Read complete books and articles on: Western Films

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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Western Films

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The American West in Film: Critical Approaches to the Western » Read Now
by Jon Tuska. 304 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Western films--History and criticism. I. Title...1. Critical Theories about Western Films 3 2. The Structure...wholly devoted to the...
2.

West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns » Read Now
by Jane Tompkins. 256 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned by literary critics. Now, in West of Everything, Tompkins shows how popular novels and films of the...
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A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned by literary critics. Now, in West of Everything, Tompkins shows how popular novels and films of the American west have shaped the emotional lives of people in our time. Into this world full of violence and manly courage, the world of John Wayne and Louis L'Amour, Tompkins takes her readers, letting them feel what the hero feels, endure what he endures. Writing with sympathy, insight, and respect, she probes the main elements of the Western--its preoccupation with death, its barren landscapes, galloping horses, hard-bitten men and marginalized women--revealing the view of reality and code of behavior these features contain. She considers the Western hero's attraction to pain, his fear of women and language, his desire to dominate the environment--and to merge with it. In fact, Tompkins argues, for better or worse Westerns have taught us all--men especially--how to behave. It was as a reaction against popular women's novels and women's invasion of the public sphere that Westerns originated, Tompkins maintains. With Westerns, men were reclaiming cultural territory, countering the inwardness, spirituality, and domesticity of the sentimental writers, with a rough and tumble, secular, man-centered world. Tompkins brings these insights to bear in considering film classics such as Red River and Lonely Are the Brave, and novels such as Louis L'Amour's Last of the Breed and Owen Wister's The Virginian. In one of the most moving chapters (chosen for Best American Essays of 1991), Tompkins shows how the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, killer of Native Americans and charismatic star of the Wild West show, evokes the contradictory feelings which the Western typically elicits--horror and fascination with violence, but also love and respect for the romantic ideal of the cowboy. Whether interpreting a photograph of John Wayne of meditating on the slaughter of cattle, Jane Tompkins writes with humor, compassion, and a provocative intellect. Her book will appeal to many Americans who read or watch Westerns, and to all those interested in a serious approach to popular culture.
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3.

The Western: From Silents to Cinerama » Read Now
by George N. Fenin, William K. Everson. 366 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...novels inspired a few one-shot Western films, such as Powder- smoke Range...appearing in an increasing number of films. The Western theme is no more being exploited...over...
4.

A Guide to Silent Westerns » Read Now
by Larry Langman. 584 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This comprehensive film guide lists the screen credits and provides synopses of more than 5,400 silent western features, documentaries, shorts and serials released from the 1890s through 1930. These westerns came from both the major and lesser known American film studios, many long defunct. Four...
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This comprehensive film guide lists the screen credits and provides synopses of more than 5,400 silent western features, documentaries, shorts and serials released from the 1890s through 1930. These westerns came from both the major and lesser known American film studios, many long defunct. Four appendices include a list of all the serials included in the book, a list of all the northern westerns, a list of the titles and stars of the major western series, and a list of the important western epics. The work is completed with an actor/director/screenwriter index.
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5.

Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail » Read Now
by Peter Stanfield. 260 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
6.

The Cowboy Way: The Western Leader in Film, 1945-1995 » Read Now
by Ralph Lamar Turner, Robert J. Higgs. 245 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Analyzing a sample of 25 films, including such notables as Red River, Shane, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch, Wyatt Earp, and Dances with Wolves, this work examines traditional leadership theories as reflected in the western film genre. The western vividly portrays a variety of leadership styles, motifs...
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Analyzing a sample of 25 films, including such notables as Red River, Shane, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch, Wyatt Earp, and Dances with Wolves, this work examines traditional leadership theories as reflected in the western film genre. The western vividly portrays a variety of leadership styles, motifs, and characteristics giving a unique perspective on several traditional leadership theories. The different leadership styles the films exhibit are categorized and described through content analysis. Some of the concepts and underlying theories and styles reveal a universal quality about leadership that transcends theoretical research. As a cultural study that traces the relative popularity of leadership styles, this work provides new insight toward studying leadership effectiveness.
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7.

Handbook of American Film Genres (Chap. 3 "The Western") » Read Now
by Wes D. Gehring. 412 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical...
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"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical, melodrama, the social problem film, the biographical film, and the art film. The discussion of fine comedy genres by Gehring himself is far more extensive than in other genre studies, embracing screwball comedy, populist comedy, parody, black humor, and clown comedy. . . . Recommended for both undergraduate and graduate collections." Choice
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8.

John Ford's Stagecoach » Read Now
by Barry Keith Grant. 243 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Stagecoach is one of the classics of Hollywood cinema. Made in 1939, it revitalized the Western genre, served as a milestone for John Ford's career, and made John Wayne a star. This volume offers a rich overview of the film in essays by six leading film critics. Approaching Stagecoach from a variety...
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Stagecoach is one of the classics of Hollywood cinema. Made in 1939, it revitalized the Western genre, served as a milestone for John Ford's career, and made John Wayne a star. This volume offers a rich overview of the film in essays by six leading film critics. Approaching Stagecoach from a variety of critical perspectives, it considers it within the contexts of authorship, genre, American history and culture. It also examines the film's commentary on race, class, gender and democracy, while remaining attentive to the film's artistry.
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9.

The Western as Male Soap Opera: John Ford's 'Rio Grande,' in The Journal of Men's Studies » Read Now
by Robert D. Leighninger Jr. 14 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
10.

The Same Old Others: The Western, Lonesome Dove, and the Lingering Difficulty of Difference, in Velvet Light Trap » Read Now
by Steve Fore. 14 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...miscellaneous Dirty Harry films have all outgrossed...generally agreed that the western is the Hollywood...self-consciously old-fashioned films of the Star...
11.

Whose Home on the Range? Finding Room for Native Americans, African Americans and Latino Americans in the Revisionist Western, in MELUS » Read Now
by Donald Hoffman. 15 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
12.

The Dark Mirror: German Cinema between Hitler and Hollywood (Chap. 4 "Siegfried Rides Again: Nazi Westerns and Modernity") » Read Now
by Lutz Koepnick. 325 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"Lutz Koepnick's "The Dark Mirror provides one of the finest, most compelling and suggestive accounts to date of the multiple locations of German cinema between Hitler and Hollywood. Charting the shifting relationships between institutional contexts and individual acts of reception, Koepnick...
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"Lutz Koepnick's "The Dark Mirror provides one of the finest, most compelling and suggestive accounts to date of the multiple locations of German cinema between Hitler and Hollywood. Charting the shifting relationships between institutional contexts and individual acts of reception, Koepnick persuasively shows how the German cinema and its filmmakers--both in exile and in Nazi Germany--contributed to a fragile, stratified, indeed, "nonsynchronous" public sphere."--Patrice Petro, author of "Aftershocks of the New: Feminism and Film History
"Lutz Koepnick's brilliant study debunks the received wisdom concerning Nazi German and Hollywood film of the 1930s and 40s. Using detailed analyses of 8 films, with special focus on sound and music, he insists upon the disjointed contexts and uneven relationships of American and German filmmaking. Historically nuanced and theoretically savvy, this remarkable book offers something for everyone: Americanists, Germanists, historians, students of cinema sound and music, those interested in debates between art and popular forms, and European and Hollywood production."--Caryl Flinn, author of "Strains of Utopia
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13.

Overhearing Film Dialogue (Chap. 4 "Dialogue in the Western") » Read Now
by Sarah Kozloff. 323 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, "When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue." Little serious work has been done on the subject of film...
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Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, "When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue." Little serious work has been done on the subject of film dialogue, yet what characters say and how they say it has been crucial to our experience and understanding of every film since the coming of sound. Through informative discussions of dozens of classic and contemporary films--from "Bringing Up Baby" to "Terms of Endearment," from "Stagecoach" to "Reservoir Dogs"--this lively book provides the first full-length study of the use of dialogue in American film.
Sarah Kozloff shows why dialogue has been neglected in the analysis of narrative film and uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact. She uses narrative theory and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film.
The second part of the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role and nature of dialogue in four film genres: westerns, screwball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas. Focusing on topics such as class and ethnic dialects, censorship, and the effect of dramatic irony, Kozloff provides an illuminating new perspective on film genres.
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14.

Poised between Savagery and Civilization: Forging Political Communities in Ford's Westerns, in Perspectives on Political Science » Read Now
by Jeanne Heffernan. 5 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
15.

Who Shot the Sheriff? The Rise and Fall of the Television Western » Read Now
by J. Fred MacDonald. 162 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This book is a study of the rise and fall of an American genre of entertainment and communication whose symbols and rhetoric helped define American society for decades. Flourishing in the 1950s and 1960s, the television Western has deteriorated to the point where it is now irrelevant and...
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This book is a study of the rise and fall of an American genre of entertainment and communication whose symbols and rhetoric helped define American society for decades. Flourishing in the 1950s and 1960s, the television Western has deteriorated to the point where it is now irrelevant and meaningless. Tracing the evolution of the Western from the late 1940s to the 1980s, MacDonald ties the genre to the political innocence and confidence of the Cold War years and suggests that the social reevaluations that began in the 1960s undermined the believability of Westerns and their entertainment value.
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