Ride the Frontier: Exploring the Myth of the American West on Screen

Description

With fresh appraisals of popular Westerns, this book examines the history of the genre with a focus on definitional aspects of canon, adaptation and hybridity. The author covers a range of largely unexplored topics, including the role of "heroines" in a (supposedly) male-oriented system of film production, the function of the celluloid Indians, the transcultural and transnational history of the first spaghetti Western, the construction of femininity and masculinity in the hybrid Westerns of the 1950s, and the new paths of the Western in 21st century. Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Why the Western? 1. Transnational Adaptation, Transculturation and Indigenization: Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars 2. Celluloid Indians, 1950s Westerns and the Termination Act: Broken Arrow, White Feather, The Battle of Apache Pass, Devil’s Doorway, The Last Wagon and The Last Hunt 3. Heroines in Western Films? Mikhail Bakhtin’s “Dialogic Imagination” in Shane, High Noon and Westward the Women 4. Hybridity and (De)Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in Rancho Notorious, Johnny Guitar and Duel in the Sun 5. New Paths of the Western in the Third Millennium: The Lone Ranger, Yesterday and Today Chapter Notes Bibliography Index