Arts and Humanities Commons^™

People And Place: A Journey Through Film, Tourism, And Heritage, Sarah Beals

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Old Tucson Studios is a theme park where film, tourism, and heritage all converge through the American Western genre. During national social change, Westerns increase in number to reflect national values and identity. Westerns that ally with landscapes and people are potentially the most powerful storytelling tool in mainstream media. My research shows that this paring of people and place creates a prevailing image in the audience’s memory. The results suggest that the current image of the West comes from films made between 1951-1970, despite there being newer Westerns. John Wayne and saguaro cactus are enduring images with historic, cultural, …

Once Upon A Time In Tarantino’S West: Persistence Of The Western As An American Fairy Tale, Beth Jane Toren

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Traditionally associated with fairy tales, “Once upon a time” invites us to suspend disbelief, leave time behind, and be transported to an alternative world. Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il West, 1968), a follow-up to his Dollars Trilogy, invites us to visit “The West” not as a historical landscape but a surreal domain. Like the fairy-tale worlds of Grimm or Perrault, or in the film medium of Leone’s, Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic universes invite the audience to experience another dimension entirely. Not surprisingly then, his ninth film Once Upon a Time in …

Manifest Density: Decentering The Global Western Film, Michael D. Phillips

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Western is often seen as a uniquely American narrative form, one so deeply ingrained as to constitute a national myth. This perception persists despite its inherent shortcomings, among them its inapplicability to the many instances of filmmakers outside the United States appropriating the genre and thus undercutting this view of generic exceptionalism. As the Western has migrated across geographical boundaries, it has accrued potential significations that bring into question its direct alignment with national ideology and history. Rather than attempting to define the Western in terms of nation or myth, we should attend to how each new text reconfigures …

Dream On, Joe Wilkins

Faculty Publications

In this essay, Joe Wilkins describes what he believes are the essential elements of Western films.

American Myth-Busting, Joe Wilkins

Faculty Publications

In this essay, Joe Wilkins discusses the new breed of western films.

Border Bandits: Hollywood On The Southern Frontier (Book Review), Claudia Ferman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Fojas begins the preface to her book with a reference to May 1, 2006, a date on which American workers recognized International Labor Day by boycotting their jobs and marching to reject a law that repressed undocumented workers at the same time that it proposed the construction of a wall along the whole 700-mile Mexican border. The author claims that this protest marked "a new era in the predicament of workers at the bottom of the labor market" (vii). For Fojas, this moment marks a new visibility for Latinos and immigrant communities.

It is against this historical and political horizon …

Cowboys And Shoguns: The American Western, Japanese Jidaigeki, And Cross-Cultural Exchange, Kyle Keough

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Furies, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Anthony Mann's The Furies: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2008/07/the-furies.html

How The West Was Sung: Music In The Westerns Of John Ford, Kathryn Kalinak

Kathryn M Kalinak

James Stewart once said, "For John Ford, there was no need for dialogue. The music said it all." This lively, accessible study is the first comprehensive analysis of Ford's use of music in his iconic westerns. Encompassing a variety of critical approaches and incorporating original archival research, Kathryn Kalinak explores the director's oft-noted predilection for American folk song, hymnody, and period music. What she finds is that Ford used music as more than a stylistic gesture. In fascinating discussions of Ford's westerns--from silent-era features such as Straight Shooting and The Iron Horse to classics of the sound era such as …

Review Of The River's Edge, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Allan Dwan's The River's Edge: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/07/the-rivers-edge-1957.html

Review Of Yellow Sky, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of William Wellman's 1948 Western, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Review Of Seven Men From Now, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Budd Boetticher's Seven Men from Now: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/01/seven-men-from-now.html

Cowboy Wonderland, History, And Myth: 'It Ain't All That Different Than Real Life, William G. Simon, Louise Spence

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson was Robert Altman's bicentennial film. Released for the Fourth of July weekend in 1976, the film examines the western both as a national myth and as a commercial entertainment form; indeed, one might see the film's project as an expos? of the ideological functioning of the western, its white male hero, and the Native American in nearly 100 years of American popular culture.