would that exclude Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? Id say thats a western. Or maybe it would fall into Americana, like There Will Be Blood

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

Is Unforgiven a Western? Is William Munny a good guy?

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Unforgiven is definitely NOT a Western. It's a morality play that happens to be set in the West.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is closer to being a Western. Because even though it isn't historic, they're written as fun-loving good guys in the movie. Robin Hoods who rob the robber barons.

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

Well, after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (and that's the name of the film; I'm not trying to be all judgey), many Westerns are morally ambiguous, with no real good guys.

I read a piece about Westerns once that really changed the way I looked at them. The writer argues that for a film (or book) to be an authentic Western, it has to grapple, to some degree, with Manifest Destiny, the racial succession issues, the cattlemen vs. the sodbusters (like Drunk Squirrel, Dr. Ken, and K Effective), rugged individualism and its ideological baggage, or the constant advance of Americans and modern American culture and business, from Colts and Winchesters to the railroad. Other films might be shootouts, the writer says, but if they don't grapple with history, they simply have a Western setting. I'll have to re-read it.

It's strange, because in so many Westerns, there's the feeling that "this is all ending." The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and Shane are two such examples, as are John Ford movies, too. I also see this sometimes in The Virginian. Of course, that theme is built-in because we are looking back, but still. Or there is the similar feeling that we have to take care of our own problems now, but civilization is a-comin' soon.

Many Westerns, of course, have that moral clarity. And not just the old ones. People enjoy that, and I'm surprised that we don't see more of them, given the moral climate (TM and Drunk Squirrel had good posts about this climate). Some of the Westerns set in the present-day (Cormac McCarthy stories, Australian Westerns, films like Hell of High Water, episode one of the Mike Tyson Mysteries) have both moral clarity and moral ambiguity.

I'd say that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is definitely a Western, as it deals with some of the last holdouts battling against the proto-typical American corporation (the railroad). I didn't really like it, though. My wife has a much different opinion. I mean, I look at the two actors, and they look like regular guys. Apparently, they are 10/10s.

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Yes. It's the end of the Wild West.

They're all bad (except the women).

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Here's my argument. Due to the American fascination with the Old West, the genre was set there in early films, thus the term "Western" arose. But the location and/or time period is really not an important quality of a Western.

For example, Star Wars is a Western that just happens to be set in space. If you used the same exact script but set it in the West with Darth as a cattle baron and Luke as a small rancher, it would really be the same exact movie. And for sure you'd call it a Western. In fact, The Jack Bull- may actually be Star Wars.

But the same thing also works in reverse. If you took the Do The Right Thing script and moved the location to 1850s California and made Mookie and Buggin' Out and Radio Raheem Chinese railroad workers and Sal the guy who ran the company store, it would be the same exact movie and it still wouldn't be a Western.

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The Western is such an old man genre. The only "recent" one, to whatever extent it is a Western, that's any good is Unforgiven.

3:10 to Yuma is a good recent one.

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There’s been some remakes that weren’t terrible (Magnificent 7 and True Grit). Hateful Eight may not fit the earlier definition of a Western but was entertaining.

Logan was arguably a western and was pretty good.

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Silverado, love it.

I’ve put more back to sod than I’ve taken from sod. Range wars was interesting and of course sheep bs cattle. Many a ranch that was built on sheep was lost on cattle by a rancher’s grandkids vanity project. Probably less true after the US army wool program was stopped though.

early premise for the 1923 series. Sheep v. Cattle grazing land

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

The Searchers is a western.

I wouldn't call John Wayne a hero in that. He's an outcast racist that has no place in the societal changes.

That's why he doesn't walk into the house at the end and walks away alone because he knows he doesn't belong in there with that family.

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Ethan Edwards was a hero. Indians were still considered savages in 1956.

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

That's the thing really about "heroes" and "outcasts". In real life as well as fictional portrayals, the same person can make many jumps between the heroism and bad deeds displayed. There was a reason why Wayne in the Searchers was the way he was and that was the fact in his mind and those of his background about the way white women who were captured by the Indians changed and how modern society might have to end up dealing with them?

But at the same time, we didn't like Wayne for his assessment of the captured girl, how can one not admire Wayne as the "Searcher" for what he heroically ended up doing.

Wayne played several other characters similar to his role in the Searchers such as the Shootist and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Eastwood also did this several times.

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Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
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With the big iron on his hip

Speaking about the portrayal of Indians and their treatment by whites, how about the job that the series 1923 Yellowstone is doing with the Catholic Indian Reservation Schools after WWI. As a Catholic, I've got to say, that I am really shocked that that was what was really going on but I do believe it. Pretty powerful stuff.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

I saw this movie last night for the first time in at least 25 years and had a blast. Yes, it's a paint by numbers Western, but it's loaded with great actors and has some snappy dialogue. I always held it in the same esteem as Young Guns or Tombstone, but I think it's a cut above those movies.