with 'Dances with Wolves', the story of the horrifying acts
that took place on the plains. We saw
what United States soldiers did to the Native American people. It is an amazing film and Kevin Costner
earned his Oscars but the film made people uncomfortable with the West. Then in 1992, 'Unforgiven' was released,
another Eastwood film and probably the truest tale of the darkness of the West
- no beauty, just honesty, very similar to 'Wolves' in that sense. After the honesty in those films, the genre
died. I think people had seen enough of
the West and wanted to leave the past in the past. With these films, the illusion of the West was
gone. The glory and grandeur was lost. Folks would never look at another Western the
same way. They would see only the
brutality instead of the beauty. That
being said, the West had heroes and villains, violence and heroics. If the hero were still shown along with the
villain, would the Western still be in theaters today? Would people be at the box office or would
the Western still remain a part of cinema’s past?
- George
McCann
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