The Evolution of the Western: Mythic Heroes to Gritty Realism

In the 1930s, Hollywood perfected the "Wild West" formula, painting the frontier as an exotic frontier awaiting conquest, while one-dimensional heroes and outlaws settled scores with a single bullet. In this course, we contrast these early idealistic heroes with the complex, cynical "hombres" of later decades. We view iconic film clips from The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Searchers, High Noon, Stagecoach, and Unforgiven, and compare the “classic” American Western of crafted tales of valor and justice as defined by directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks with the cynical hombres and stylized violence of later decades presented by Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah.