One hand. That's all it takes for me to count how many Westerns of prominence have come out in the past decade: Open Range, 3:10 to Yuma, The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and True Grit. This seems like a great shame considering how illustrious the state of the Western was not even forty years ago.
There are no actors like John Wayne anymore, instantly recognizable in spurs and a ten-gallon hat. The heyday of the Western was somewhere around the 1940s, when John Wayne was recognized by virtually the world. Children played Cowboys and Indians and nearly all arguments or conflicts of the ill-tempered were decided by the draw of a gun. The storylines and action were so popular that the appeal of the genre went overseas to Italy. Spaghetti Westerns became a staple of the genre with American stars like Clint Eastwood and Henry Fonda. The peak of this movement came with the Man with No Name Trilogy directed by Sergio Leone, just one of many re…
There are no actors like John Wayne anymore, instantly recognizable in spurs and a ten-gallon hat. The heyday of the Western was somewhere around the 1940s, when John Wayne was recognized by virtually the world. Children played Cowboys and Indians and nearly all arguments or conflicts of the ill-tempered were decided by the draw of a gun. The storylines and action were so popular that the appeal of the genre went overseas to Italy. Spaghetti Westerns became a staple of the genre with American stars like Clint Eastwood and Henry Fonda. The peak of this movement came with the Man with No Name Trilogy directed by Sergio Leone, just one of many re…