Westerns ARE BACK!! Options

[Ron Fortier]

Hi Gordon, had to jump in and agree with you on your latest TV Party blog. Quality shows like JUSTIFIED, LONGMIRE & HELL ON WHEELS are simply terrific and capture the essence and spirit of the old westerns most of us grew up on as kids. I'm hoping their renewed popularity will push other studios to give us even more of the same.

Oh, and a post note, for all its flaws, I liked the JONAH HEX movie and agree with you that Josh Brolin was excellent in the role.

[Gordon_D]

Ron,

I really hope we get more Westerns of this type - I think that Deadwood, with all its grit and harshness, may have effectively
ended a much more innocent style of Western. Audiences may expect greater amounts of grit...but I think that this new
crop of Westerns is much more of a "reboot" of the genre than a death knell.

(I really wanted to discuss Deadwood, because although I'm not as enamored of it as others are, I do think it's a really
great show that's worth checking out. However, I wanted to keep the focus on Hex, because I think it's a good Saturday
afternoon movie....despite way too much in the script).

And this weekend, I'm going to have to break down and watch my dad's old Searchers DVD, if only to make sure my
perspective on Longmire is dead-on or dead-wrong.

[Mark Ellis]

And this weekend, I'm going to have to break down and watch my dad's old Searchers DVD, if only to make sure my perspective on Longmire is dead-on or dead-wrong.

I think you may be confusing John Wayne's performance in Rio Bravo...in that, he played Sheriff John T. Chance, a beleaguered small-town lawman with a couple of unstable deputies.

In The Searchers, John Wayne played Ethan Edwards, an embittered, alienated ex-Confederate officer who was driven by his almost psychotic hatred of Comanches. Very unlikable guy.

And as long as I'm here, I might as well plug Rio Diablo-- the western graphic novel I'm developing for Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse with artist Ivan Barriga.

It features characters created by Zane Grey, such as Buck Duane (Lone Star Ranger), Lassiter (Riders of the Purple Sage) Yaqui (Desert Gold) and a character of my own creation...Catamount.

Think of The Magnificent Seven crossed with Kelly's Heroes.





This post has been edited by Mark Ellis: Jul 20 2012, 01:09 PM

[cougar18]

I think there still is a place for old style westerns. I mean, for all of its light heartedness, Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza never go off the air, due to their popularity. As do shows like North and South (okay, not a western) and The Virginian..
I think the problem is that for every good western, there have been a heckuvalot of bad ones. That Colin Farrell western from a good few years ago, American Outlaws, was awful. Just awful. IT was trying to be Young Guns, but without the decent cast or decent accents (Colin Farrell is to blame here). And Young Guns ain't no classic, but it was fun. Even the recent good westerns have been remakes. 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit were remakes, albeit very good remakes, but the original western is something we are not seeing a lot of. Whether TV or movie wise, and that is just sad.

There was a lot of TV westerns years ago. The Magnificent 7 tv show, Young Riders (Starring a young Josh Brolin, so he has alot of experience playing cowboys. Explains why he does it so well), Dr Quinn (okay, more a female demographic, but still), Brisco County Jr was one of those shows you either liked or hated, and for a kid, like me at the time it was alot of fun. There was also Dead Man's Gun, a show on showtime that lasted two seasons, and it was really awesome. The stories ranged from the positives to the negative. Sometimes the gun was a help, sometimes, it brought worse misfortune on the finder. It could have ran longer, could have ran shorter, but thankfully, it did not outstay its welcome. There were alot of Western shows, but alot of em dont spring to mind.

But lately, since Deadwood, yeah, certain Westerns have gotten darker. OR at least Western TV shows have. The Walking Dead is not a Western, but it is shot very much like one. Same lighting and shots. Very dark too. But then, so is the source material.

But that is not to say ALL of those shows will get darker. Just like The Dark Knight, and Batman Begins were dark movies, that did not stop IRon Man or Captain America from going light. Those movies are far lighter in tone, but they are offering different aspects to the superhero genre. The Wire, The Shield and Law and Order: SVU are dark and brutal at times, yet not every show followed that route. Blue Bloods is a light hearted Cop show, as is Rookie Blue, both very popular. There is a balance to be found, with folks choosing which one they prefer.

[Fred Lang]

I've got a great Western script from Ron that I'll get started on in November. It's gonna be fun!

[Greg G.]

I suspect the shift in focus for classic Westerns and modern Westerns also has to do with a mild degree of Political Correctness. Gone are the simple cowboy and indian tales, to be replaced with tough life on the frontier. Tough interpersonal relationships and the immigrant's story.

Don't know if I'd agree Westerns suffer from any more crap than any other genre.

Speaking of Westerns - folks ought to check out Seraphim Falls. Wheels kind of come off near the end, but it's a fantastic movie with Pierce Brosnan cast against type and Liam Neeson. Such a great movie.

I need to check out Hell on Wheels.

[cougar18]

I suspect the shift in focus for classic Westerns and modern Westerns also has to do with a mild degree of Political Correctness. Gone are the simple cowboy and indian tales, to be replaced with tough life on the frontier. Tough interpersonal relationships and the immigrant's story.

Don't know if I'd agree Westerns suffer from any more crap than any other genre.

Speaking of Westerns - folks ought to check out Seraphim Falls. Wheels kind of come off near the end, but it's a fantastic movie with Pierce Brosnan cast against type and Liam Neeson. Such a great movie.

I need to check out Hell on Wheels.

Yeah, Seraphim is really good. I agree, however, that the third act suffers, kind of drags the rest down. The thing about westerns is they need the same time and effort as any other film or story to be good. They neeed grit and dirt to be anywhere near decent. When you have the clean washed, clean shaven cowboy...that is just ridiculous.

I admit, every genre suffers from crud, but due to the lack of westerns being made, there seems to be quite a few duds due to the shortage of westerns in general. Films like Bad Girls, and American Outlaws have characters that are dull and boring, and it's all style no substance. There are westerns that got no love in their day, such as Tombstone and Silverado, that are widely considered classics now. Even Seraphim Falls had little to no promotion. Seemed like it went unnoticed. Yet, inother media, be it books, or video games, the Western is thriving. Video games like Gun, Desperadoes one and two, Red Dead Redemption, Read Dead Revolver, Call of Juarez and it's sequel... show time and time again that there is a mssive demand for the Western.
But, as you noted, political correctness has hampered the western. Gun got a bit of a bashing for how it portrayed Native Americans. I'm surprised that Deadwood, in some respects, never got the same problems. Then again, maybe folks were latching on to something in order to divert attention away from something else, ie The media got bored with one story, so they decided to move onto something else, and it was a slow news day so Gun was the only mildly controversial thing in their sights.
Pity, because there had been talk of a sequel. And that has not happened, yet. Here's hoping it shall.

[Greg G.]

Tombstone received plenty of love when it was released. I recall hearing a lot of praise for it at the time.

On Deadwood - I think the show just covered it's bases by taking swings at everybody. What in the hell is a Swivelhead (I think that's what he said - I'm not seeing it on the racial slur database)?! Al sure knows.

Nobody was safe on Deadwood and I suspect that helps level the playing field for potential pundits.

[Mark Ellis]

On Deadwood - I think the show just covered it's bases by taking swings at everybody. What in the hell is a Swivelhead (I think that's what he said - I'm not seeing it on the racial slur database)?! Al sure knows.

It was "Squarehead", actually...a slur directed toward Germans.

I agree that most westerns made over the last 15 years seem to want to focus primarily on how corrupt, hard, dirty, squalid, racist, dangerous and disease-infested life was on the frontier. That often takes precedence over and above just telling a straightforward story in that setting.

In my opinion, during the heyday of TV westerns, the producers assumed that most Americans were adequately educated to understand that frontier life wasn't easy and so they moved on from there.

Now all the dirt, blood and offal have to be pushed in the viewer's faces before the actual story can be allowed to develop--Hell On Wheels is a good example of that.

There seems to be a common misconception that the old TV westerns depicted a sanitized vision of the Old West, but that really wasn't the case.

If you watch Gunsmoke or Rawhide episodes, disease and poor sanitation are often alluded to, but they're only the backdrop for the story, not main plot points.

Gunsmoke in particular had no problem with layering its actors with dirt and grime.



This post has been edited by Mark Ellis: Jul 28 2012, 10:22 AM

[Greg G.]

I grok it.

I suspect it's just today's market need sound and fury signifying nothing to get their meathooks in. This would also explain the celebrated by the Internet careers of Michael Bay and Zack Snyder. Two wildly mediocre directors that bamboozle audiences with spectacle to spit shine the shinola they're selling. So for the modern Western the grit and filth is the replacement for that sort of abuse of slow motion to cover for poor fight choreography, or terrible robot designs.

When digital television took over the airwaves in the USA, I suddenly had access to more channels than I've ever had, and one of the networks reruns Bat Masterson episodes. Good stuff!

[Mark Ellis]

I agree with everything you say.

Frankly, if it weren't for Encore's Western Channel, I doubt I'd be watching more than a couple of hours worth of TV a week.

[cougar18]

The problem with the image you showed of Gunsmoke is that it came from 1969, I recognised a young Ron Howard, aka Little Opie, aka Richie Cunningham, aka the Oscar winning director and producer, in the shot, and he appeared in 1969. Yet dirt was only allowed after the film A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone debuted in 1964. So Gunsmoke was obviously inspired by Sergio Leone, in later episodes. Before that, dirt was only really allowed if someone had been working hard in mud or fell into a river, but not for long. Notice how quickly they get clean afterwards. Dust was a casualty of traveling around, and clothes often got covered in the stuff, simply from going from A to B.
In fact, dust and dirt was so integral to his work, that he used it for a sight gag in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. When one character spots who he believes to be confederate soldiers, but realises they are in fact The Union, a mistake made due to the dust on the soldiers. Facial hair was also not allowed, and God help any character with stubble, as that would also not be allowed either. Unless they were the villain. OR a dastardly henchman. But then, no dirt.
Early eps of Gunsmoke do not show the dust, or dirt, but they do follow Leone's lead later, from '64 onwards. In fact, one writer on the show, a man by the name of Sam Peckinpah, was heavily influenced by Leone when he directed westerns like The Wild Bunch, or Pat Garret and Billy the Kid.

This post has been edited by cougar18: Jul 29 2012, 08:21 PM