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Reviving the westerns

Postby ChainLightnin' » Wed Aug 01, 2007 5:56 pm

Chilli mentioned last night in a game that most of the players are not youngsters, because they probably haven't seen most of the great old western movies, that many of us grew up with. Can you remember when just about every kid in town had a shiny pair of Lone Ranger cap guns and holsters, etc? There sure are plenty of pirate hats, swords and games, thanks to Jack Sparrow. You couldn't find a pirate game for years. Could Russell Crowe's new western start a new generation of Western fans & players? It would be cool. I also think it's interesting that nearly all of the authentic replicas of old western guns are made in Italy or Germany. From the Spagetttis, I imagine? 8)
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Postby EvilFutsin » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:16 pm

I get the feeling the western genre will not see a resurgence until we see an era that has so much similarity to it. Also keep in mind the western did so well originally because the wild west had not entirely died out just yet. People into the 1920s were still living like bandits, going from town to town like a bunch of ruffians. That kind of behavior really seemed to die out with Peckinpah and his usual film crew.

The one case that helped revitalize the western in my eyes was the anime Cowboy Bebop. Before anyone jumps on me and says, "but it's science fiction" or "it's Japanese, WTH are you talking about?!" lemme explain that in essence, the series treated Mars and the newly colonized planets (I believe a couple of episodes take place on Jupiter, if I remember right) as the new frontier. (and yes, Joss Whedon's Firefly did the same thing to an even more aesthetic point) The point of what made the western interesting (I'm not trying to argue an opinion, but I find this is the case in terms of why it works with people) is that it wasn't just the cowboys & bandits/Indians/whatever factor, it wasn't the look of the guns, it wasn't the way the towns were built, so on. It was because this new frontier, this new land, this enviornment was fascinating. It's about living in this place and blazing trails. In a lot of ways, it's also about how you have to build up a civilization from what you have. They used the land of lawlessness, lack of Government enforcement to the way-out fringes, and even just the new concept of "freedom," to do stories based on the bare, raw, emotionally riveting essentials. Survival of the fittest, battling against a new enemy, something humanity finds so fascinating because of our ability to adapt to new places and situations. We had stories of intricate greed and plots from both our heroes and our villians to "get the gold" or get some good ol' fashioned revenge.

Now as much as modern film, especially the first stages of the modern action film, have been influenced by what came before in all of these westerns (good or bad) - there is the factor that what then makes the western unique is how it uses its frontier/wild west/outlaw backdrop.

This is partly why the spaghetti westerns were great, they started to overtly dramatize this concept in ways that had not been done before. Many of them were experimental to almost a fault (I'd say this of Parolini's work, for sure), trying new things whether or not they'd fail, and branched out into new territory. They also began to make the unrealistic/false backdrop of Almeria not into just some "typical falsity of filmmaking" but used it as a way of making the western even more of a mythical, iconic thing. The desert became harsher than even sometimes was necessary and it seemed almost impossible to survive in that place. So then you have this atmosphere that just envelops you and feels like a new world altogether, seperate from the real old west, the real deserts here in America.

And now coming up to today, I think it's easy to see why Westerns don't do well with the younger generation. Today there's two, maybe three, types of westerns.

There's the first type, the most commonly known type, which is the REALISTIC western. The Unforgiven. Open Range. Broken Trail. Into The West. This is the grim, sometimes gritty, often realistic and historically accurate to the point of being a little dull. They're fantastic pieces of work, though, and I say that Open Range is probably going to be the best western of this decade (unless There Will Be Blood knocks it way out of the park), but the catch is these films are not accessible to a younger audience. They're basically old men westerns, stuff like Ride The High Country, where it's great if you can get into that, but it's primarily targeted at a different audience. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying young people can't like these movies either. I saw Open Range when I was 16, I saw The Long Riders (one of the original prototypes of this) when I was 13, and so on. And I loved them at first sight. So they can be accessed, but we're talking more of the general populace, right?

Notice I said these are "old men" westerns. I'm not meaning to say that young people can't dig characters older than themselves, but when you see the latest case of a western recently, Broken Trail, what is it? I'm gonna be honest and say that it is Grandpa Duvall and Older Uncle Thomas Haden Church. The younger generation now I think needs someone it can relate to. I know it's this way for me and it's one reason myself and my friends go nuts for Firefly, they're very Westerny characters but it's got Joss' relatabiility for us, where their problems and their foibles, as well as their strengths, feel like us.

But the catch is, in the movie world, the "younger" westerns, aside from Serenity (the Firefly movie for those that weren't keeping track - just covering the bases), usually leads to one thing.

American Outlaws.

Let that feeling of absolute and utter horror sink into you for a second there.

Is it there?

Yeah, good. ;)

Now, I dig the flick okay. It's not a great flick, but you know, I like parts of it. But the catch is that it was a western with P.O.D. music in the trailer, so yes, this was targeted at a younger audience. It has "younger" characters and actors. And it's also a horrible film.

This isn't to say that no "younger-generation" westerns could be good. I think the new 3:10 To Yuma is indeed going to fit this bill, being a great bridging gap of age given the two great lead actors, but it's been a long-in-the-making remake. It's not an original film.

When it comes to youth-centric fare, whatever the genre, Hollywood isj ust a bunch of idiots. It's one reason that when you're a pre-teen or a younger teenager, the R-rated stuff seems so awesome. It doesn't talk down to you and it makes you think more. It's not just because it's what the "cool grown-ups" are watching, it just is more cool. Period. =P

So that's one thing that needs to change. We need something that's okay for the kids (since I definitely wouldn't suggest an R-rated western to a 10 year old), but something that isn't....ya know..."gee, I guess this is what the kids like these days, LET'S PUT IT IN THE MOVIE!"

I had material to keep going with this but I got really sidetracked.

There's one more type of western, though, which is the "non-western." As much as we think the western is dead, there's tons of films with elements in them of this type of movie. We talked about "is The Proposition a western?" given its locale is in Australia - well, for sure, it has many of the key elements of one. Then there was Smokin' Aces, which not only used a piece from Ennio Morricone, but had two scenes in particular (the standoff in the elevator and our first glimpse of the Tremor Brothers up close and personal) that felt a lot more like scenes out of a Leone or Corbucci or Sollima film than out of something today. And even the plot itself, which involves FBI, mafia, and so forth - you could easily adapt the story of miscommunication and betrayal to the wild west, a place that would be even more fitting for "bad intelligence" to spread around. And there's tons of other movies I'm sure we could name with elements of the western.

This isn't trying to talk down and say, "take what's there," though. Because truth be told, if I could, I'd start work on a live-action remake of The Final Gunfight tomorrow. I even have a new storyline and concept to work with. And I intend to bring those to life someday.

But right now, in the now, we're gonna have to wait for the resurgence and the changes that must occur for it to happen are plentiful. I suspect it'll be after we're all dead and buried that the world finally says, "ey, westerns rock."

But we do have three coming this fall. The Assassination of Jesse James (By The Coward Robert Ford), There Will Be Blood (which should be out before 2008), and 3:10 To Yuma. That's three. They're all very different films, too. I heard the Jesse James film ended up being a near-3 hour long Terence Malick-style film that had to be cut down which is why it was delayed for awhile. On top of that, There Will Be Blood looks to be a brutal, realistic take on oil tycoons done by one of the best filmmakers of our time (P.T. Anderson of Boogie Nights/ Magnolia fame). And 3:10 To Yuma looks like a stellar return to the action packed western of the 60s and 70s, and should be at least quite entertaining.

So who knows. Maybe that's what we need. The main thing we need for westerns to come back is a hit. A huge freaking hit that grips the entire world, young and old, and reminds us that the west happened and it was a wonderfully interesting time and helluva ride.

That's all I got to say. :D
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Postby ChainLightnin' » Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:48 pm

And I can't image it being better said! The weath of information and understanding in your post is well worth saving. And there are a couple of those movies I don't even have in my collection. OK, I gotta read this again! :D
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Postby L3th4l » Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:06 pm

Gonna have to shut the site down after that post, you filled the database up 8O :D
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Postby ReD NeCKersoN » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:45 am

Well I was just thinking earlier today about how most westerns today are geared towards adults. You stole my thunder! There also aren't any weekly series like Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Rawhide, etc. anymore. :(
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Postby Chainsaw » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:12 am

Thanks a lot Evil, for the thoughtful post. I had to take breaks and look up films, and directors in order to get the most out of it.

By the way, awesome teaser for The Final Gunfight on Archive.org. http://www.archive.org/details/tfg-teaser. Your in-game filming skills are fantastic.

I agree that westerns are geared towards the older crowd, which means they tend to star older people. Also, though, as a whole in our culture right now, the outlaws are the heroes. That is reflected in many of our movies as well. The proposition had no good guys. American Outlaws speaks for itself. Open Range is about a bad man, gone good, reluctantly turning bad again (but for the right reasons this time). And as much as I admire Daniel Day-Lewis' acting skills, he is playing an Oil Baron.

I would sure like to see good portrayed as good again. I worry that in real life, people who put themselves out as good (US Armed Forces, USA as a whole) are perceived as deceptive, and untrustworthy, so our films reflect that. Oh, who will be the next Jimmy Stewart, or Gregory Peck? Those are the westerns I loved. Good vs Evil and you knew which was which.

Anyway, thanks for the post. You always give great food for thought.
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Postby EvilFutsin » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:56 am

To follow-up on Chainsaw's remark of the Good vs. Evil train of thought, I wanna mention something interesting.

When I saw Superman Returns in theaters, it felt amazingly uplifting to see a true "HERO" on the big screen again. Sure, there's some ambiguity with the obviousness of a tryst with Lois hence Supes Jr., but when you see the ache in his heart at the horrible things happening in the world - because he cares - you realize you don't see it in a lot of movies anymore. They do it for empathy, sympathy, for the love of country and family and what matters in life.

Even when we sometimes have good cops or good undercover agents or good spies, there's still that aggressive quality. Look at Casino Royale, which treated the whole aspect of killing "the bad guys" in a very real, very psychologically challenging light, where Bond basically has to use his alcoholism and smoking to just make it over the hump of the fear and the shame and the terror at knowing exactly what he did and knowing he did exactly as he was trained to do, becoming the machine.

Point being, we have stories now where the heroes are conflicted. A lot of the reason for this is because in today's filmmaking, we aren't trying to always show "the ideal" (which in my opinion is a bad thing if taken too far), we're trying to establish the struggle and use conflict to make things interesting, and give the audience a feeling of "overcoming" and transcendence. The problem is it takes great writing to pull that off effectively and a lot of films today are just B.S. formulas. So the point now, and this was something really started in the 90s, is the idea of "TRANSFORMATION" - good becomes better, bad becomes good, so on.

Although this is what's been expected, if you look at how well Hot Fuzz and 300 did (and are going to do on DVD), you notice people are starting to want to root for the 'Good Guy' (or what the movie protrays as the good guy), who can do no wrong or is only brought down by the bad guys, not their inner struggles. I think there is a desire to see that again. The good guy who isn't "wrong."

I think the other problem is adding some kind of character flaw leads to "oh, it can have this arc of transforming into this, or overcoming this, blah blah" - it may sound like Writer Horsedung (and to an extent, it can be), but truly, it does mean something to have those kinds of stories. What's happened now is the formulaization of Hollywood and moviemaking in general has perverted this idea of creating a story with personal impact on the viewer, to inspire them to change through seeing a story of transformation.

So what I mean by that is, some consider to have clear good and evil to be a very boring concept. It's just simple, good conquers evil. But as we all know, being the good guy is not easy in real life. There is so much virtue and so many qualities you have to have, to maintain that goodness in yourself. So, when a GOOD writer (or a great one) thinks of a way of making the Good Guy, who's pure and righteous, go through troubles, they realize there are other ways than just simply making him "hard to deal with" or "have personal foils" whatnot. I'm sorry I go on about this again, but Hot Fuzz is the most recent example I can imagine, with a hero who really is great at what he does, who is the great guy, he just has maybe a little problem of learning to switch off his overactive brain - but in his heart, he always means well.

I think utilizing the western as an outlet for the hero to return, because of history's mythical quality, would be cool. I miss seeing the guy just defending his town, or his family, or his land - not because he's selfish, but because he cares and because he is the hero, he knows it, and he'll go for it until his last dying breath.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now, so I'll stop. :D
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seven

Postby ChainLightnin' » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:37 am

Nobody better laugh. See, my mule don't like it when people laugh at me...but I still like to play the Magnificent Seven every once in a while, one simple reason being that you feel like the good guys won! (and the hotshot kid gets the cute chica). Sure you feel sad when some of the good guys get gunned down, but you still feel good at the end. It's nothing like Unforgiven, but it still works for me. Again, well said, Futsin. Oh, yah, I forgot about all those great TV regulars, Red. We never missed Matt, Kitty, Festus and Dock on Saturday nights! :roll:
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Postby EvilFutsin » Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:16 am

That's how the Magnificent Seven ends? Phew. Very different from its source material. ^_^ (I still haven't gotten around to seeing it, so far the only 7 Samurai-inspired film I've seen is Bug's Life)

Television is also another aspect, but the TV audience today is just...ugh. Don't even get me started. -_-
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seven

Postby ChainLightnin' » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:17 pm

The "village" and the Mexican extras are worth seeing the movie for. It was the real deal. And Eli Wallach! There was some internal stuff going on during the making. Eveyone was trying to upstage Brynner, as he seemed to have control. He had his wedding in the village set right after the filming. Well, hope I didn't give too much of it away! :D
Yah, my nice HD Toshiba gets used for xbox360 and movies, and not much else.
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Re: seven

Postby L3th4l » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:51 pm

ChainLightnin' wrote:
Yah, my nice HD Toshiba gets used for xbox360 and movies, and not much else.


<offtopic> What's your gamer tag, I'll add you to my friends list :D </offtopic>
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Postby Chainsaw » Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:31 pm

After reading Evil Futsin's posts, I had a hankerin' for a newish western. I went and rented Open Range again, and watched it with an eye towards the characters and the way they played to certain ages, etc.

There are basically four cowhands, the Really Old Timer (Duvall), the Old Timer (Costner), the seasoned vet (Benrubi) and the kid (Luna). The Vet is still earning his way into the crowd after years, and they are patronizing towards him. The kid is constantly put down, and belittled, despite that they like him. The movie has this tone that only the old folks really get what is happening. Everyone else in the movie was largely on the older side.

There seems to have been a real shift in Hollywood when they started targeting teens. They started making teens the heroes. Kids could associate, and fantasize, and keep coming back and paying again. When I was a kid (and my father before him) the heroes were men. I think this was healthier, in that it made being a mature, grown-up, shouldering responsibility, etc. an important part of the kid-viewer, role-model hero. Today's teen heroes are largely having an adventure and outsmarting adults, which every teen thinks should be easy. So they indulge the youth into thinking they are right to dismiss adults and believe they are better.

Movies like Open Range, which star not just adults, but folks who are gettin' on in years, are not courting youth. They are courting adults. As such, they seem to be playing into adult stereotypes of youth just as much as the teen alternatives stereotype adults. In this movie, the kid is wet behind the ears, needs looking after, is annoyingly unprepared for real life, etc.

Anyway, I like a good discussion of the underlying frameworks and foundations of art, and this has been a good one. I really enjoyed the movie too. Found it as good this time, as the first time I saw it. Now I can't wait for those other westerns to come out.
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Postby EvilFutsin » Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:36 pm

I think you raise an interesting point how the western is really personifying the "difference in age" more than any other film genre.

To be honest, the issue with films targeted at the younger audience is something I think you get down on the head, they're not having role model figures for them to look up to, someone who helps guide them morally and ethically in their media.

At the same time, I don't think it's a bad thing to sometimes allow the kids to have a hero they can relate to - a kid. The problem is that the stories, as you mention, are them "outsmarting" the adults. They're also usually about them learning to be accepted and "proving themselves" to the world in a way similar to the way society and business politics works in the United States. So yeah, there's a bunch of reasons that's wrong. But, on the otherhand, I'm going to use say, the Pixar films as a good example of what can be done in a "film targeted towards kids" that works right, when they have someone they can relate to - they usually tell stories of the characters transforming and becoming better people. Cars was all about the hotshot becoming a humble...uhm...car, who knew that friendship, loyalty, and doing the right thing was the best victory in life. It's a story meant for kids, with childish characters that they can relate to, that has a message of "change" and not "outsmart the adults." But then again, that's Pixar, so maybe I used a bad example...

I'm gonna say that it being "healthier" to have an older and mature figure for the kids to look up to is something I definitely say is only "half-right." I'm not quite sure how to say it, but I don't agree that "THE HEROES ARE MEN" is the best way to go. Or the healthiest, either.

In the end, though, what we're really talking about is not even so much "bad targeting" or bad choices. It's bad writing. It's bad execution. It's bad intent, immoral and greedy intent to just "get the dough from the kids' pockets" rather than telling stories that actually help society's children understand something and creatively stimulate them.

If the western is going to be "revived" in the way that we want it to be, to get kids interested in it again, it needs to have a proper/pure intent and a creative place for it to come from. We can't just make "an old-school western" the way they used to be made, nor can we make them exactly the way movies are now. If anything, it would have to be part of a movement towards another evolution in the film industry. Westerns in this day 'n' age ain't gonna be cheap because the props are gonna cost. And with name actors costing so damn much (pretty much any 'known' actor is around 15-20 mil on average), it's going to be hard to get bankable/marketable stars in the film. So something has to occur for them to figure it out.

Also, really. I love westerns and wish there was more of them, but would you rather have no westerns at all or churned out crap? Honestly now. ;)
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