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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Breaking new ground in S&S | Forum Quick Jump
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MichaelEhart
Sage
      
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 4/3/2008 6:28 PM (GMT -5) |   | Westerns were cheap. Whole studios in the 1930's cranked out "Poverty Row" westerns with tiny budgets and one-week shooting schedules. It wasn't until Stagecoach that folks started seeing them as something for adults. Budgets went up, and quality, until TV came along and took over the western. It wasn't instant, but by the time TV had beaten the western to death, it took a long time for the public to come back.
Nowdays, spectacle westerns tend to do poor BO, but there are are always a few exceptions. Dances with Wolves, Maverick, Unforgiven, Tombstone all did well. What is needed, though, is someone to make a bunch of good, cheap westerns, with someone like Tom Selleck or Sam Elliot, and run 'em on the Hallmark Channel or... oh wait!
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PaulMc
Adept
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 992
| Posted 4/3/2008 5:43 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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RHFay
Sage
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 2014
| Posted 4/3/2008 5:37 PM (GMT -5) | |
Jordan Lapp said...
John M. Whalen said...
Maybe that's the new direction needed for S&S. A barbarian who wears ladies underwear and plays the lute. I'm SURE this has been done. And, if experience is any indicator at all, someone will soon shoot us a link.
If not, maybe I'll write one sometime. 
Actually, a warrior playing a lute (or being skilled at playing a similar musical instrument) isn't unknown historically. I can't say that it's been done in S&S, but it was certainly done in myths, legends, and folklore.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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John M. Whalen
flashg
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 446
| Posted 4/3/2008 5:36 PM (GMT -5) | |
nathan said...
John M. Whalen said...
Peckinpah's masterpiece THE WILD BUNCH changed forever the way action movies are made. Peckinpah may also be responsible for killing off the western. After the Battle of Bloody Porch what more could you do?
Well go dig up the body of a guy who slept with your woman and then bond emotionally with the severed head?
aside...that moment after the wild bunch had killed El Hefe and were standing there, surrounded and waiting for the Mexicans to slaughter them and it became very clear the peon militia wanted *no* part of 'em and would have let them walk away...and then they said "screw it" and started the Blood Porch Incident for real? Fuggetboutit
However I think you're confusing Wild Bunch with Magnifcent 7 for roots to Yojimbo and Red Harvest.
No, I said FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was based on YOJIMBO and RED HARVEST. MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was based on THE SEVEN SAMURAI.
But you are right about the total coolness of that scene where everyone freezes for a moment before all hell breaks loose in THE WILD BUNCH. BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFRDO GARCIA is by far the film where Peckinpah said it all. The things you have to do to survive! Including digging up the head of your former best friend who screwed your woman. | | Back to Top | | |
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John M. Whalen
flashg
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 446
| Posted 4/3/2008 5:14 PM (GMT -5) | | Thought I'd add a few thoughts to the discussion at this point.
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) was a rewrite of Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO (1961). Which was a rewrite of Dashiell Hammett's novel RED HARVEST. The Leone and Kurosawa films were both existentialist films, which were popular during that period. The man with no name is an existential anti-hero, and the film definitely "broke new ground."
Peckinpah's masterpiece THE WILD BUNCH changed forever the way action movies are made. Peckinpah may also be responsible for killing off the western. After the Battle of Bloody Porch what more could you do?
Ridley Scott was quoted recently saying the western is dead. Maybe.But I'd hate to see a director like him even try to make a western. The Fords, Peckinpahs, Sturgises and Hawkses are gone. They were all men who made Hollywood and learned their trade by doing it. I don't think today's film school graduate director would even be capable of conceiving a western in the classic mold. Well, they might try to imitate favorites they've seen in class or on DVD. But the result wouldn't be the same.
The Western is basically a masculine genre. And there might not be enough of an audience left for it, given today's politically correct sensibilities. 3:10 FROM YUMA came and went, but don't forget BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN won Oscars. Talk about breaking new ground. Maybe that's the new direction needed for S&S. A barbarian who wears ladies underwear and plays the lute. | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 4/3/2008 4:26 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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James Enge
Maker
Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 209
| Posted 4/3/2008 3:38 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Jordan Lapp
Ebony & Ivory
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2953
| Posted 4/3/2008 2:43 PM (GMT -5) | |
Steven the Git said...
Yes I did mean the Searchers with John Wayne and it is a great movie. I have to say, I once tried coming up with top tens from various genres, and the western top ten stood out by miles. The Searchers, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (or throw in the entire trilogy), Warlock, The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West, True Grit, Josey Wales, and there's more if I sat here and thought about it.
Hmmm, Blazing Saddles even?!
Also, on recent ones, there was the movie The Assassination of Jesse James. However that tends to prove Jordan's point, I'm sure it didn't do well money wise.
But big dumb easy going movies tend to outsell the better films. You're saying that Spaghetti Westerns are high concept? I mean, I love "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" as much as the next guy but... come on.... they were Cowboy-'sploitation (to coin a phrase).
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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Steven the Git
Acolyte
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 225
| Posted 4/3/2008 2:39 PM (GMT -5) | | Yes I did mean the Searchers with John Wayne and it is a great movie. I have to say, I once tried coming up with top tens from various genres, and the western top ten stood out by miles. The Searchers, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (or throw in the entire trilogy), Warlock, The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West, True Grit, Josey Wales, and there's more if I sat here and thought about it.
Hmmm, Blazing Saddles even?!
Also, on recent ones, there was the movie The Assassination of Jesse James. However that tends to prove Jordan's point, I'm sure it didn't do well money wise.
But big dumb easy going movies tend to outsell the better films. Most of the time people go out to enjoy themselves and want to watch Owen Wilson be funny, and not see something that will try to educate or make them think too much. A shame but we're kind of stuck with it.
I remember when two Wyatt Earp movies came out. One starred Costner and covered his life from his youth to his old age and was a very thoughtful movie. The other had Kurt Russell blasting people with a shotgun, which I really enjoyed. No prizes for guessing which was a hit though.
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