The Quick, the Dead
and the Revived: The Many Lives of the Western Film
Author: Joseph Maddrey
Publisher: McFarland
Pages: 204
Photos: 68
Appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Softcover (7 x 10) 2016
Available June 6, 2016
For well more than a century, Western films have embodied
the United States’ most fundamental doctrine—expansionism—and depicted, in a
uniquely American way, the archetypal battle between good and evil. Westerns
also depict a country defined and re-defined by complex crises. World War II
transformed the genre as well as the nation’s identity. Since then, Hollywood
filmmakers have been fighting America’s ideological wars onscreen by
translating modern-day politics into the timeless mythology of the Old West.
This book surveys the most iconic and influential Westerns, examines Hollywood
stars and their political stripes and reveals the familiar Westerns
tropes—which became elements in popular action, science fiction and horror
films. This then sets the stage for the Western revival of the 1990s and a
period of reinvention in the 21st century.
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