Late Westerns

The Persistence of a Genre

Inbunden, Engelska, 2018

789 kr

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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.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2018-12-01
Mått152 x 229 x 22 mm
Vikt649 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SeriePostwestern Horizons
Antal sidor336
FörlagUniversity of Nebraska Press
ISBN9781496201966

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List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Same, Yet Always DifferentI. Enigmas of GenreII. “Postwestern”?III. Thematic ShiftsIV. BordersV. Conclusion: AnticipationsCh. 1. Ghostly Evocations in Bad Day At Black RockI. An Alien WorldII. A Craven TownIII. Menace and MasculinityIV. Conclusion: False ResolutionsCh 2. Catching the 3:10 to YumaI. A Minimalist StyleII. Conflict and ImplicationIII. Mangling PlotIV. Conclusion: ClaustrophobiasCh 3. Border-Crossing in Lone StarI. Temporal and GenerationalII. Legal and CulturalIII. CinematicIV. Conclusion: “Forget the Alamo”?Ch 4. Alternative Facts in The Three Burials of Melquiades EstradaI. Corpses and QuestionsII. Disquieting SequencesIII. Gestures and ScenesIV. Conclusion: The Journey to JiménezCh 5. Defying Expectations in A History of Violence and Brokeback MountainI. Family LineamentsII. Suasive SyntaxIII. Shifting IdentitiesIV. Misleading SemanticsV. Conclusion: Identities DeniedCh 6. Dueling Genres in No Country for Old MenI. Disappearing LandscapesII. Inscrutable CloseupsIII. Angling UpIV. Conclusion: Western UndoneCh 7. Subverting Late Westerns in The CounselorI. Rapacious VisionaryII. Cautions, Costs, and CloseupsIII. Fragmentation and QuietismIV. Conclusion: Implicating ViewersEpilogue: Habits of ImaginationNotesBibliography

“Late Westerns offers a helpful and timely contribution to an important and growing area in the field of Western film studies, one anchored in the broader field of genre studies. All of the chapters are expertly written in a confident and highly readable style and, furthermore, indicate the work of a scholar completely in charge of his subject matter.”-Matthew Carter, senior lecturer in film at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Myth of the Western: New Perspectives on Hollywood’s Frontier Narrative