The Cinematic Tour: The Mythic West through Classic Westerns

The Cinematic Tour: The Mythic West through Classic Westerns

by Chris Lewis, Ph.D.

"The West is both a modern myth and a real place.
The Western Myth in both novels and films have
made it harder for us to understand the American
West. It is even harder to understand the West
because it is so deeply connected with American
manhood, democracy, and our deepest hopes.
John Wayne and Ronald Reagan's America is
still our American Dream. In the West everything
is still possible, if we are just good enough, strong
enough, and daring enough. "
........................................................Chris Lewis, Ph.D.

"Our basic myth is that of the frontier. Our hero is the frontiersman. To become urban is to break the spirit of man. Freedom is out on the plains, under endless sky. A pent-in American ceases to be an American... [Wayne's roles] "created an idea of
what manhood is in the minds of a majority of America. "
.....................Garry Wills, John Wayne's America (1997)
American Progress (1872)
American Indian Tribes (1600)
Turner's Frontier Thesis (1893)
How the West was Won (1962)
Popular Western Novelists that have
shaped the Western Myth
Classic Western Movies
Jane Tompkins on the Western Hero
The West and Male Identity
Bedtime for Brezhnev
George W. Bush as the Gunfighter President
Red River (1948)
Pale Rider (1985)
The Searchers (1956)
Shane (1953)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Patty Limerick on Real Westerners, from
The Legacy of Conquest (1987):

"Male or female, white Westerners were both sinned against and sinning. One person's reward often meant another person's loss; white opportunity meant Indian dispossesion. Real Westerners, contrary to the old divisions between good guys and bad guys, combined
the roles of victim and villain." (54)
Costner's Open Range (2003) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007) proves that the Western myth is still very much alive in the 21st century.

Jane Tompkins on the Western Hero

"Physical sensation are the bedrock of the
experience Westerns afford." (p. 3)

"The feeling of being "in a Western" -- the kind
of experience that is and the effects it has--are
what I am attempting to record." (p. 6)

"...You know when you're in a Western." (p. 7)

Why aren't Indians a part of most Westerns?
Does their absence tell us something about the
Western and its meaning?

"It says that the hero is tough and strong, that
the West made him that way...." (p. 11)

Hard work, self-discipline, strength, determination,
concentration, pain, skill, ingenuity, and bravery
are all required of the Western hero.

The Western [and the West] "called the whole
soul of man into being; that is what, in their
way, the novels of Louis L'Amour aim to do."
(p. 15)

"Westerns created a model for men who came
of age in the twentieth century. The model was
not for women but for men: Westerns insist on
this point by emphasizing the importance of
manhood as an ideal." (p. 17)

"What matters it that he be a man. That is the
only side to be on." (p. 18)

"The expression is one of fear, distaste,
determination, and inward pain. It is impossible
not to share that pain with Western heroes if
one is to understand them." (p. 19)

Popular Western Novelists that have
shaped the Myth

James Fenmore Cooper: The Pioneers (1826), The Pathfinder (1840)

Ned Buntline, Charles Averill, and Prentiss Ingraham
cranked out 100s of between the 1840s and the 1890s.

Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902)

Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912)

Max Brand, The Untamed (1921)

Jack Shaefer, Shane (1949)

Louie LaMour, Hondo (1953)

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (1985)

Elmer Kelton, The Far Canyon (1994)

Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy (1999)

Classic Western Movies

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

The Iron Horse (1924)

Tumbleweeds (1925)

Riders of the Purple Sage (1931)

Stagecoach (1939)

The Virginian (1946)

Red River (1948)

The Gunfighter (1950)

High Noon (1952)

The Bend of the River (1952)

Shane (1953)

Hondo (1953)

The Searchers (1956)

How the West was Won (1962)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Pale Rider (1985)

Unforgiven (1992)

Open Range (2003)

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

The Western and Male Identity

The Marlboro Myth
Good recent books on the Western and Male Identity

1. West of Everything, by Jane Tompkins (1992)
2. Sixguns and Society, by Will Wright (1977)
3. Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West
in Popular Culture, ed. by Richard Aquila (1996)
4. Gunfighter Nation, by Richard Slotkin (1998)
5. John Wayne's America , by Garry Wills (1997)
5. The Western: Making the Man in Fiction and Film (1998)
The Western: An Overiew, by Gary Johnson
The Myth and Pre-History of the Silent Western