The Hollywood Western is strikingly similar to the tales and poetry about the Knights of old Europe. Like the cowboy or gunfighter, the knight wanders from place to place on his horse, fighting villains and restoring justice according to his own code of honor. And like the knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress. The Western genre combines these elements to tell tales of justice and morality.
The Hollywood Western
Some of the greatest Westerns were directed by John Ford and Howard Hawks. The Stagecoach is remembered for the incredibly daring stuntman who rolled under the stagecoach horses’ thundering hooves. It was a huge hit in the box office and shot John Wayne into stardom. John Ford became well-known for his exceptional Westerns; The Searchers, Rio Grande, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance, How the West Was Won, and Fort Apache, among many others. Howard Hawks, who frequently worked with William Faulkner, also found success in the Western genre with films like; Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Red River, and Sergeant York. Anthony Mann was a tour de force with Winchester ’73, A Far Country and The Man from Laramie. Interestingly enough, the Western mirrored American foreign policy; the US adopting the role of the cowboy: coming to a foreign land to bring justice and to liberate the oppressed.
Many Western films after the mid-1950s were influenced by Akira Kurosawa. For instance, The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and both A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing were remakes of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which itself was inspired by Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns and was a fan of the genre, particularly John Ford.
The Spaghetti Western
The Western Genre has been revamped into many subgenres including the Spaghetti Western, which was made famous by Sergio Leone in films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, A FistFul of Dollars and A Few Dollars More. Generally, the Spaghetti Western was more violent than the Hollywood Western and the protagonist more selfish. Charles Bronson, Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood found their fame in the low-budget Italian Spaghetti Westerns. Spaghetti Westerns, perhaps influenced by the political events of the 1960s, crossed over into the acid genre along with other Western subgenres.
The Acid Western
The Acid Western evolved out of the 1960s and 70s, giving an existentialist spin to the Western genre. Alejandro Jodorowsky's innovative experimental film El Topo is a cult Western and underground film about a violent gunfighter's quest for enlightenment. Enzo Castellari’s mystical Spaghetti Western Keoma was in dialogue with Ingmar Bergman’s existentialist Seventh Seal. Jim Jarmusch also tried his hand at the Acid Western with Dead Man.
Western meets War
Most recently, the Spaghetti Western genre was superimposed on a World War II story; Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino. Through an exciting use of the genre, Tarantino demonstrated the US, “cowboy”, reaction to the Nazi threat. Tarantino’s film is a remake of a Spaghetti Western of Castellari’s, Quel Maledetto Tremo Blindato.
The Western genre has been modified into many subgenres and continues to evolve into new and exciting films; such as Inglourious Basterds. Where it had once seemed that Westerns had lost their audience, there came a new wave of the genre to entertain us, including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Brokeback Mountain, Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and Chinaman’s Chance.
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