The Genre That Refuses To Ride Into The Sunset

Noah Gittell checks in with the Western:

To try and understand the western’s return, it’s important to understand why it left in the first place. There are many theories out there, but a lot of film critics attribute the decline of the western to the Vietnam War. Most films of the genre are essentially war pictures, detailing combat between American Indians and frontiersmen. J. Hoberman wrote that “save for a handful of releases, the western itself has remained defunct since the fall of Saigon,” noting that the ugliness of the conflict rendered the often blindly patriotic tone of the western obsolete. …

The underlying subject of nearly every western is the tension that erupts when an ascending civilization comes into conflict with the savage wilderness. Whether it is a sheriff chasing an outlaw or a homesteader fighting off an Indian attack, classical westerns depict an America trying to balance its frontier spirit with the need for manmade justice and order. Films like Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, and High Noon show the difficult process of extending a young nation into new territory. Perhaps that’s why westerns resonate less and less: Precious few among us would still call America a country on the rise.