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In Reply to: RE: Westerns to cinema are like hot dogs to dining posted by Victor Khomenko on January 29, 2010 at 11:50:14
thrillers can be art but the majority are tripe---yet, is that any different from any other genre?
NO! Westerns are NOT fast food but they are distillations, reductions of violent human emotions and desires, true examples of what happens in a "laissez-faire" situation, both socially, economically, and morally.
I believe it was Samuel Johnson that said courage is the most important of all virtues because without it, no other is possible. In Westerns, courage is always the main theme.
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Given the simple primitives from which a typical western is assembled, it does not raise to status of art... good artisanship, yes. Which is not to say someone might not try to bring art into this simple endeavor, but that would be a great exception rather than a rule, and I don't recall any such work. The theme or courage alone is not much, and it is easy to be courageous when you can fire twenty shots from a six-shot revolver and hit thirty bad guys.
Seriously... most of all it reminds me of pro wrestling. A tad above, yes... :)
to a century of American history located in a massive geographical zone?
Critics as great as have put ink to paper more properly compare the American Western to Greek drama. That is worth discussion.
What do they know?
somehow has more artistic gravitas?
C'mon.
Trying to puzzle me to death?
bands of criminals, grasping cattle barons, exacerbated by the fact that injuries would find no readily available medical attention, and, additionally, that little organized or effective law enforcement existed, untreatable diseases including those from livestock were common---- well, I'd argue that proves a very interesting crucible in which to observe human nature. In contrast, we have today's world with all of its "improvements" all leading to more civilization and certainly less dramatic possibilities.
I still have no idea why and for what end.
You seem to be saying that the particular period in some country's history, being a difficult one, automatically means one can only depict it in primitive cliche ways. I see no logic in that statement.
Mankind history has seen MANY periods of incredible struggle, suffering, upheaval. All of those have been depicted in various works of art in both good and bad ways. There is absolutely no reason why one could not tell a Wild West story in a serious, and artistic way, the fact it was not done (to my memory) is just the reflection of tradition and smart mass-marketing.
main characters portrayed in "The Searchers" by John Wayne and Monty Clift were such? How about Eastwood's in "Forgiven"? Or Alan Ladd's in "Shane?" Or the Randolph Scott character I describe above in the Budd Boetticher film?
Sure, only a tiny percentage of Westerns are very good but that holds for all types of film, certainly.
My point about corporate America is that it necessarily is no more complex than the Western "world"--- and certainly no more interesting, excepting the familiarity.
Perhaps you can expand upon your assertion?
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