Westerns Worth Watching

These are necessarily the best westerns, but here are a few that it is worth your time to check out.

1. High Noon (1952)
A classic American western showcasing the bold heroism of a small town marshall.

2. The Searchers (1958)
Wayne's finest film, and the quintessential American western film.

3. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
The greatest spaghetti western filmed. This film's epic showdown is still the stuff of legend.

4. Stagecoach (1939)
This great western established many of the methods still used today in action films.

5. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1963)
Wayne departed from his traditional campy feel for this serious and thought provoking western.

6. The Wild Bunch (1969)
Peckinpah's bloody classic created the "MTV" method of film editing that is now highly popular.

7. Unforgiven (1992)
Eastwood broke western convention with this Academy Award winning classic.

8. Django (1966)
This cult spaghetti western is a great example of the low brow action that lived in Italy during the spaghetti western movement.

9. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
This new western is perhaps the greatest film to explore the legendary outlaw.

10. Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)
This very strange film blends western and samurai film ideology creating a fantastic if unconventional film.

The Types of Westerns

Maybe when you hear western, you immediately think of some corny John Wayne movie with two guys having a phony shootout at high noon. While there are some like that, there are many different types of western. These are the primary types.

Classic Western
Essential Film: High Noon (1952)
These are the westerns you probably think about. They're old and usually involve a very simple plot in which the protagonist always triumphs over the antagonist after some grand duel, and the good guy always, "gets the girl".

Wayne Era Western
Essential Film: The Searchers (1958)
Very similar to the classic western, John Wayne's school of western differed in having a slightly more campy feel, with the protagonist making frequent corny jokes. Wayne also created the standard device of using Native Americans as antagonists.

Spaghetti Western
Essential Film: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Cost efficiency attracted some Italian filmmakers to begin shooting low budget westerns in Spanish deserts. These films were usually almost plotless, but full of action and "lone gunfighter" mythology.

Revisionist Western
Essential Film: The Wild Bunch (1969)
As the New Hollywood movement began to take hold of the film industry, counterculture filmmakers unleashed a new type of western. These new westerns were faster paced and began to clear out much of the myth that had accumulated in westerns during Wayne's era.

Acid Western
Essential Film: Walker (1987)
Blending the exaggerated violence common in spaghetti westerns with counterculture ideology and unconventional filmmaking methods, Acid Westerns were incredibly strange and very unpopular for their portrayal of the classic western myths in an unconventional way.

Anti-Western
Essential Film: Unforgiven (1992)
Clint Eastwood created this genre, refuting the western myths upon which many of his early films were based. These films focused on humanity, taking into account the tragedy of a human losing his life.

Dead Center Film Festival

Just a little break from my series on controversy in film to remind everyone in the Oklahoma City area that starting tomorrow, Wednesday June 9th, is our own Dead Center Film Festival. Film Festivals are a great place to meet young directors, catch up on film gossip and see the films that usually don't make it to theaters.

Lights, Camera, Friction: Racism in Film

Perhaps the most racist film ever made, The Birth of a Nation, was released in 1915. The film recounted the events that created the Ku Klux Klan, and did so through a horrifyingly warped view of history. While it was praised by some audiences at the time, The Birth of a Nation has sunk into obscurity due to its blatant and disgusting levels of racism. Less controversial was 1939's Gone With the Wind, which despite popularity at the time has since been acknowledged by many to glorify slavery. In the 1970's with the rise of the exploitation film genre, the African American community began producing their own films. While many enjoyed these "blaxploitation" films like Super Fly, Black Caesar, or Coffy, others disliked the films for their often stereotypical portrayal of African Americans. The Academy Award winning film, The Deer Hunter, released in 1978, sparked controversy for portraying Vietnamese people as being sadistic, showing Vietnamese soldiers forcing American prisoners to play russian roulette. Throughout their history, Disney has released many films that contained racially insensitive material. Their 1946 film, Song of the South, was and continues to be denounced for its negative portrayal of African Americans. In 1992, many Muslims denounced the film Aladdin for its stereotypical portrayal of people of the Islamic faith. The latest controversy has come only last year with complaints about stereotyping in Disney's The Princess and the Frog. In 2004, Crash became one of the first films to deal with racial issues without sparking any sort of controversy. Crash hopefully will lead a stride of new films to deal with race fairly and honestly instead of hiding behind stereotypes.

Lights, Camera, Friction: Negative Views of Religion in film

While early films dared not be critical of religion, a few managed to break the ice later on. The earliest film to stir up religious controversy, The Exorcist, released in America in 1973 became highly controversial due to its portrayal of religion. In 1979, Monty Python's the Life of Brian was widely attacked for its satire of Christianity. In 1988, The Last Temptation of Christ was attacked for showing Jesus to have a sexual life. Along similar lines, the film The Crime of Father Amaro would be controversial for showing a Catholic priest having sex. Dogma attempted to be a light religious comedy in 1999, but was criticized for satirizing religion. Things died down until Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ in 2004. While many in the religious community felt this film to be a wonderful depiction of Christ's suffering, others complained that it associated extreme violence with religion. The latest controversy came in 2007, with the film September Dawn. The film recounted a true story of a massacre carried out by Mormons, but was attacked by the Mormon Church for its negative and sometimes inaccurate depiction of Mormons.

Lights, Camera, Friction: Homosexuality in Film

Controversy in film typically parallels controversy in society. Therefore if something in controversial in society it will be controversial when they show it in a movie. Homosexuality was completely avoided by film until 1961 when the film Victim made history by being the first film to say homosexual, and continued to shock audiences by having an openly homosexual protagonist. Aside from this film, there are very few examples of homosexuality in film. Al Pacino starred in 1980's Cruising, a film about a cop who goes undercover as a homosexual to stop a killer. The most recent controversy has come in 2005's Brokeback Mountain. This film showed several scenes of explicit homosexual intercourse, and stirred up major debate amongst the supporters and detractors of homosexuality. Aside from these, there have been other films to discuss homosexuality, but most of these have only circulated throughout the homosexual community and avoid mainstream success. In spite of this, whenever a film about homosexuality does come up though, it is certain to spark lots of debate.

Lights, Camera, Friction: Sexuality in Film

Showing sex in film is an issue that still rocks the film world. The first wide controversy over sexuality in film came in 1943 with a scene in the film Outlaw, which by today's standards wouldn't even earn the film a PG-13 rating. In 1962, Stanley Kubrick released the film Lolita, which had such graphic sexual depictions of a young girl's intercourse that the young female star was not allowed to attend the film's premiere. Aside from these early icebreakers, sexuality was kept out of films until it came around in 1967, along with violence, in the New Hollywood film movement. In 1967 the Graduate displayed a story of a woman's extramarital affair, but managed to avoid widespread controversy due to a lack of any explicit sex scenes. Midnight Cowboy came along in 1969 and finally brought in huge waves of controversy over this issue. Originally receiving an X rating, Midnight Cowboy shocked audiences with the graphic depictions of intercourse yet unseen in film. After Midnight Cowboy, M*A*S*H was released, one of the first films to feature sexual humor. A Clockwork Orange continued the trend, having an equally gratuitous amount of sex as it did violence. The director of A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick, also directed Lolita and would become known for the sexual explicitness of his films. In a later film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Kubrick was criticized for his again graphic display of voyeuristic sex. Aside from this film, Basic Instinct also sparked controversy in the nineties with its very graphic scenes, including an infamous shot of actress Sharon Stone. Sexual relationships in film have never ceased to be controversial. In 2002, a film entitled The Crime of Father Amaro sparked controversy in Mexico for its display of the sexual relations of a Catholic priest. The association of the church with carnal relations also caused trouble for the film Hail, Mary in 1985, and the several lurid scenes in The Exorcist in 1973. Perhaps the biggest controversy over associations of sexuality and religion in film came in 1988 in the film, The Last Temptation of Christ, which was widely denounced for its depiction of a sexual life of Jesus. The other area of controversy with regard to sexuality has been with displaying odd sexual scenes. The "tree-rape" scene in The Evil Dead of 1981 was one such scene, leaving viewers shocked. Likewise, the German film Nekromantik caused widespread controversy for its display of necrophilia. Sexuality in film is an important issue, even in the far more liberal world of today.