Talk About...Is the Western Dead?
Westerns are dead, say Peter Bart and Peter Guber on the latest Shootout (Oct. 19 @ 11AM | 10C). But Todd McCarthy, chief film critic for Variety magazine, says that just as war movies and Greek and Roman epics made comebacks, Westerns shouldn't be counted out just yet.
Westerns made a good showing this year with The Assassination of Jesse James and 3:10 to Yuma. Although they did not break any box office records, McCarthy says they were still good films, and young stars love to use guns and dress up in chaps. In addition, the TV series Deadwood and AMC's original movie Broken Trail were smash hits.
Guber disagrees, saying that TV doesn't count and that there have been no blockbuster westerns in the past 20 years, aside from a few scattered hits like The Unforgiven and Dances With Wolves.
Bart says that the myths underpinning westerns have faded, and everyone knows what really happened to the Indians, who can't be the bad guys anymore. On top of that, every possible plot has already been explored.
What do you think? Is the Western still alive and well? Or should we stick a fork in it? Let us know in a comment.
No Westerns aren't dead!! I live in Northern
Nevada and the West is still very much alive.
Western's are a big part of many people's
lives. I personally know of younger children
who love Cowboy hats etc. We get tourists
who buy Western Wear to take back home with them.
People visit from as far as Japan and
want to be Cowboys.
The western is far from dead to those who want to pay to go to the movies and not just sit back and listen to one's self spout eliteiest babble.
In fact, 3:10 to Yuma has now made $51,535,461, not the $40,000,000 Peter Bart and Peter Guber kept claiming. When is the last time Guber or Bart made $40M? It was very apparent Bart and Guber hate westerns. Their tone of voice and facial expressions suggested they saw the western as a 2nd rate movie form for 2nd rate movie goers.
I went back and looked a the box office ticket sales for all of 2007 and 3:10 to Yuma was ranked #12 as of Nov. 12, 2007. That can only mean that many of Bart and Guber's friends in the movie business must have produced or directed high-brow stinkers.
You guys are so out of touch it is not worth me watching any more. Go watch a movie in Middle America some day and get off your high horse.
"Guber disagrees, saying that TV doesn't count and that there have been no blockbuster westerns in the past 20 years, aside from a few scattered hits like The Unforgiven and Dances With Wolves."
So, besides the blockbuster westerns, there haven't been any blockbuster westerns in the last 20 years?
There's an ingenius argument.
I never cared for many westerns other than Leone's spaghetti westerns and Tombstone. I saw 3:10 to Yuma (both the old and the remake) and fell in love with the genre. It just takes the right actors, writers, and directors to make a watchable Western. They need to find ways to keep the genre fresh and exciting though or else no one will pay to see them.
But the Western is not dead by any means. It's just been buried alive by filmmakers who'd rather bombard us with stupid rehashes of classic premises as well as sexual comedies, horror remakes, spoof films that aren't funny, and big effects films that lack character-depth and good ol' fashioned storytelling.