Late Westerns: The Persistence of a Genre (Postwestern Horizons)

Synopsis

For more than a century the cinematic Western has been America’s most familiar genre, always teetering on the verge of exhaustion and yet regularly revived in new forms. Why does this outmoded vehicle—with the most narrowly based historical setting of any popular genre—maintain its appeal? In Late Westerns Lee Clark Mitchell takes a position against those critics looking to attach “post” to the all-too-familiar genre. For though the frontier disappeared long ago, though men on horseback have become commonplace, and though films of all sorts have always, necessarily, defied generic patterns, the Western continues to enthrall audiences. It does so by engaging narrative expectations stamped on our collective consciousness so firmly as to integrate materials that might not seem obviously “Western” at all. Through plot cues, narrative reminders, and even cinematic frameworks, recent films shape interpretive understanding by triggering a long-standing familiarity audiences have with the genre. Mitchell’s critical analysis reveals how these films engage a thematic and cinematic border-crossing in which their formal innovations and odd plots succeed deconstructively, encouraging by allusion, implication, and citation the evocation of generic meaning from ingredients that otherwise might be interpreted quite differently. Applying genre theory with close cinematic readings, Mitchell posits that the Western has essentially been “post” all along.

Copyright:

2018

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781496210692

Related ISBNs:

9781496201966

Publisher:

UNP - Nebraska Paperback

Date of Addition:

12/01/18

Copyrighted By:

University of Nebraska Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Westerns, Art and Architecture, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.