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As anyone who's followed my recent posts knows, I've become a rather die-hard fan of the Western genre over the past year or so. It started with my delving deep into the Sam Peckinpah filmography, moving onto the work of Sergio Leone and then Clint Eastwood, then getting seriously into the work of the Italians (Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci, Giulio Questi, Carlo Lizzani, Sergio Sollima, etc.). Eventually, I worked my way toward the classics of the American Western canon, including some of the best-known titles by John Ford, Howard Hawks, George Stevens and John Sturges, among others.
I don't know exactly why I've taken to the Western genre somewhat belatedly, as I've never particularly been interested in the genre to any inordinate degree before. But I've certainly got a theory: I turned 50 last year, and I think that the Western is the kind of genre one really has to age into an appreciation of (especially if it's something you haven't exactly grown up with). Because the way I see it, it's a genre dealing with transitions, whether they be personal transitions or transitions within society itself (or perhaps the ways in which those two are connected). There's a real heavy dose of Götterdämmerung about the Western, its gun-slinging individualist heroes and villains' exploits being bathed in rather melancholic twilight, having been bred to either serve or threaten the interests of an emerging migrant society struggling to be born on the frontier, and then being made redundant once that society establishes itself and the frontier closes. Once that happens, there's nothing left to do but head down to Mexico or Bolivia and going out in a blaze of glory, or settling old accounts by facing off in duels set within a circle, their positions carefully staked out before the final draw. As far as that "twilight" is concerned, it's rather the same sense of twilight that I feel as a fan of rock music, with its energetic and vital musicians and stars carving their names into cultural history, but who now are fading away and dropping like flies, with nothing of comparable talent or energy to replace them. They were the once-proud rebels who saw and forged the path toward the future, but are now considered outdated masculinist relics by younger generations. (Sergio Leone saw the more masculine ideal of the old West gunslinger as a relic of a bygone era, superseded by a comparatively feminized version of society. Sooooooo... Claudia Cardinale = Taylor Swift, then?
)
All joking and pretentious theorizing aside, however... Here is a list of my favorite Westerns so far. Note that I'm something of an "impurist" when it comes to my favorite Westerns, in the sense that I don't have some "pure" ideal of the classic Hollywood Western, in the John Wayne / John Ford / Howard Hawks sense. As a matter of fact, practically everything in my Western Top 20 is either directed by Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah or Clint Eastwood, or is otherwise Italian, ultraviolent, existential, acid or surrealist. But once we get beyond the Top 20, we'll see more of the old-school style of the classic West (although things are still rather mixed). I'm not particularly purist about the time period, either. There are many movies that are set in a more modern, relatively contemporary setting but still have the flavor and ethos of the Western. (And of course there are many movies made in a Western style that are set in countries such Japan, Australia, or Spain.)
Without futher ado, here are some of my favorites:
#01-10: Only At The Point Of Dying
Here's a pretty good summary of my taste in Westerns. A trilogy plus one by Leone, two by Peckinpah, two by Eastwood (plus the Leone trilogy). We also have a snowbound tragedy from Corbucci, a kind of revisionist old-West road movie from horror specialist Fulci, plus a wildly underrated post-Peckinpah blood-and-bullets tragedy from '71. The newest item on the menu is from Tarantino, frozen and snowbound like the Corbucci but a lot bloodier!
01. The Man With No Name Trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars / For a Few Dollars More / The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone / 1964-1966) ["Franchise Tie"]
02. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah / 1969)
03. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone / 1968)
04. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood / 1992)
05. The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci / 1967)
06. The Four of the Apocalypse (Lucio Fulci / 1975)
07. The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah / 1970)
08. The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood / 1976)
09. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino / 2015)
10. The Hunting Party (Don Medford / 1971)
#11-20: "Some Are Born To Endless Night"
More Clint, more Sam. Plus two shootouts at the O.K. Corral ending in a draw, one gender bender, one surrealist spiritual odyssey from south of the border, a possible tall tale told by a 121-year-old, more melancholy '70s revisionism, more spaghetti with red sauce, one with the second most popular Italian Western hero after the Man With No Name... oh, all this and William Blake, too!
11. Tombstone (George P. Cosmatos / 1993) / Wyatt Earp (Lawrence Kasdan / 1994) ["Complementary Competitors Tie"]
12. Little Big Man (Arthur Penn / 1970)
13. Django (Sergio Corbucci / 1966)
14. High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood / 1973)
15. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky / 1970)
16. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman / 1971)
17. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah / 1973)
18. Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (Giulio Questi / 1967)
19. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch / 1995)
20. The Ballad of Little Jo (Maggie Greenwald / 1993)
#21-30: As Sure As The Turning Of The Earth
Back to the '40s and '50s... for the first time. The Duke makes his first two appearances, under the direction of Ford. Plus a pair of greedy madmen just under 60 years apart, a pair of hanging nooses 25 years apart (one with Clint), cattlemen vs. settlers and immigrants, a gorgeous gun-slinging saloonkeeper, and the esteemed Mr. Brando's one directorial effort.
21. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson / 2007)
22. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston / 1948)
23. The Searchers (John Ford / 1956)
24. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray / 1954)
25. One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando / 1961)
26. The Ox-Bow Incident (William A. Wellman / 1943)
27. Hang 'Em High (Ted Post / 1968)
28. Shane (George Stevens / 1953)
29. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford / 1962)
30. Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino / 1980)
#31-40: Only The Dead Are Without Fear
Because it's impossible to pick just one from the Ranown cycle with Randolph Scott (and they're all pretty much even anyway), I tied all five together. Plus, we get another from Wayne and Ford, two from Sturges, yet another from Sam, the definitive buddy-movie prototype with Newman and Redford, yet more misadventure south of the border, existential questions on the nature of being a gunfighter, plus a dark contemporary tale from the pen of Cormac McCarthy. Ends on a double whammy of castration anxiety: One with Kirk Douglas, and yet another from Clint. No less than four of these are set in the 20th century, somewhat closer to our own time.
31. The Ranown Westerns: The Tall T / Decision at Sundown / Buchanan Rides Alone / Ride Lonesome / Comanche Station (Budd Boetticher / 1957-1960) ["Collaborative Collection Tie"]
32. Stagecoach (John Ford / 1939)
33. Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges / 1955)
34. The Gunfighter (Henry King / 1950)
35. No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen / 2007)
36. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah / 1974)
37. The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges / 1960)
38. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill / 1969)
39. Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller / 1962)
40. The Beguiled (Don Siegel / 1971)
Well, that's all for now, folks! How about you...?
I don't know exactly why I've taken to the Western genre somewhat belatedly, as I've never particularly been interested in the genre to any inordinate degree before. But I've certainly got a theory: I turned 50 last year, and I think that the Western is the kind of genre one really has to age into an appreciation of (especially if it's something you haven't exactly grown up with). Because the way I see it, it's a genre dealing with transitions, whether they be personal transitions or transitions within society itself (or perhaps the ways in which those two are connected). There's a real heavy dose of Götterdämmerung about the Western, its gun-slinging individualist heroes and villains' exploits being bathed in rather melancholic twilight, having been bred to either serve or threaten the interests of an emerging migrant society struggling to be born on the frontier, and then being made redundant once that society establishes itself and the frontier closes. Once that happens, there's nothing left to do but head down to Mexico or Bolivia and going out in a blaze of glory, or settling old accounts by facing off in duels set within a circle, their positions carefully staked out before the final draw. As far as that "twilight" is concerned, it's rather the same sense of twilight that I feel as a fan of rock music, with its energetic and vital musicians and stars carving their names into cultural history, but who now are fading away and dropping like flies, with nothing of comparable talent or energy to replace them. They were the once-proud rebels who saw and forged the path toward the future, but are now considered outdated masculinist relics by younger generations. (Sergio Leone saw the more masculine ideal of the old West gunslinger as a relic of a bygone era, superseded by a comparatively feminized version of society. Sooooooo... Claudia Cardinale = Taylor Swift, then?
)All joking and pretentious theorizing aside, however... Here is a list of my favorite Westerns so far. Note that I'm something of an "impurist" when it comes to my favorite Westerns, in the sense that I don't have some "pure" ideal of the classic Hollywood Western, in the John Wayne / John Ford / Howard Hawks sense. As a matter of fact, practically everything in my Western Top 20 is either directed by Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah or Clint Eastwood, or is otherwise Italian, ultraviolent, existential, acid or surrealist. But once we get beyond the Top 20, we'll see more of the old-school style of the classic West (although things are still rather mixed). I'm not particularly purist about the time period, either. There are many movies that are set in a more modern, relatively contemporary setting but still have the flavor and ethos of the Western. (And of course there are many movies made in a Western style that are set in countries such Japan, Australia, or Spain.)
Without futher ado, here are some of my favorites:
#01-10: Only At The Point Of Dying
Here's a pretty good summary of my taste in Westerns. A trilogy plus one by Leone, two by Peckinpah, two by Eastwood (plus the Leone trilogy). We also have a snowbound tragedy from Corbucci, a kind of revisionist old-West road movie from horror specialist Fulci, plus a wildly underrated post-Peckinpah blood-and-bullets tragedy from '71. The newest item on the menu is from Tarantino, frozen and snowbound like the Corbucci but a lot bloodier!
01. The Man With No Name Trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars / For a Few Dollars More / The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone / 1964-1966) ["Franchise Tie"]
02. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah / 1969)
03. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone / 1968)
04. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood / 1992)
05. The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci / 1967)
06. The Four of the Apocalypse (Lucio Fulci / 1975)
07. The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah / 1970)
08. The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood / 1976)
09. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino / 2015)
10. The Hunting Party (Don Medford / 1971)
#11-20: "Some Are Born To Endless Night"
More Clint, more Sam. Plus two shootouts at the O.K. Corral ending in a draw, one gender bender, one surrealist spiritual odyssey from south of the border, a possible tall tale told by a 121-year-old, more melancholy '70s revisionism, more spaghetti with red sauce, one with the second most popular Italian Western hero after the Man With No Name... oh, all this and William Blake, too!
11. Tombstone (George P. Cosmatos / 1993) / Wyatt Earp (Lawrence Kasdan / 1994) ["Complementary Competitors Tie"]
12. Little Big Man (Arthur Penn / 1970)
13. Django (Sergio Corbucci / 1966)
14. High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood / 1973)
15. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky / 1970)
16. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman / 1971)
17. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah / 1973)
18. Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (Giulio Questi / 1967)
19. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch / 1995)
20. The Ballad of Little Jo (Maggie Greenwald / 1993)
#21-30: As Sure As The Turning Of The Earth
Back to the '40s and '50s... for the first time. The Duke makes his first two appearances, under the direction of Ford. Plus a pair of greedy madmen just under 60 years apart, a pair of hanging nooses 25 years apart (one with Clint), cattlemen vs. settlers and immigrants, a gorgeous gun-slinging saloonkeeper, and the esteemed Mr. Brando's one directorial effort.
21. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson / 2007)
22. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston / 1948)
23. The Searchers (John Ford / 1956)
24. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray / 1954)
25. One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando / 1961)
26. The Ox-Bow Incident (William A. Wellman / 1943)
27. Hang 'Em High (Ted Post / 1968)
28. Shane (George Stevens / 1953)
29. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford / 1962)
30. Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino / 1980)
#31-40: Only The Dead Are Without Fear
Because it's impossible to pick just one from the Ranown cycle with Randolph Scott (and they're all pretty much even anyway), I tied all five together. Plus, we get another from Wayne and Ford, two from Sturges, yet another from Sam, the definitive buddy-movie prototype with Newman and Redford, yet more misadventure south of the border, existential questions on the nature of being a gunfighter, plus a dark contemporary tale from the pen of Cormac McCarthy. Ends on a double whammy of castration anxiety: One with Kirk Douglas, and yet another from Clint. No less than four of these are set in the 20th century, somewhat closer to our own time.
31. The Ranown Westerns: The Tall T / Decision at Sundown / Buchanan Rides Alone / Ride Lonesome / Comanche Station (Budd Boetticher / 1957-1960) ["Collaborative Collection Tie"]
32. Stagecoach (John Ford / 1939)
33. Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges / 1955)
34. The Gunfighter (Henry King / 1950)
35. No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen / 2007)
36. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah / 1974)
37. The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges / 1960)
38. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill / 1969)
39. Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller / 1962)
40. The Beguiled (Don Siegel / 1971)
Well, that's all for now, folks! How about you...?
__________________
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid." - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid." - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
Last edited by Darth Pazuzu; 1 week ago at 08:29 PM.
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