The American West on Film

The American West on Film PDF Author: Johnny D. Boggs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440866775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
More than a history of Western movies, The American West on Film intertwines film history, the history of the American West, and American social history into one unique volume. The American West on Film chronicles 12 Hollywood motion pictures that are set in the post–Civil War American West, including The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Little Big Man, and Tombstone. Each film overview summarizes the movie's plot, details how the film came to be made, the critical and box-office reactions upon its release, and the history of the time period or actual event. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of the filmmakers' version of history with the facts, as well as an analysis of the film's significance, then and now. Relying on contemporary accounts and historical analysis as well as perspectives from filmmakers, historians, and critics, the author describes what it took to get each movie made and how close to the historical truth the movie actually got. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how movies often reflect the time in which they were made, and how Westerns can offer provocative social commentary hidden beneath old-fashioned "shoot-em-ups."

The American West on Film

The American West on Film PDF Author: Johnny D. Boggs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440866775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
More than a history of Western movies, The American West on Film intertwines film history, the history of the American West, and American social history into one unique volume. The American West on Film chronicles 12 Hollywood motion pictures that are set in the post–Civil War American West, including The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Little Big Man, and Tombstone. Each film overview summarizes the movie's plot, details how the film came to be made, the critical and box-office reactions upon its release, and the history of the time period or actual event. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of the filmmakers' version of history with the facts, as well as an analysis of the film's significance, then and now. Relying on contemporary accounts and historical analysis as well as perspectives from filmmakers, historians, and critics, the author describes what it took to get each movie made and how close to the historical truth the movie actually got. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how movies often reflect the time in which they were made, and how Westerns can offer provocative social commentary hidden beneath old-fashioned "shoot-em-ups."

Hollywood's West

Hollywood's West PDF Author: Peter C. Rollins
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813171806
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.

The American West in Film

The American West in Film PDF Author: Jon Tuska
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Analyzing Western films from different vantage points and by using different critical methods, Tuska compares the recorded fantasies about the American West with the actual historical events. He deals with the social and psychological aspects of the systematic distortion and misrepresentation of the American past, and the influence of this practice on the national character. Part I investigates the structure of Westerns--the formula Western, the historical romance, and the historical reconstruction. Part II highlights the themes and film characteristics in the directorial efforts of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway, Anthony Mann, Budd Boethicher, and Sam Pekinpah. Part III examines the use of legends and historical personalities of the American frontier. Part IV investigates Hollywood's misrepresentation of both women and Native Americans in Western films. ISBN 0-313-24603-3 : $29.95.

The American West on Film

The American West on Film PDF Author: Johnny D. Boggs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
More than a history of Western movies, The American West on Film intertwines film history, the history of the American West, and American social history into one unique volume. The American West on Film chronicles 12 Hollywood motion pictures that are set in the post–Civil War American West, including The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Little Big Man, and Tombstone. Each film overview summarizes the movie's plot, details how the film came to be made, the critical and box-office reactions upon its release, and the history of the time period or actual event. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of the filmmakers' version of history with the facts, as well as an analysis of the film's significance, then and now. Relying on contemporary accounts and historical analysis as well as perspectives from filmmakers, historians, and critics, the author describes what it took to get each movie made and how close to the historical truth the movie actually got. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how movies often reflect the time in which they were made, and how Westerns can offer provocative social commentary hidden beneath old-fashioned "shoot-em-ups."

The Sagebrush Trail

The Sagebrush Trail PDF Author: Richard Aquila
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816531544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The Sagebrush Trail is a history of Western movies but also a history of twentieth-century America. Richard Aquila’s fast-paced narrative covers both the silent and sound eras, and includes classic westerns such as Stagecoach, A Fistful of Dollars, and Unforgiven, as well as B-Westerns that starred film cowboys like Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 traces the birth and growth of Westerns from 1900 through the end of World War II. Part 2 focuses on a transitional period in Western movie history during the two decades following World War II. Finally, part 3 shows how Western movies reflected the rapid political, social, and cultural changes that transformed America in the 1960s and the last decades of the twentieth century. The Sagebrush Trail explains how Westerns evolved throughout the twentieth century in response to changing times, and it provides new evidence and fresh interpretations about both Westerns and American history. These films offer perspectives on the past that historians might otherwise miss. They reveal how Americans reacted to political and social movements, war, and cultural change. The result is the definitive story of Western movies, which contributes to our understanding of not just movie history but also the mythic West and American history. Because of its subject matter and unique approach that blends movies and history, The Sagebrush Trail should appeal to anyone interested in Western movies, pop culture, the American West, and recent American history and culture. The mythic West beckons but eludes. Yet glimpses of its utopian potential can always be found, even if just for a few hours in the realm of Western movies. There on the silver screen, the mythic West continues to ride tall in the saddle along a “sagebrush trail” that reveals valuable clues about American life and thought.

The Old West in Fact and Film

The Old West in Fact and Film PDF Author: Jeremy Agnew
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786468882
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
For many years, movie audiences have carried on a love affair with the American West, believing Westerns are escapist entertainment of the best kind, harkening back to the days of the frontier. This work compares the reality of the Old West to its portrayal in movies, taking an historical approach to its consideration of the cowboys, Indians, gunmen, lawmen and others who populated the Old West in real life and on the silver screen. Starting with the Westerns of the early 1900s, it follows the evolution in look, style, and content as the films matured from short vignettes of good-versus-bad into modern plots.

Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880-1920

Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880-1920 PDF Author: Clare Vernon McKanna
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816517084
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In a chilling scene in the film Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood as the gunman stands over a wounded Gene Hackman, the sheriff, aiming a rifle at his head. "I don't deserve this, to die like this," says Hackman. Eastwood replies, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it," cocks his rifle, and fires point blank at his helpless victim. This scenario dramatically brings home to the viewer what historians have long debated and hundreds of other films and books suggest: the turn-of-the-century West was a violent time and place. Ranchers, miners, deputy sheriffs, teenagers and old men, occasionally even housewives and mothers found themselves at the business end of a shotgun or a .38 revolver. Yet, since western historians tend to portray violence as essentially episodic--frontier gunfights, range wars, vigilante movements, and the like--solid data has been hard to come by. As a beginning point for actually measuring lethal violence and assessing the administration of justice, here at last is a detailed and well-documented study of homicide in the American West. Comparing data from representative areas--Douglas County, Nebraska; Las Animas County, Colorado; and Gila County, Arizona--this book reveals a level of violence far greater than many historians have believed, even surpassing eastern cities like New York and Boston. Clashing cultures and transient populations, a boomtown mentality, easy availability of alcohol and firearms: these and many other factors come under scrutiny as catalysts in the violence that permeated the region. By comparing homicide data, including coroner's inquests, indictments, plea bargains, and sentences across both racial and regional lines, the book also offers persuasive evidence that criminal justice systems of the Old West were weighted heavily in favor of defendants who were white and against those who were African American, Native American, or Mexican. Packed with information, this is a book for students and scholars of western history, social history, criminology, and justice studies. Western history buffs will be captivated by colorful anecdotes about the real West, where guns could and did blaze over anything from love trysts to vendettas to too much foam on the beer. From whatever perspective, all readers are sure to find here a well-constructed framework for understanding the West as it was and for interpreting the region as it moves into the future.

Making of the American West

Making of the American West PDF Author: Benjamin H. Johnson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1851097686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
A richly researched, evocative account of the individuals and institutions involved in the settling of the non-Indian West—and of the impact of the development of the West on the nation as a whole. Making of the American West surveys the experiences of major social groups in the lands from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from the United States' penetration of the region in the early 19th century to its incorporation into national political, economic, and cultural fabric by the early 20th century. This revealing volume offers fascinating portraits of the people and institutions that drove the Western conquest (traders and trappers, ranchers and settlers, corporations, the federal government), as well as of those who resisted conquest or hoped for the emergence of a different society (Indian peoples, Latinos, Asians, wage laborers). Throughout, expert contributors continually return to the growing myth of the West and the impact of its promise of freedom and opportunity on those who sought to "Americanize" it.

American West

American West PDF Author: Karen R. Jones
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The American West used to be a story of gunfights, glory, wagon trails, and linear progress. Historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner and Hollywood movies such as Stagecoach (1939) and Shane (1953) cast the trans-Mississippi region as a frontier of epic proportions where 'savagery' met 'civilization' and boys became men.During the late 1980s, this old way of seeing the West came under heavy fire. Scholars such as Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White forged a fresh story of the region, a new vision of the West, based around the conquest of peoples and landscapes.This book explores the bipolar world of Turner's Old West and Limerick's New West and reveals the values and ambiguities associated with both historical traditions. Sections on Lewis and Clark, the frontier and the cowboy sit alongside work on Indian genocide and women's trail diaries. Images of the region as seen through the arcade Western, Hollywood film and Disney theme parks confirm the West as a symbolic and contested landscape.Tapping into popular fascination with the Cowboy, Hollywood movies, the Indian Wars, and Custer's Last Stand, the authors show the reader how to deconstruct the imagery and reality surrounding Western history.Key Features*Uses popular subjects (the Cowboy, Hollywood westerns, the Indian Wars, and Custer's Last Stand) to enliven the text*Includes 13 b+w illustrations*Interdisciplinary approach covers film, literature, art and historical artefacts

Yosemite and the High Sierra

Yosemite and the High Sierra PDF Author: Adam Randolph Collings
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.)
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description