List of Western subgenres
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The Western is a genre
Within the larger scope of the Western genre, there are several recognized subgenres. Some subgenres, such as spaghetti Westerns, maintain standard Western settings and plots, while others take the Western theme and archetypes into different supergenres, such as neo-Westerns or space Westerns.
For a time, Westerns made in countries other than the United States were often labeled by foods associated with the culture, such as spaghetti Westerns (Italy), meat pie Westerns (Australia), ramen Westerns (Asia), and masala Westerns (India).[1]
Acid Western
Film critic
More recent acid Westerns include Alex Cox's Walker (1987) and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995). Rosenbaum describes the acid Western as "formulating a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify its hallucinated agenda"; ultimately, he says, the acid Western expresses a counterculture sensibility to critique and replace capitalism with alternative forms of exchange.[3]
Australian Western or meat pie Western
The Australian Western genre or meat pie Western is set in Australia, especially the
Blaxploitation Western
Many blaxploitation films, particularly ones involving Fred Williamson, have incorporated a Western setting within them, with examples such as Soul Soldier (1970), Buck and the Preacher (1972), The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972), The Soul of Nigger Charley (1973), Thomasine & Bushrod (1974), Boss Nigger (1975), Adiós Amigo (1975), and Posse (1993).
Charro, cabrito, or chili Westerns
Charro Westerns, often featuring musical stars, as well as action, have been a standard feature of Mexican cinema since the 1930s. In the 1930s and 1940s, these were typically films about horsemen in rural Mexican society, displaying a set of cultural concerns very different from the Hollywood metanarrative, but the overlap between "charro" movies and Westerns became more apparent in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Some examples are Ismael Rodríguez's Los Hermanos del Hierro (1961), Jorge Fons's Cinco Mil Dólares de Recompensa, and Arturo Ripstein's Tiempo de morir. The most important is Alberto Mariscal, great author of El tunco Maclovio, Todo por nada, Los marcados, El juez de la soga, and La chamuscada.[6][7]
Chinese Western
The Western is a popular genre in the Asian film industry.[8]: 1
Comedy Western
This subgenre is imitative in style to mock, comment on, or trivialize the Western genre's established traits, subjects, auteurs' styles, or some other target by means of humorous, satiric, or ironic imitation or parody. A prime example of comedy Western includes The Paleface (1948), which makes a satirical effort to "send up Owen Wister's novel The Virginian and all the cliches of the Western from the fearless hero to the final shootout on Main Street". The Paleface "features a cowardly hero known as "Painless" Peter Potter (Bob Hope), an inept dentist, who often entertains the notion that he is a crack sharpshooter and accomplished Indian fighter".[9]
Other examples include:
- Along Came Jones (1945), in which Gary Cooper spoofed his Western persona
- The Sheepman (1958), with Glenn Ford poking fun at himself
- Cat Ballou (1965), with a drunk Lee Marvin atop a drunk horse
- The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
- Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)
- Blazing Saddles (1974)
- Cannibal! The Musical (1993)[10]
Contemporary Western or neo-Western
Contemporary Western (or neo-Westerns or urban Westerns) have contemporary settings and use Old West themes, archetypes, and motifs, such as a rebellious antihero, open plains and desert landscapes, or gunfights. This also includes the post-Western, with modern settings and "the cowboy cult" that involve the audience's feelings and understanding of Western movies.[11] This subgenre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice. Some contemporary Westerns take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late 20th and early 21st centuries; but the genre is not limited to the traditional American West setting. Coogan's Bluff and Midnight Cowboy are examples of urban Westerns set in New York City.[11]: 148–149
Typical themes of the neo-Western are the lack of rules, with morals guided by the character's or audience's instincts of right and wrong rather than by governance, characters searching for justice, and characters feeling remorse, connecting the neo-Western to the broader
Beginning in the postwar era, radio dramas such as
The subgenre can also be seen in television in shows such as Breaking Bad[16] and Justified.[17] Yellowstone, the American TV series, is referred to as an American neo-Western prime time television soap opera created by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson that premiered in 2018.
Dacoit Western
The
The first Western films made in India – Kalam Vellum (1970, Tamil), Mosagallaku Mosagadu (1971, Telugu), Mappusakshi (Malayalam),[citation needed] Ganga (1972, Tamil), and Jakkamma (1972, Tamil) – were based on classic Westerns. Thazhvaram (1990), the Malayalam film directed by Bharathan and written by noted writer M. T. Vasudevan Nair, perhaps most resembles the spaghetti Westerns in terms of production and cinematic techniques. Earlier spaghetti Westerns laid the groundwork for such films as Adima Changala (1971) starring Prem Nazir, a hugely popular zapata spaghetti Western film in Malayalam, and Sholay (1975) Khote Sikkay (1973) and Thai Meethu Sathiyam (1978) are notable curry Westerns. Kodama Simham (1990), a Telugu action film, starring Chiranjeevi and Mohan Babu, was one more addition to the Indo Western genre that fared well at the box office. It was also the first South Indian movie to be dubbed in English as Hunters of the Indian Treasure[20]
Takkari Donga (2002), starring Telugu actor Mahesh Babu, was applauded by critics, but was average at box office. Quick Gun Murugun (2009), an Indian comedy film that spoofs Indian Western movies, is based on a character created for television promotions at the time of the launch of the music network Channel [V] in 1994, which had cult following.[21] Irumbukkottai Murattu Singam (2010), a Western adventure comedy film, based on cowboy movies and paying homages to the John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Jaishankar, was made in Tamil. Laal Kaptaan (2019) is an IndoWestern starring Saif Ali Khan, which is set during the rise of the British Empire in India.
Documentary Western
The documentary Western is a subgenre of Westerns that explore the nonfiction elements of the historical and contemporary American West. Ken Burns' The West is an example of a series based upon a historical storyline, whereas films such as Cowboys: A Documentary Portrait provide a nonfiction portrayal of modern working cowboys in the contemporary West.
Electric Western
The 1971 film
Zachariah featured appearances and music supplied by rock groups from the 1970s, including the James Gang[22] and Country Joe and the Fish as "The Cracker Band".[22] Fiddler Doug Kershaw had a musical cameo[22] as does Elvin Jones as a gunslinging drummer named Job Cain.[22]
The independent film Hate Horses starring Dominique Swain, Ron Thompson, and Paul Dooley billed itself as the "second electric Western".[23]
Epic Western
The epic Western is a subgenre of the Western that emphasizes the story of the American Old West on a grand scale. Many epic Westerns are commonly set during a turbulent time, especially a war, as in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), set during the American Civil War, or Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), set during the Mexican Revolution. One of the grandest films in this genre is Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), which shows many operatic conflicts centered on control of a town while using wide-scale shots of Monument Valley locations against a broad running-time.
Other notable examples include The Covered Wagon (1923) with J. Warren Kerrigan, The Iron Horse (1924) with George O'Brien, Duel in the Sun (1946) with Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck, The Searchers (1956) with John Wayne, Giant (1956) with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean, The Big Country (1958) with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston, Cimarron (1960) with Glenn Ford, How the West Was Won (1962) with James Stewart and Henry Fonda (among many others), Custer of the West (1967) with Robert Shaw, Duck, You Sucker! (1971) with Rod Steiger and James Coburn, Heaven's Gate (1980) with Isabelle Huppert, Dances with Wolves (1990) with Kevin Costner, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) with Brad Pitt, Django Unchained (2012) with Jamie Foxx, The Revenant (2015) with Leonardo DiCaprio, and the upcoming 2-parter Horizon: An American Saga (2024) also with Kevin Costner.
Euro-Western
Euro-Westerns are Western-genre films made in Western Europe. The term can sometimes include the spaghetti Western subgenre. One example of a Euro-Western is the Anglo-Spanish film The Savage Guns (1961). Several Euro-Western films, nicknamed sauerkraut Westerns[24] because they were made in Germany and shot in Yugoslavia, were derived from stories by novelist Karl May, and were film adaptations of May's work. One of the most popular German Western franchises was the Winnetou series, which featured a Native American Apache hero in the lead role. Also in Finland, only a few Western films have been made, the most notable of which could be the 1971 low-budget comedy The Unhanged, directed by, written by, and starring Spede Pasanen.
Some new Euro-Westerns emerged in the 2010s, including Kristian Levring's The Salvation, Martin Koolhoven's Brimstone, and Andreas Prochaska's The Dark Valley.
Exploitation Western
Exploitation Western is a subgenre of the Exploitation film, a genre characterized by "exploiting" lurid and graphic content throughout 1960s and 1970s up to the early 1980s. Examples of Exploitation Western films include
Fantasy Western
Fantasy Westerns mixed in
Florida Western
Florida Westerns, also known as cracker Westerns, are set in Florida during the Second Seminole War. An example is Distant Drums (1951) starring Gary Cooper.
Gaucho Western
Gaucho Westerns are films set in the 18th century in South America's
Greek Western
According to the naming conventions after spaghetti Western, in Greece they are also referred to as "
Horror Western
The horror Western subgenre has roots in films such as
Hybrid Western
A generic term for a Western which is combined with another genre such as
Martial arts Western (Wuxia Western)
While many of these mash-ups (e.g.,
Musical
There have been many musical films with a Western setting and many musicians have appeared in Western films, sometimes in non-musical roles. Singers Doris Day and Howard Keel worked together in Calamity Jane, a huge success on release which remains one of the most popular Western musicals. On the other hand, crooner Dean Martin and pop singer Ricky Nelson played the parts of gunfighters in Rio Bravo, which is not a musical, although they did combine to sing a couple of songs in the middle of the film while they were guarding the jailhouse.[citation needed]
Narco Western
A subgenre that highlights Mexican
Northern
The Northern genre is a subgenre of Westerns taking place in Alaska or Western Canada. Examples include several versions of the Rex Beach novel, The Spoilers (including 1930's The Spoilers, with Gary Cooper, and 1942's The Spoilers, with Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, and Wayne); The Far Country (1954) with James Stewart; North to Alaska (1960) with Wayne; Death Hunt (1981) with Charles Bronson; and The Grey Fox (1983) with Richard Farnsworth.
Ostern
Red Western films usually portrayed the American Indians sympathetically, as oppressed people fighting for their rights, in contrast to American Westerns of the time, which frequently portrayed them as villains. Osterns frequently featured Gypsy or Turkic people in the role of the Indians, due to the shortage of authentic Native Americans in Eastern Europe.
"Eastern" films typically replaced the
Pornographic Western
Pornographic Westerns use the Old West as a background for stories primarily focused on erotica. The three major examples of the porn Western film are
Pre-Western
Film critic Philip French includes a subgenre of "pre-Western" to describe films that include themes and characters reminiscent of cowboy pictures but are not strictly regarded as Westerns. This includes films with an early nineteenth century frontier setting with characters like James Fenimore Cooper's Natty Bumppo. It includes examples like The Alamo (1960).[35]
Ramen Western
First used in the publicity of the film
Revisionist Western
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Western was reinvented with the revisionist Western.[37] After the early 1960s, many American filmmakers began to question and change many traditional elements of Westerns, and to make revisionist Westerns that encouraged audiences to question the simple hero-versus-villain dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right. This is shown in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969). One major revision was the increasingly positive representation of Native Americans, who had been treated as "savages" in earlier films. Examples of such revisionist Westerns include Ride the High Country (1962), Richard Harris' A Man Called Horse (1970), Little Big Man (1970), Soldier Blue (1970), Man in the Wilderness (1971), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Dances with Wolves (1990), Unforgiven (1992), The Quick and the Dead (1995), and Dead Man (1995). A television miniseries, Godless (2016), also fits into this category. A few earlier revisionist Westerns gave women more powerful roles, such as Westward the Women (1951) starring Robert Taylor. Another earlier work encompassed all these features, The Last Wagon (1956). In it, Richard Widmark played a white man raised by Comanches and persecuted by Whites, with Felicia Farr and Susan Kohner playing young women forced into leadership roles.
Science fiction Western
The science fiction Western places science fiction elements within a traditional Western setting.[38] Early examples are serial films such The Phantom Empire (1935) and Ghost Patrol (1936) which incorporated supernatural figures of science fiction fantasy into a Western setting.[38] An example of cross-over genre, the fantasy science fiction Western The Valley of Gwangi (1969) displayed cowboys fighting dinosaurs, a trend that took hold during the 1960s. John Jakes's Six Gun Planet takes place on a future planet colonized by people consciously seeking to recreate the Old West (with cowboys riding robot horses...). The movie Westworld (1973) and its sequel Futureworld (1976), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Wild Wild West (1999), and Cowboys & Aliens (2011), and the television series Westworld (2016, based on the movie). Fallout: New Vegas (2010) is an example of a video game that follows this format, with futuristic technology and genetic mutations placed among the Western themes and desert sprawl of the Mojave Wasteland.[citation needed]
This subgenre also encompasses the
Singing cowboy Western
A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. [citation needed]
Space Western
The
Spaghetti Western
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "spaghetti Westerns", also known as "Italo-Westerns". The most famous of them is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the third film of the Dollars Trilogy. Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs, as well as their similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood Westerns. Also, the protagonists usually acted out of more selfish motives (money or revenge being the most common) than in the classical Westerns.[42] Some spaghetti Westerns demythologized the American Western tradition, and some films from the genre are considered revisionist Westerns. For example, the Dollars Trilogy itself has much different tropes compared to standard Westerns, demythologizing the Sheriff figure (in A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More), putting both the Union and the Confederacy in ambiguously moral positions (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and not featuring Native Americans (except for a brief mention in A Fistful of Dollars).
The Western films directed by Sergio Leone were felt by some to have a different tone from the Hollywood Westerns.
Weird Western
The
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another gun-happy neo-western, 'Justified' has been true to its Elmore Leonard roots
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