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PROFESSOR: We continue
this wee, next week,

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00:00:31,990 --> 00:00:35,440
with our conversation-- it's
really our final conversation--

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00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:39,210
about the genre forms that are
at the center of the Hollywood

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00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:43,830
era with a consideration
of the Western.

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And that perhaps we should
begin by acknowledging

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how central the
Western is as a movie

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form in the history
of American cinema.

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Before the advent of
television in the late '40s--

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the first American television
broadcast was 1946.

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And we can say the
television is actually

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established is a social
experience in American life

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certainly by the late '40s,
by let's say 1949 or 1950.

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And it's through the
'50s that television

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spreads through the society and
begins to supplant the movies.

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So that before
television, let's say

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that before 1950,
nearly 30% percent

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of every movie made
in the United States

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was a Western all the way
through the Hollywood era.

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And in fact, in the silent
era, as I will describe briefly

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again this evening when I
do a kind of mini history

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of the Western movie,
even in the silent era,

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it's a central form.

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And even after the 1950s, even
after the advent of television,

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nearly half of
all movies that we

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might identify as set in the
past, as historical movies,

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were Westerns.

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00:01:59,764 --> 00:02:01,180
And of course, as
I suggested when

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I talked about the
musical, the Western

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00:02:03,750 --> 00:02:08,759
can be understood along with the
musical as a uniquely American

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form, even though
at a certain point

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in the mid and late '1960s,
certain gifted Italian

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00:02:14,180 --> 00:02:16,180
directors begin to
take over the Western

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and darken it and throw a
kind of European cynicism

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into the tradition
of the Western.

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00:02:21,790 --> 00:02:25,880
By that time, the Western
genre evolved and transformed

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in ways that made this cynicism
not completely unique, not

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totally European, because a
kind of subversive perspective

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00:02:34,780 --> 00:02:37,800
had begun to enter the American
version of the Western as well.

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00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:42,700
Nonetheless, the
Western form underwent

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00:02:42,700 --> 00:02:44,180
profound transformations.

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And it's those
transformations that I

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00:02:45,890 --> 00:02:50,780
want to briefly to talk about
here in an introductory way.

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00:02:50,780 --> 00:02:53,520
And I'll return to
that sort of what

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we might call the
trajectory or the career

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00:02:55,860 --> 00:02:59,630
of the Western briefly this
evening when I introduce

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some comments I want
to make about John Ford

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and about his classic Western,
the film we're watching

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tonight, "The Searchers."

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I want to talk a
little bit more,

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not only about the Western,
but about why the Western might

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be seen as being the
central American form,

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why it is so central not only to
the History of American cinema,

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but in a certain sense,
central to the cultural history

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of American society.

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One way to see
this is to reframe

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the idea I've been suggesting
all through the term

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this notion that
at a certain point,

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the movies became a form
of central storytelling

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in the society, the
form of storytelling

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that more Americans
than any other form

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participated in and
experienced, a form that I've

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come to label
consensus narrative,

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a kind of story system that
appeals across social barriers

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and across age that intends
in some sense to express what

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might be called the dominant
or the central values

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of a society.

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We talked about this idea--
I've talked about this idea

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already at some
length and I don't

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want to spend too
much time on it here.

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But I want to complicate
those ideas one more

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time by reminding you that one
way to think about or one way

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to frame this notion that the
movies and the Western form

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in particular embody this
notion of a story form that

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tends to reach the whole
society or to speak

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for the whole
society or to embody

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the central values
of the whole society

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is one way of understanding
the implications of that

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is to recognize, first of all,
that the Hollywood system which

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is so committed to forms
of genre representation

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is particularly served by the
principles of repetition that

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are inherent in the conventions
that surround the Western.

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Even the Western-- the
content of Westerns

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or the attitudes
within Westerns might

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undergo great transformations,
the basic formulas

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remain recognizable
from the earliest days.

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We think about the costumes, the
horses, the guns, and so forth,

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and even certain basic
plots and subplots that

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keep returning in the Western.

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As with the musical,
the genre is so robust

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that it has many
sort of some sub

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within it so that one
can talk about Westerns

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that involve battles between
sheep herders and ranchers.

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Or one can talk
about the Westerns

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that are so focused
on the laying

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of the transcontinental
railroad.

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Or one could focus on
Westerns that focus

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on the conflict between
white settlers and Indians.

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Now, many Westerns combine
a number of these elements.

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And there are other sub
genres we could describe.

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The very fact that there
are these sub genres

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is a measure of how
robust the system became.

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And one way to think, therefore,
about this idea that I've

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labeled, consensus
narrative, or another way

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to think about what I've
earlier in the course

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called the cultural
work of the movies

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or the cultural, the
anthropological job,

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that genre forms in general
during the Hollywood era

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perform, is to recognize
that we can understand

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the specific genre
as a distilled

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instance of the larger
process of the movies,

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right, as a smaller
clarifying instance,

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00:06:37,660 --> 00:06:40,780
we can understand
in a certain sense

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as a forum, a space
of conversation,

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a space of discourse in
which the culture engages

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in a kind of ongoing
conversation.

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00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:52,920
You remember the terms
I used earlier borrowing

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from the English critic
Raymond Williams.

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I said that we can understand
that these genre reforms

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or these consensus forms
could be said to mobilize

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three different
strains of attitude--

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an emergent, a dominant, and
a traditional set of voices--

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and that one of the
explanations for why

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genre texts and the
Hollywood movie specifically

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and the Western in particular
are often so conflicted

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or divided is precisely
that they embody

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or incorporate
some attitudes that

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are traditional and old
fashioned, some attitudes that

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are emerging and challenge
traditional ideas,

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and also what we might
central or dominant values,

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and that not every text
will balance those elements

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in exactly the same way.

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The second point about
this is to recognize

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that one of the beauties of
genre, one of the reasons

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they serve such a fundamental
cultural or anthropological

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function in a
society, is precisely

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that they go on forever,
that in other words

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we can think of genre forms as
a kind of ongoing continuing

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conversation centered
on the same formats

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and the same conventions.

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And if the genre is stable
and if the society produces

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these genre forms over
decades, the genre

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form itself becomes a
mirror in which we can see

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reflected the changing values
and assumptions of the culture.

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Now, this might be true of
any kind of a particular genre

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form in any medium.

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But the reason it has
special force when

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we're talking about the
movies in the 20th century

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in the United
States is precisely

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because the form is so
central to the society,

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because so much of the
society participates in it.

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So the picture of
the society that

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is the ambivalent and conflicted
picture of the society that

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emerges from studying
these genre forms

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is likely to be far more
illuminating about the larger

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culture than, let's say, a study
of a cultural form, let's say,

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like opera.

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Not that the opera isn't worth
studying and doesn't reflect

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certain cultural values too,
but because the opera appeals

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to a particular
subculture, the values

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are going to be narrower.

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The kinds of assumptions
the people writing opera

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and attending opera make about
the larger culture and about

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aesthetic experience
are profoundly

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different from the
much more dispersed

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and democratic attitudes
and accessible notions

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that animate the create
of a consensus form,

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of a form that's trying to
reach the whole of a culture.

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So this is a way
of reminding you

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of what we might call
the sociological and

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00:09:36,910 --> 00:09:40,980
anthropological importance
of the study of popular forms

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in general and of
American movies

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in particular, the Western
genre even more especially.

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We can think, therefore,
of the Western almost

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as a form of kind of national
theater, a kind of repertory

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company in which the same
relatively small number,

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recognizably small number,
of actors and actresses,

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of directors and other sub
specialists whose names are

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never remembered, collaborate
to create the film.

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We can think of the
movies as embodying,

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in a certain sense,
what I'm calling

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the theater of a nation.

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And I put the phrase
in quotation marks

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not because it's a fancy
phrase, but because I

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00:10:29,274 --> 00:10:30,690
want to call
attention to the fact

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that I'm actually
borrowing a phrase

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00:10:32,820 --> 00:10:35,420
from a great literary
historian who

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wrote a book about
Shakespeare's audience

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00:10:37,644 --> 00:10:40,060
and about Shakespeare's plays
and about the public theater

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00:10:40,060 --> 00:10:45,330
of Shakespeare's day and
called that theater the theater

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of a nation.

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And in a certain sense, we could
say that the Hollywood system

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was a similar kind of theater.

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It doesn't from this
that every text created

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there is a noble work of art.

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And it's very
important to recognize

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that the distinction
I'm making between

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00:11:01,380 --> 00:11:05,020
and anthropological
perspective and an artistic one

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00:11:05,020 --> 00:11:07,200
must hold here.

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00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:09,556
And it's another reason
for emphasizing this.

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00:11:09,556 --> 00:11:10,930
Because the fact
of the matter is

208
00:11:10,930 --> 00:11:12,950
it's very hard in
a course like this,

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00:11:12,950 --> 00:11:15,390
especially-- because some of
these films are so wonderful,

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00:11:15,390 --> 00:11:18,390
my own enthusiasm
encourages you to like them

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and I want you to like them.

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00:11:19,580 --> 00:11:21,454
Nonetheless, it's very
important to recognize

213
00:11:21,454 --> 00:11:25,140
that I'm not trying to tell
you a merely triumphalist story

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00:11:25,140 --> 00:11:29,200
about how magnificently
American movies began

215
00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:31,100
to sort of realize
their possibilities

216
00:11:31,100 --> 00:11:33,310
and dramatize experience.

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Because in a certain
fundamental sense,

218
00:11:35,810 --> 00:11:39,200
these consensus values are
not necessarily noble ones.

219
00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:41,200
And the western is a
particularly clear instance

220
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:41,699
of this.

221
00:11:41,699 --> 00:11:43,730
And what I'm talking
about in a certain sense

222
00:11:43,730 --> 00:11:46,260
is the extent to which
these genre reforms carry

223
00:11:46,260 --> 00:11:51,540
the lies, the prejudices, the
nasty qualities of a society

224
00:11:51,540 --> 00:11:54,280
as well as their
ideals and values.

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00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:57,330
And we can feel those
elements, even though the films

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00:11:57,330 --> 00:12:00,260
themselves want to
tell uplifting stories,

227
00:12:00,260 --> 00:12:03,410
the values embedded in them may
not be so attractive at all.

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00:12:03,410 --> 00:12:05,640
And the Western is a
particularly clear instance

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00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:08,770
of this-- a reminder,
again, that we don't just

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00:12:08,770 --> 00:12:11,650
look at films for
aesthetic satisfaction.

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00:12:11,650 --> 00:12:13,460
We don't just look
at films for-- we

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00:12:13,460 --> 00:12:16,120
don't need to just look at
films for mere enjoyment.

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00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,860
They are anthropological
artifacts

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00:12:19,860 --> 00:12:25,470
of the greatest importance
exactly because they existed

235
00:12:25,470 --> 00:12:30,296
at such a central, at such a
fundamental space in the larger

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00:12:30,296 --> 00:12:30,795
society.

237
00:12:34,030 --> 00:12:37,240
Why would the Western--
why would the Western

238
00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:38,650
be such a central form?

239
00:12:38,650 --> 00:12:41,510
Why, in some sense, could
we think of the movies,

240
00:12:41,510 --> 00:12:44,090
with its vast,
wide, giant screen,

241
00:12:44,090 --> 00:12:46,900
as the ultimate
destiny of the Western?

242
00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:49,794
I think one explanation for
the power of the Western film,

243
00:12:49,794 --> 00:12:51,210
because there were
Western stories

244
00:12:51,210 --> 00:12:53,860
and other Western formats
before the advent of film--

245
00:12:53,860 --> 00:12:55,980
and I'll talk about
them in a moment.

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00:12:55,980 --> 00:12:59,042
Why would the film be such a
decisive space for the Western?

247
00:12:59,042 --> 00:13:01,000
And I think if you think
about it for a moment,

248
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,530
you'll recognize instantly
why that is the case.

249
00:13:03,530 --> 00:13:06,890
The format of the
movies is particularly

250
00:13:06,890 --> 00:13:10,300
conducive to the sense of
grandeur and largeness,

251
00:13:10,300 --> 00:13:13,010
spaciousness, that's
characteristic of Western

252
00:13:13,010 --> 00:13:22,920
spaces and of the parables
of heroism and social create,

253
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:25,430
society creation,
so the equation

254
00:13:25,430 --> 00:13:29,480
of a particular culture or
environment in the wilderness,

255
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:32,750
the establishment of
civilization as a recurring

256
00:13:32,750 --> 00:13:33,870
theme in the western.

257
00:13:33,870 --> 00:13:37,830
This kind of
recurring subject is

258
00:13:37,830 --> 00:13:42,660
at the very heart of
what Westerns do and turn

259
00:13:42,660 --> 00:13:46,760
the movies, I think, into
a particularly appropriate

260
00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:49,800
environment for the
largeness and grandeur

261
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,520
that Westerns represent.

262
00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:54,900
But that itself isn't
quite enough to explain

263
00:13:54,900 --> 00:13:57,970
why the Westerns occupy
such a central place.

264
00:13:57,970 --> 00:14:00,420
And of course, there are
historical and cultural

265
00:14:00,420 --> 00:14:02,000
explanations as well.

266
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:03,810
The first explanation
is that the movies

267
00:14:03,810 --> 00:14:06,660
are born at the end of a
period in which we could say

268
00:14:06,660 --> 00:14:08,350
the real west actually existed.

269
00:14:08,350 --> 00:14:10,200
In other words, the
movies come in just

270
00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:12,940
at the moment-- the
movies actually are still

271
00:14:12,940 --> 00:14:17,130
around when the experience
of what we call the West

272
00:14:17,130 --> 00:14:21,630
was still historically actual.

273
00:14:21,630 --> 00:14:23,900
It wasn't quite in the past.

274
00:14:23,900 --> 00:14:28,120
The Western genre
is focused really

275
00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:32,150
on a 30 year period, that
what some critics have

276
00:14:32,150 --> 00:14:35,790
called the real west, in
the period from about 1860

277
00:14:35,790 --> 00:14:38,900
through 1890.

278
00:14:38,900 --> 00:14:42,990
And this is the period of the
Civil War, of a whole variety

279
00:14:42,990 --> 00:14:46,810
of Indian wars, of the laying of
the transcontinental railroad,

280
00:14:46,810 --> 00:14:51,190
of the California and
Dakota gold rushes,

281
00:14:51,190 --> 00:14:54,490
the period of the range wars
I mentioned a little while ago

282
00:14:54,490 --> 00:14:57,230
between settlers and
great ranchers who

283
00:14:57,230 --> 00:14:59,920
wanted to keep spaces
open for their cattle.

284
00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:03,000
And of course, we now
realize it's the period,

285
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,830
although the early Westerns
didn't want to acknowledge this

286
00:15:05,830 --> 00:15:09,540
and told a kind
of opposite, it's

287
00:15:09,540 --> 00:15:12,400
also of course the era
in which we exterminate,

288
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,640
virtually-- the era of genocide
against Native Americans,

289
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:19,610
the extermination of Indians
and of the Buffalo that

290
00:15:19,610 --> 00:15:22,600
roamed the Western plains.

291
00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:26,570
And before this real
west moment was over,

292
00:15:26,570 --> 00:15:32,350
even before it
became history, it

293
00:15:32,350 --> 00:15:35,180
had begun to be mythologized.

294
00:15:35,180 --> 00:15:37,620
It was mythologized
in the popular culture

295
00:15:37,620 --> 00:15:40,710
simultaneously with
its actual existence.

296
00:15:40,710 --> 00:15:45,430
And there were a whole series
of forms of publication

297
00:15:45,430 --> 00:15:49,090
and forms of drama that
drew on the west and stories

298
00:15:49,090 --> 00:15:52,640
of the west and begin to
establish what we might call

299
00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:56,490
the basic conventions
of the Western mythology

300
00:15:56,490 --> 00:16:01,130
or the parable America
likes to tell itself

301
00:16:01,130 --> 00:16:03,740
about the nature of
the settling the West.

302
00:16:03,740 --> 00:16:06,920
One of these forms
were the dime novels

303
00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,510
that appeared in the
late 19th century

304
00:16:10,510 --> 00:16:15,570
and into the early 20th century,
available usually in paperback

305
00:16:15,570 --> 00:16:17,800
at news stands.

306
00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:19,855
And some of them were
immensely popular.

307
00:16:23,290 --> 00:16:26,490
Here's one title,
a very famous one,

308
00:16:26,490 --> 00:16:28,910
the equivalent of a
best seller, I guess,

309
00:16:28,910 --> 00:16:32,580
of the day published in
1882-- The Life, Times,

310
00:16:32,580 --> 00:16:36,820
and Treacherous Death
of Jesse James, 1882.

311
00:16:36,820 --> 00:16:39,860
And of course, what
these dime novels

312
00:16:39,860 --> 00:16:42,230
did was they took what were
quasi historical events,

313
00:16:42,230 --> 00:16:45,780
sometimes real events, and
immensely elaborated them,

314
00:16:45,780 --> 00:16:49,330
fictionized them into heroic
fables of various kinds,

315
00:16:49,330 --> 00:16:52,290
often celebrating people
like Jesse James who

316
00:16:52,290 --> 00:16:55,090
may well have been outlaws
and disreputable people

317
00:16:55,090 --> 00:16:57,330
in actuality.

318
00:16:57,330 --> 00:17:02,000
Another title-- The Illustrated
Lives and Adventures

319
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:06,240
of Frank and Jesse James
and the Younger Brothers.

320
00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:11,849
And you can imagine what that
kind of thing would have done.

321
00:17:11,849 --> 00:17:14,020
In addition to
these dime novels,

322
00:17:14,020 --> 00:17:17,410
there will also stage
performances, plays.

323
00:17:17,410 --> 00:17:21,859
They were often some form of
melodrama set in the Old West

324
00:17:21,859 --> 00:17:27,730
and involving the basic costumes
and accoutrements of a Western,

325
00:17:27,730 --> 00:17:28,250
right?

326
00:17:28,250 --> 00:17:31,810
Pistols and cowboy hats and
school marms from the east

327
00:17:31,810 --> 00:17:32,900
and so forth.

328
00:17:32,900 --> 00:17:35,630
But perhaps even more important
than these two sources,

329
00:17:35,630 --> 00:17:37,820
and they were very powerful
and important forms

330
00:17:37,820 --> 00:17:40,910
of popular culture before films
to help establish what we might

331
00:17:40,910 --> 00:17:44,430
call the mythology of the west,
were the Buffalo Bill shows,

332
00:17:44,430 --> 00:17:46,450
the wild west shows.

333
00:17:46,450 --> 00:17:49,640
These were unbelievably
popular and successful.

334
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:54,770
Here is a picture
of a kind of flyer

335
00:17:54,770 --> 00:17:57,300
that would be distributed
in small towns

336
00:17:57,300 --> 00:17:59,970
or sometimes in larger
towns as the Wild West show

337
00:17:59,970 --> 00:18:03,690
and-- the Wild West
show came to town.

338
00:18:03,690 --> 00:18:08,480
The star of the Wild West show
was William Cody, Buffalo Bill.

339
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,440
He had a very modest
actual career in the west.

340
00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:15,550
But it was immensely elaborated
by him and his publicist

341
00:18:15,550 --> 00:18:18,720
into something much grander
and more remarkable.

342
00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:22,660
Buffalo Bill made his first
age appearance in 1872

343
00:18:22,660 --> 00:18:26,640
in a stage melodrama called
"Scout of the Planes,"

344
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:28,710
which went on a two
year four, right?

345
00:18:28,710 --> 00:18:31,220
And then in 1882,
10 years later,

346
00:18:31,220 --> 00:18:33,610
he formed his own
wild west show, which

347
00:18:33,610 --> 00:18:36,221
became immensely popular,
traveled all over the country,

348
00:18:36,221 --> 00:18:37,470
and then made trips to Europe.

349
00:18:37,470 --> 00:18:43,290
He even did one Wild West show
before the Queen of England.

350
00:18:43,290 --> 00:18:48,820
And it was an immensely
successful public enactment.

351
00:18:48,820 --> 00:18:51,820
The basic elements
of the wild west show

352
00:18:51,820 --> 00:18:54,250
contained the essential
mythology that

353
00:18:54,250 --> 00:18:56,690
then moved into the movies.

354
00:18:56,690 --> 00:19:00,170
They often dramatized--
in the wild west show,

355
00:19:00,170 --> 00:19:02,605
they often dramatize a
battle between white men

356
00:19:02,605 --> 00:19:05,250
and Indians in which the
Indians were very treacherous

357
00:19:05,250 --> 00:19:07,110
and were finally defeated.

358
00:19:07,110 --> 00:19:10,840
They sometimes, in fact, in some
of the forms of the wild west

359
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,401
show, they reenacted the
Battle of Little Bighorn

360
00:19:13,401 --> 00:19:15,400
in which at the last
minute, there was a rescue.

361
00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:18,200
They reversed history
in it sometimes

362
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:22,830
in order to dramatize
an outcome that

363
00:19:22,830 --> 00:19:24,885
was more appealing to
the white audiences.

364
00:19:27,730 --> 00:19:29,640
The wild west show
staged battles

365
00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:31,040
between cowboys and Indians.

366
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,230
And in fact, one of the
great historical ironies,

367
00:19:34,230 --> 00:19:36,780
the historical irony
that the director we're

368
00:19:36,780 --> 00:19:38,290
looking at next
week, Robert Altman,

369
00:19:38,290 --> 00:19:40,440
actually picks up on in
one of his films called

370
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:44,070
"Buffalo Bill and the Indians,"
a film he made in the 1970s--

371
00:19:44,070 --> 00:19:46,320
1975, I think.

372
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:49,320
One of the shocking things
is that at a certain point,

373
00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:51,240
at least for two
years, I think, one

374
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:56,040
of the participants
in the Wild West shows

375
00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:58,920
was Sitting Bull himself,
the defeated Indian,

376
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:04,950
the defeated Native American
leader who was now domesticated

377
00:20:04,950 --> 00:20:07,080
and actually became
part of the show.

378
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:10,840
And in Altman's fictionalized
version of this episode,

379
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:13,700
a drunken Paul Newman
plays Buffalo Bill.

380
00:20:13,700 --> 00:20:16,660
And he's mocked and made
fun of in some sense

381
00:20:16,660 --> 00:20:21,770
by a character who represents
Chief Sitting Bull, who

382
00:20:21,770 --> 00:20:24,580
has all the dignity-- he's
almost the only character

383
00:20:24,580 --> 00:20:26,700
in the film with real dignity.

384
00:20:26,700 --> 00:20:32,860
It's a subversive post
Hollywood era Western,

385
00:20:32,860 --> 00:20:33,960
as you might guess.

386
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:37,470
So the Wild West shows, the
Buffalo Bill wild west shows,

387
00:20:37,470 --> 00:20:39,260
were essentially
an early rehearsal

388
00:20:39,260 --> 00:20:40,672
for what the movies became.

389
00:20:40,672 --> 00:20:42,380
And many of the elements
of the wild west

390
00:20:42,380 --> 00:20:45,470
show-- fancy roping,
fancy shooting,

391
00:20:45,470 --> 00:20:51,600
conflicts between cowboys
and Indians, the performance

392
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,710
of various horse riding
tricks, herding of cattle

393
00:20:55,710 --> 00:20:58,660
and so forth-- all sort of
contained the elements that

394
00:20:58,660 --> 00:21:00,910
then moved into the
movies in an even more

395
00:21:00,910 --> 00:21:03,440
systematic and powerful way.

396
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:05,610
And then I might mention
one final source--

397
00:21:05,610 --> 00:21:07,380
the novel itself.

398
00:21:07,380 --> 00:21:10,210
At the beginning of
the 20th century,

399
00:21:10,210 --> 00:21:13,452
in 1902, one of the best selling
novels of all time in English

400
00:21:13,452 --> 00:21:14,035
was published.

401
00:21:14,035 --> 00:21:16,510
It was a book
called The Virginian

402
00:21:16,510 --> 00:21:18,310
by a writer named
Owen Worcester.

403
00:21:18,310 --> 00:21:20,020
And it remains one
of the bestselling

404
00:21:20,020 --> 00:21:21,910
books in the history
of the United States.

405
00:21:21,910 --> 00:21:24,970
It still sells thousands
of books every year.

406
00:21:24,970 --> 00:21:27,210
I once found, in
a used bookstore,

407
00:21:27,210 --> 00:21:30,150
an addition of
The Virginian that

408
00:21:30,150 --> 00:21:32,250
had been published
I think 15 years

409
00:21:32,250 --> 00:21:34,050
after its original publication.

410
00:21:34,050 --> 00:21:39,210
And that addition was, I think,
the 50th addition of the book.

411
00:21:39,210 --> 00:21:41,590
It went through an incredible
number of-- and in fact,

412
00:21:41,590 --> 00:21:45,350
the addition I had also included
beautiful illustrations that

413
00:21:45,350 --> 00:21:48,760
obviously were added
to later additions

414
00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:51,520
once the popularity of
the book became known.

415
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:54,320
So what we find is that
the popular culture

416
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,660
before the advent of movies
had already, in some sense,

417
00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:00,130
created a full fledged
mythology of the Western,

418
00:22:00,130 --> 00:22:04,690
had familiarized the society
with the basic attitudes,

419
00:22:04,690 --> 00:22:09,230
assumptions, costumes,
and fundamental archetypal

420
00:22:09,230 --> 00:22:12,930
characters who
organize the Western.

421
00:22:12,930 --> 00:22:14,811
And there's one further
thing to emphasize.

422
00:22:14,811 --> 00:22:16,310
This may be the
most important thing

423
00:22:16,310 --> 00:22:19,030
of all, what we might call
the intellectual culture.

424
00:22:19,030 --> 00:22:22,740
It was-- not only was there
a real historical background

425
00:22:22,740 --> 00:22:24,790
to the Western and
not only was there

426
00:22:24,790 --> 00:22:29,140
a profound form of popular
culture in theater,

427
00:22:29,140 --> 00:22:32,390
in public performances,
like these wild west shows,

428
00:22:32,390 --> 00:22:35,910
and in dime novels as well
as in literary novels--

429
00:22:35,910 --> 00:22:39,290
a tremendous
compost of discourse

430
00:22:39,290 --> 00:22:41,680
that already sort of
establishes the genre even

431
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:43,350
before the movies arrive.

432
00:22:43,350 --> 00:22:44,890
There was also a final touch.

433
00:22:44,890 --> 00:22:48,550
And this is the thing that
helps to explain, I think,

434
00:22:48,550 --> 00:22:51,060
maybe more powerfully than the
other examples I've given you

435
00:22:51,060 --> 00:22:54,850
why the Western had such a
hold and continues in some ways

436
00:22:54,850 --> 00:22:58,840
to have such a vestigial hold
on the American imagination

437
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,740
and on America's
sense of itself.

438
00:23:01,740 --> 00:23:04,410
And that is what happens
in what I call here

439
00:23:04,410 --> 00:23:06,320
the intellectual culture.

440
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:10,550
In 1893, one of the most famous
historians, Frederick Jackson

441
00:23:10,550 --> 00:23:17,960
Turner, published an essay in
the American Historical Soci--

442
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,700
or delivered a lecture
and then it was later

443
00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:22,360
published as an
essay-- delivered

444
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:25,400
a lecture to the American
Historical Society.

445
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,760
And the title of the essay
was "The Significance

446
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:29,850
of the Frontier in
American History."

447
00:23:29,850 --> 00:23:33,380
it's probably the single most
influential historical essay

448
00:23:33,380 --> 00:23:36,040
about the American past.

449
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,500
It's been attacked and
undermined and qualified

450
00:23:39,500 --> 00:23:43,020
and its limitations have
been widely discussed

451
00:23:43,020 --> 00:23:45,010
over the last 25 years.

452
00:23:45,010 --> 00:23:48,820
But it still remains, in some
respects, a seminal essay,

453
00:23:48,820 --> 00:23:51,640
even when historians are
reacting against it-- one

454
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,660
of the most important central
essays about the nature

455
00:23:55,660 --> 00:23:57,440
of American culture.

456
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,940
And this article-- in this
article, Frederick Jackson

457
00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:04,490
Turner argued
essentially that-- he

458
00:24:04,490 --> 00:24:06,140
was trying to make
a case for what

459
00:24:06,140 --> 00:24:07,770
makes the United States unique.

460
00:24:07,770 --> 00:24:09,450
He was making a
case for what we now

461
00:24:09,450 --> 00:24:13,030
call American exceptionalism,
a dubious proposition.

462
00:24:13,030 --> 00:24:15,250
But let's listen
to his argument,

463
00:24:15,250 --> 00:24:17,980
which has a good deal
of power and interest.

464
00:24:17,980 --> 00:24:19,880
He said essentially
that the existence

465
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:25,170
of free land, of a continuously
receding settlement,

466
00:24:25,170 --> 00:24:29,970
of a continuously receding
frontier, the advance

467
00:24:29,970 --> 00:24:33,060
of settlement westward
with European settlers

468
00:24:33,060 --> 00:24:35,150
always pressing
against that frontier,

469
00:24:35,150 --> 00:24:38,870
that the existence of such
a reality in American life

470
00:24:38,870 --> 00:24:42,870
had altered inherited notions
of social class and aristocratic

471
00:24:42,870 --> 00:24:47,880
government and had created a
tendency toward what Turner

472
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,740
implied were or said
were the American ideals

473
00:24:50,740 --> 00:24:53,800
of individualism
and classlessness,

474
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:54,980
of democracy itself.

475
00:24:54,980 --> 00:24:56,420
In other words,
the United States,

476
00:24:56,420 --> 00:25:00,010
according to Turner's
argument, had

477
00:25:00,010 --> 00:25:02,520
a particularly open
and democratic feel

478
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,120
because the existence of
this frontier allowed people

479
00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:11,570
to escape into a new life,
to find possibilities,

480
00:25:11,570 --> 00:25:14,280
to escape the confinements
of social class,

481
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:16,850
even perhaps in some
small degree of gender,

482
00:25:16,850 --> 00:25:19,370
although feminist
historians have certainly

483
00:25:19,370 --> 00:25:24,010
shown how confining the life of
women in the west actually was.

484
00:25:24,010 --> 00:25:27,670
Nonetheless, a sense that
the existence of the frontier

485
00:25:27,670 --> 00:25:31,820
made the United States a
uniquely individualistic

486
00:25:31,820 --> 00:25:33,800
and a uniquely free society.

487
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,590
What Turner had
done, of course, was

488
00:25:35,590 --> 00:25:39,070
define a central historical
myth for European Americans,

489
00:25:39,070 --> 00:25:41,880
for the white society
in the United States.

490
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:46,220
And we've come to recognize that
limitations of the argument.

491
00:25:46,220 --> 00:25:48,290
What's the most profound,
obvious limitation

492
00:25:48,290 --> 00:25:50,840
that occurs to you instantly?

493
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:53,316
How about the people
who already here, right?

494
00:25:53,316 --> 00:25:54,690
In other words,
one of the things

495
00:25:54,690 --> 00:25:57,320
that's wrong with
the Turner thesis

496
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,160
is that it's oblivious
to the existence

497
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,230
of the Native Americans
who were pushed aside

498
00:26:02,230 --> 00:26:03,480
by the white settlers.

499
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,240
It's a very complex story and I
don't want to oversimplify it.

500
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:09,480
I don't mean that the
heroic white people who

501
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:11,430
got in the Conestoga
wagons and who

502
00:26:11,430 --> 00:26:13,090
settled the west,
about whom there

503
00:26:13,090 --> 00:26:17,580
are dozens if not hundreds if
not thousands of-- certainly

504
00:26:17,580 --> 00:26:20,970
thousands if we count stories
in all formats-- of movies

505
00:26:20,970 --> 00:26:24,054
and books and short stories
and plays and so forth.

506
00:26:24,054 --> 00:26:25,470
I don't want to
suggest that there

507
00:26:25,470 --> 00:26:29,511
was nothing heroic or
remarkable about that behavior.

508
00:26:29,511 --> 00:26:30,010
There was.

509
00:26:30,010 --> 00:26:32,820
The United States is not
wrong-- American culture is not

510
00:26:32,820 --> 00:26:36,340
wrong in some sense to celebrate
the heroism of those people.

511
00:26:36,340 --> 00:26:38,540
But of course, as
we've come to realize,

512
00:26:38,540 --> 00:26:43,130
and as many of our most recent
Westerns openly acknowledge,

513
00:26:43,130 --> 00:26:46,840
this original mythology
which sort of celebrated

514
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,450
unambiguously the white
settlement of the West

515
00:26:50,450 --> 00:26:53,210
was actually also in
some sense an invasion

516
00:26:53,210 --> 00:26:54,890
and even a genocide.

517
00:26:54,890 --> 00:26:58,030
And the Turner thesis
doesn't even imagine that.

518
00:26:58,030 --> 00:27:00,440
It sees it as a
triumphal reality.

519
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:02,860
So there were limits, terrible
limits, to the argument.

520
00:27:02,860 --> 00:27:05,270
But there's also something
profoundly helpful

521
00:27:05,270 --> 00:27:06,360
about the argument.

522
00:27:06,360 --> 00:27:08,330
There is a sense
of spaciousness,

523
00:27:08,330 --> 00:27:11,940
a sense of new possibilities,
a greater hostility

524
00:27:11,940 --> 00:27:15,319
to social class and inherited
wealth in the United States

525
00:27:15,319 --> 00:27:16,610
than there are in other places.

526
00:27:16,610 --> 00:27:19,490
And for both good and
ill, the United States

527
00:27:19,490 --> 00:27:21,840
celebrates forms
of individualism

528
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,950
as against communal behavior
with a kind of intensity

529
00:27:25,950 --> 00:27:29,750
and compelling power that
many, many, not just Europeans,

530
00:27:29,750 --> 00:27:33,280
that many, many non Americans
think is excessive and think

531
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,960
has been reflected in some
sense in various forms

532
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,810
of national behavior which we
needn't discuss in detail now.

533
00:27:41,810 --> 00:27:46,100
But you could all imagine
your own examples.

534
00:27:46,100 --> 00:27:48,040
But to come back to
the primary point,

535
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,290
then, one of the reasons that--
it's as if the movies were sort

536
00:27:51,290 --> 00:27:54,560
of waiting for the Western,
as if the Western form already

537
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,740
in some sense, in fundamental
ways, fully formed

538
00:27:58,740 --> 00:28:03,000
comes into the movies just
as the movies are born,

539
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,110
as if the format of the movies
and the content of the Western

540
00:28:06,110 --> 00:28:08,040
were made for each
other in some sense.

541
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,050
And it becomes one of the
dominant, one of the signature

542
00:28:11,050 --> 00:28:13,660
features of American cinema.

543
00:28:13,660 --> 00:28:16,510
One of the fundamental aspects
of what the Western is,

544
00:28:16,510 --> 00:28:19,740
if we think of it as a
kind of cultural mythology,

545
00:28:19,740 --> 00:28:22,820
is that it tells
a founding story.

546
00:28:22,820 --> 00:28:24,990
It tells the story
again and again.

547
00:28:24,990 --> 00:28:28,180
It repeats it every time you
see a Western in some sense.

548
00:28:28,180 --> 00:28:30,320
Every Western is
implicitly a story

549
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:32,510
about the foundation
of a society,

550
00:28:32,510 --> 00:28:36,610
about the equation
of a community.

551
00:28:36,610 --> 00:28:38,170
It's always implicitly about it.

552
00:28:38,170 --> 00:28:41,650
In many Westerns, this
is an explicit topic.

553
00:28:41,650 --> 00:28:44,980
And what we can say
is that this means

554
00:28:44,980 --> 00:28:48,870
that the Western is the United
States' form of a kind of story

555
00:28:48,870 --> 00:28:50,640
that every culture has, right?

556
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,220
The ancient Greeks had
a founding mythology

557
00:28:54,220 --> 00:28:56,750
grounded in The Iliad
and The Odyssey, right?

558
00:28:56,750 --> 00:29:01,350
And Tudor England had
a founding mythology

559
00:29:01,350 --> 00:29:04,560
partly promulgated by
Shakespeare in the history

560
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:10,690
plays that were put on
in the public theater

561
00:29:10,690 --> 00:29:13,120
in the 16th century.

562
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,740
And what we can say
about these founding

563
00:29:15,740 --> 00:29:20,020
stories as they are always,
in some sense, fantasies

564
00:29:20,020 --> 00:29:21,000
or fictions.

565
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,870
But they articulate
values and assumptions

566
00:29:23,870 --> 00:29:26,690
that the culture,
in some sense, would

567
00:29:26,690 --> 00:29:28,410
like to believe about itself.

568
00:29:28,410 --> 00:29:32,100
And by their reiteration,
by their repetition,

569
00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:34,030
by telling them
again and again, they

570
00:29:34,030 --> 00:29:38,320
instantiate these values, these
assumptions about the society,

571
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,280
in the culture as a whole.

572
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,140
Their very repetition
is important.

573
00:29:43,140 --> 00:29:44,950
Because one of the
fundamental things

574
00:29:44,950 --> 00:29:48,680
about a myth or a mythology, one
of the most fundamental things

575
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,570
about it, is that
it's a collective--

576
00:29:50,570 --> 00:29:52,940
it's a collective story.

577
00:29:52,940 --> 00:29:55,050
It's not made by
a single person.

578
00:29:55,050 --> 00:29:57,310
And one way to think
about all Westerns,

579
00:29:57,310 --> 00:29:59,650
although of course many
of the best Westerns

580
00:29:59,650 --> 00:30:01,850
have the trace of--
more than the traces--

581
00:30:01,850 --> 00:30:04,660
have the imprint of
individual contributions.

582
00:30:04,660 --> 00:30:07,120
John Ford-- John Ford
is a great director.

583
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,470
And there are aspects of
John Ford's personality

584
00:30:10,470 --> 00:30:11,870
in every one of his Westerns.

585
00:30:11,870 --> 00:30:14,920
Nonetheless, even the most
profoundly Fordian Western

586
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,400
is still a collaborative
form, not only

587
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,152
because Ford as a director--
because the movies

588
00:30:21,152 --> 00:30:22,860
are inherently
collaborative because they

589
00:30:22,860 --> 00:30:24,970
have so many different
people who contribute

590
00:30:24,970 --> 00:30:26,380
to the creation of the whole.

591
00:30:26,380 --> 00:30:28,160
No one, even the most
powerful director,

592
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,284
can completely
control everything.

593
00:30:30,284 --> 00:30:32,200
The greatest directors
know how to collaborate

594
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,541
with their performance
and their writers.

595
00:30:34,541 --> 00:30:36,290
But in any case, it's
a collaborative form

596
00:30:36,290 --> 00:30:37,400
to begin with, right?

597
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:39,470
But there's another
kind of collaboration,

598
00:30:39,470 --> 00:30:40,320
several other kinds.

599
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:41,100
What are they?

600
00:30:41,100 --> 00:30:44,310
One of them is that every
Western is implicitly

601
00:30:44,310 --> 00:30:46,520
in a conversation with
every previous Western.

602
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,610
And in that since,
there's no author.

603
00:30:48,610 --> 00:30:51,460
It's a collective-- the story
of the American Western,

604
00:30:51,460 --> 00:30:53,230
in that sense, is
a collective story.

605
00:30:53,230 --> 00:30:56,050
It's a creation of the culture.

606
00:30:56,050 --> 00:30:58,280
And in fact, every new
version of the Western

607
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,780
adds to the mythology
in some sense, right?

608
00:31:00,780 --> 00:31:03,730
So in that sense, we can
think of genre reforms

609
00:31:03,730 --> 00:31:05,660
generally, the
Western in particular,

610
00:31:05,660 --> 00:31:11,667
as a particular kind of
ongoing, recurring discourse.

611
00:31:11,667 --> 00:31:14,000
And if you come back again
to the arguments I was making

612
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,930
at the beginning of our
class about the ways in which

613
00:31:19,930 --> 00:31:22,450
genre forms and
especially the Western

614
00:31:22,450 --> 00:31:25,370
can be seen to sort of
dramatize cultural change

615
00:31:25,370 --> 00:31:31,320
or the way in which a society's
attitudes may alter over time

616
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,040
exactly because so many
elements of a genre

617
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,030
are stable and recognizable,
those that are different

618
00:31:37,030 --> 00:31:41,190
are easy to recognize, are
easy to identify and speculate

619
00:31:41,190 --> 00:31:42,920
about.

620
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,260
So one of the things
we're recognizing here

621
00:31:45,260 --> 00:31:48,960
is that in a certain sense, the
very fact that the mythology is

622
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,650
open, is unfinished,
reflects something that's

623
00:31:51,650 --> 00:31:54,115
fundamental about society too.

624
00:31:54,115 --> 00:31:56,240
And this is part of Raymond
Williams' great insight

625
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,040
into culture when
he said-- what he

626
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,870
said was culture is a constant
mix of emergent, traditional,

627
00:32:01,870 --> 00:32:03,260
and dominant voices.

628
00:32:03,260 --> 00:32:04,770
It's never over.

629
00:32:04,770 --> 00:32:06,810
What culture is
is a conversation.

630
00:32:06,810 --> 00:32:11,100
It's never any one fixed thing
because culture is always

631
00:32:11,100 --> 00:32:11,730
in process.

632
00:32:11,730 --> 00:32:13,360
It's always changing.

633
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:17,930
And what we can say-- the
value of these genre reforms,

634
00:32:17,930 --> 00:32:21,640
and especially because the
movies could reach so widely,

635
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,240
even across linguistic barriers,
the value of the movies

636
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,580
or the power of the movies as a
form of this kind of discourse

637
00:32:29,580 --> 00:32:32,280
is overwhelmingly clear
exactly because we

638
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,830
can imagine this process,
this conversation,

639
00:32:34,830 --> 00:32:38,760
going on repeatedly over time--
the recognizable elements

640
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,540
juxtaposed against the elements
that are not recognizable,

641
00:32:41,540 --> 00:32:45,620
allowing for a kind of constant
process of reevaluation,

642
00:32:45,620 --> 00:32:48,090
of rehearsal, and of
rethinking, right?

643
00:32:48,090 --> 00:32:49,850
And we can say, in
fact, that that's

644
00:32:49,850 --> 00:32:53,510
one of the deep functions that
genre forms in general play

645
00:32:53,510 --> 00:32:55,680
and it's one of the
central functions

646
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,340
that the Hollywood movie plays.

647
00:32:57,340 --> 00:32:59,040
And I'll try to
concretize this for you

648
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,330
this evening in a kind of--
it's a kind of comic attempt,

649
00:33:02,330 --> 00:33:05,520
but I'm going to give you
a kind of capsule history

650
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,280
of the trajectory of the
Western from its earliest days,

651
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,830
from "The Great Train
Robbery," to "Unforgiven."

652
00:33:12,830 --> 00:33:16,120
So the Western is a mythology.

653
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:17,390
It's a mythology.

654
00:33:17,390 --> 00:33:19,440
The fact that mythologies
themselves are open

655
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:23,270
ended, are spaces in which a
society defines and redefines

656
00:33:23,270 --> 00:33:26,680
its identity and its central
values, makes the Western movie

657
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,510
a particularly powerful and
central anthropological space.

658
00:33:30,510 --> 00:33:33,250
It enacts, in different
ways over and over again,

659
00:33:33,250 --> 00:33:35,660
a story about the
founding of society.

660
00:33:35,660 --> 00:33:37,810
And at the end, it
is grounded therefore

661
00:33:37,810 --> 00:33:42,270
also in a series of
complex dichotomies

662
00:33:42,270 --> 00:33:45,420
that are worth making
clear, even though they're

663
00:33:45,420 --> 00:33:47,980
very obvious when you think
about what all Westerns do.

664
00:33:47,980 --> 00:33:48,900
But think about them.

665
00:33:48,900 --> 00:33:51,130
One of the dichotomies
is the dichotomy

666
00:33:51,130 --> 00:33:52,880
between what is
thought to be civilized

667
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,750
and what is thought to be
savage-- between civilization

668
00:33:55,750 --> 00:33:56,600
and savagery.

669
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:58,930
Another is often
between East and West

670
00:33:58,930 --> 00:34:01,860
in which the east
represents civilization

671
00:34:01,860 --> 00:34:04,460
and the west the sa-- but
there's an ambivalence.

672
00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:06,420
Because the east is
also a place that

673
00:34:06,420 --> 00:34:10,429
is thought to be dessicated
and lacking vitality.

674
00:34:10,429 --> 00:34:13,110
And the west is thought to
be an authentic place that

675
00:34:13,110 --> 00:34:18,719
tests us in our heroic,
largest possibilities, right?

676
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,580
And another kind of
dichotomy that is present

677
00:34:21,580 --> 00:34:24,900
in virtually all Westerns is a
dichotomy between what we might

678
00:34:24,900 --> 00:34:27,659
call the claims of community,
the claims of society

679
00:34:27,659 --> 00:34:30,050
on the one side, and the
claims of the individual

680
00:34:30,050 --> 00:34:31,280
on the other side, right?

681
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,460
This is a special
problem for the Western

682
00:34:33,460 --> 00:34:37,090
because it celebrates American
individualism so powerfully.

683
00:34:37,090 --> 00:34:39,120
The iconic scenes of
the Western in which

684
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,620
two men wearing guns square
off against each other

685
00:34:42,620 --> 00:34:45,850
and the quicker one survives--
that scene of the quick draw

686
00:34:45,850 --> 00:34:48,620
one and of the death
in the dusty street

687
00:34:48,620 --> 00:34:51,889
could be sent to be a kind
of embodiment of these values

688
00:34:51,889 --> 00:34:54,710
in which you have
to rely on yourself.

689
00:34:54,710 --> 00:34:56,030
You can't rely on someone else.

690
00:34:56,030 --> 00:34:57,190
You can't rely on
the government.

691
00:34:57,190 --> 00:34:58,570
You can't rely on the Sheriff.

692
00:34:58,570 --> 00:35:00,010
You can't rely on the police.

693
00:35:00,010 --> 00:35:01,630
You can't rely on
your neighbors.

694
00:35:01,630 --> 00:35:03,110
You have to trust yourself.

695
00:35:03,110 --> 00:35:04,840
And in fact, one
of the ways you can

696
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,430
see the power of these
Western mythologies operating,

697
00:35:07,430 --> 00:35:09,450
as it seems to me
in some sense, one

698
00:35:09,450 --> 00:35:11,540
of the great divides in
the United States today

699
00:35:11,540 --> 00:35:13,830
over the question of
guns and gun control

700
00:35:13,830 --> 00:35:18,110
is partly grounded in these
myths of individualism

701
00:35:18,110 --> 00:35:20,490
that the Western
mythology has been

702
00:35:20,490 --> 00:35:24,510
promulgating since before
the advent of the movies.

703
00:35:24,510 --> 00:35:26,640
In other words, the
attitudes-- and in fact,

704
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:32,060
if you listen to even some of
the most extreme forms of gun

705
00:35:32,060 --> 00:35:35,060
rights advocates actually
talk in a language

706
00:35:35,060 --> 00:35:38,630
that we can recognize from
Westerns, from Western movies.

707
00:35:38,630 --> 00:35:40,840
Not an accident that one
of our recent presidents

708
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,310
was a star in Western films
and actually remembered

709
00:35:45,310 --> 00:35:48,960
some films he'd been in as if
they'd been actual history.

710
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,510
And I don't say that in a
way to sort of disparage

711
00:35:51,510 --> 00:35:54,850
poor Ronald Reagan at all,
but as a way of reminding us

712
00:35:54,850 --> 00:35:58,480
the confluence or the
confusion of actual history

713
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,600
with these mythological
accounts of the west

714
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,047
is a characteristic feature
of the American imagination.

715
00:36:04,047 --> 00:36:05,130
How could it be otherwise?

716
00:36:05,130 --> 00:36:09,070
We have been so inundated in
these stories about the west.

717
00:36:09,070 --> 00:36:11,990
So another dichotomy, then,
is that between society

718
00:36:11,990 --> 00:36:14,080
and the individual,
maybe finally we

719
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,820
can say a dichotomy between
culture and nature, right?

720
00:36:17,820 --> 00:36:20,240
Which is the story that's
enacted again and again

721
00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:24,290
in the great epic stories that
every culture sort of generates

722
00:36:24,290 --> 00:36:26,060
for itself.

723
00:36:26,060 --> 00:36:29,060
One of the most distinctive
features of these dichotomies

724
00:36:29,060 --> 00:36:31,640
is the divided hero,
a character you'll

725
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,650
see embodied with great
complexity in tonight's film

726
00:36:34,650 --> 00:36:36,880
played by John Wayne,
a character who

727
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,800
is-- the Western hero is
often seen very ambivalently

728
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,680
as both a savior and a savage,
as someone who has the power

729
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:51,620
and authority to bring a kind
of decency and lawfulness

730
00:36:51,620 --> 00:36:54,890
to a community, but who
is himself so touched by,

731
00:36:54,890 --> 00:36:57,790
so tainted by the very
savagery that he tried

732
00:36:57,790 --> 00:37:00,570
to tame, that he's often
excluded from the community

733
00:37:00,570 --> 00:37:02,070
once it's been created.

734
00:37:02,070 --> 00:37:04,560
And you'll see a wonderful
instance, a complex instance

735
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,340
of that, in tonight's film
in the way the John Wayne

736
00:37:07,340 --> 00:37:09,330
character, at the
very end of the film,

737
00:37:09,330 --> 00:37:12,050
is in a certain sense
excluded from the community

738
00:37:12,050 --> 00:37:15,920
that he has helped to defend.

739
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:17,630
One way to see many
of these things

740
00:37:17,630 --> 00:37:19,660
or to clarify many
of these things

741
00:37:19,660 --> 00:37:23,410
is to juxtapose--
or maybe as a way

742
00:37:23,410 --> 00:37:28,780
of crystallizing this process
I'm talking about whereby

743
00:37:28,780 --> 00:37:34,360
a genre form can, in some sense,
dramatize changing values.

744
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,500
I want to show you one scene.

745
00:37:37,500 --> 00:37:39,960
Maybe I'll just
end with the scene.

746
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,080
This is a scene from
"McCabe and Mrs. Miller",

747
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,490
the film you're going to see
in two weeks, a Western that

748
00:37:45,490 --> 00:37:48,390
comes after the breakdown
of the Hollywood system,

749
00:37:48,390 --> 00:37:52,410
after the movies no longer
have the responsibility

750
00:37:52,410 --> 00:37:56,160
or the obligation-- no
longer saw themselves

751
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,800
as having to speak to
everyone-- a moment of great,

752
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,220
in many ways, extraordinary
artistic freedom,

753
00:38:03,220 --> 00:38:06,880
the period of the late '60s
and through a good part

754
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:08,180
of the 1970s.

755
00:38:08,180 --> 00:38:11,610
Many people would say it was
a moment in American cinema

756
00:38:11,610 --> 00:38:14,240
unrivaled for its
complexity and its richness.

757
00:38:14,240 --> 00:38:16,390
And one of the reasons
it was such a rich moment

758
00:38:16,390 --> 00:38:18,190
was that the movies
had been liberated

759
00:38:18,190 --> 00:38:20,969
from their responsibility to
talk to the whole culture.

760
00:38:20,969 --> 00:38:23,010
There was an irony connected
to that because they

761
00:38:23,010 --> 00:38:25,580
have smaller audience.

762
00:38:25,580 --> 00:38:28,440
But it gave them a kind
of political freedom,

763
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,160
a kind of moral freedom
that they hadn't had before.

764
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,024
And I want to show
you one scene.

765
00:38:33,024 --> 00:38:34,690
One reason I'm choosing
it is because it

766
00:38:34,690 --> 00:38:37,471
will resonate for you when
we come to "McCabe and Mrs.

767
00:38:37,471 --> 00:38:37,970
Miller."

768
00:38:37,970 --> 00:38:39,830
But it requires that
you know one thing.

769
00:38:39,830 --> 00:38:42,840
The scene, the iconic scene
that I mentioned earlier

770
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,470
where two heroes or
one hero and a bad guy

771
00:38:46,470 --> 00:38:49,870
square off against each other
on a dusty street to draw a gun

772
00:38:49,870 --> 00:38:53,830
might be said to be the
most recurring or the most--

773
00:38:53,830 --> 00:38:55,429
the quintessential
Western scene,

774
00:38:55,429 --> 00:38:57,220
although there are
others we might nominate

775
00:38:57,220 --> 00:38:58,990
as almost as important.

776
00:38:58,990 --> 00:39:01,460
And in order to understand
the scene you're about to see,

777
00:39:01,460 --> 00:39:03,290
you need to recognize
that what lies

778
00:39:03,290 --> 00:39:06,990
behind this very subversive
version of the shoot out

779
00:39:06,990 --> 00:39:09,510
are dozens, if not
hundreds, of earlier

780
00:39:09,510 --> 00:39:12,530
scenes in which heroic
characters that we greatly

781
00:39:12,530 --> 00:39:16,150
admire shoot down bad
guys in the street, right?

782
00:39:16,150 --> 00:39:18,280
Well, here's a scene
from "McCabe and Mrs.

783
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:19,960
Miller" of this iconic moment.

784
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:21,540
Remember, "McCabe
and Mrs. Miller"

785
00:39:21,540 --> 00:39:25,750
comes after the
consensus dispensation.

786
00:39:25,750 --> 00:39:27,830
It's free not to be
a consensus form.

787
00:39:27,830 --> 00:39:29,370
But one reason I
want to show you

788
00:39:29,370 --> 00:39:31,400
this is I hope you can
recognize that what

789
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,250
gives this scene its
power is not-- it's

790
00:39:34,250 --> 00:39:36,870
very brilliantly
photographed and dramatized.

791
00:39:36,870 --> 00:39:40,590
But what gives it its
power has very little

792
00:39:40,590 --> 00:39:43,220
to do with what it itself does.

793
00:39:43,220 --> 00:39:45,770
What grants its
enormous authority

794
00:39:45,770 --> 00:39:49,670
are the dozens, if not hundreds,
of prior scenes with which it's

795
00:39:49,670 --> 00:39:52,870
in conversation, against which
it is contrasting itself.

796
00:39:52,870 --> 00:39:54,720
Because this scene
of confrontation

797
00:39:54,720 --> 00:39:57,820
between two individuals--
who has the faster gun,

798
00:39:57,820 --> 00:40:01,230
right-- is, as I've
suggested, the iconic moment

799
00:40:01,230 --> 00:40:02,450
in the Western.

800
00:40:02,450 --> 00:40:04,940
And it is, in the
heroic Western,

801
00:40:04,940 --> 00:40:09,500
in the traditional Western,
it's a heroic moment

802
00:40:09,500 --> 00:40:13,390
of individual self assertion
in which good conquers evil.

803
00:40:13,390 --> 00:40:15,260
Watch Robert Altman's
version of this.

804
00:40:15,260 --> 00:40:17,236
WOMAN: Careful.

805
00:40:17,236 --> 00:40:19,212
Come back.

806
00:40:19,212 --> 00:40:20,694
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

807
00:40:23,164 --> 00:40:24,646
[? -There's ?] shorty!

808
00:40:24,646 --> 00:40:27,116
[INAUDIBLE]

809
00:40:27,116 --> 00:40:29,586
[DOG WHINING]

810
00:40:31,068 --> 00:40:33,044
[CLINKING]

811
00:40:38,972 --> 00:40:40,948
[GUNSHOT]

812
00:40:43,912 --> 00:40:45,394
-I wasn't trying to hit it.

813
00:40:45,394 --> 00:40:49,291
The trick is not to hit
it, but to make it float.

814
00:40:49,291 --> 00:40:51,199
PROFESSOR: He's lying.

815
00:40:51,199 --> 00:40:53,107
You're supposed to
realize he's lying here.

816
00:40:53,107 --> 00:40:55,970
He meant to hit it.

817
00:40:55,970 --> 00:40:58,670
Here comes the cowboy
who's just [INAUDIBLE].

818
00:40:58,670 --> 00:41:00,250
All the prostitutes loved you.

819
00:41:12,370 --> 00:41:14,850
-Hey, hold it, sonny.

820
00:41:14,850 --> 00:41:15,730
-What?

821
00:41:15,730 --> 00:41:17,480
-Hold up on your target
practice a minute.

822
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,110
I don't want to get shot.

823
00:41:21,110 --> 00:41:24,498
-Well, then get off the
bridge, you saddle tramp.

824
00:41:24,498 --> 00:41:25,950
-I want to buy some socks.

825
00:41:25,950 --> 00:41:27,900
I got a long ride ahead of me.

826
00:41:27,900 --> 00:41:30,090
-What's wrong with
the socks you got on?

827
00:41:30,090 --> 00:41:31,990
-I wore them out running
around half-naked

828
00:41:31,990 --> 00:41:33,279
in that whorehouse over there.

829
00:41:33,279 --> 00:41:34,451
Actually quite a place.

830
00:41:34,451 --> 00:41:37,500
You been there yet?

831
00:41:37,500 --> 00:41:40,646
-Take off your
boots and show me.

832
00:41:40,646 --> 00:41:42,370
-You're joshing me.

833
00:41:42,370 --> 00:41:44,955
-I said, take off your boots,
and show me, eh, sucker?

834
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,196
-I ain't going to do that.

835
00:41:59,196 --> 00:42:02,188
-What are you
wearing that gun for?

836
00:42:02,188 --> 00:42:04,092
-[INAUDIBLE] I just wear it.

837
00:42:04,092 --> 00:42:05,747
Can't hit nothing with it.

838
00:42:05,747 --> 00:42:07,080
-Well, that don't make no sense.

839
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,126
What kind of a gun is it?

840
00:42:09,126 --> 00:42:10,092
-Colt.

841
00:42:10,092 --> 00:42:11,541
-Them's big guns.

842
00:42:11,541 --> 00:42:13,960
That's what I got.

843
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:15,340
Must be something wrong with it.

844
00:42:15,340 --> 00:42:16,060
-Naw, it's me.

845
00:42:16,060 --> 00:42:18,062
I just can't shoot good.

846
00:42:18,062 --> 00:42:19,355
-Well, let me see it.

847
00:42:26,780 --> 00:42:27,770
Come on.

848
00:42:27,770 --> 00:42:30,240
Maybe I can fix it for you.

849
00:42:30,240 --> 00:42:30,740
-OK.

850
00:43:00,847 --> 00:43:01,430
PROFESSOR: OK.

851
00:43:07,865 --> 00:43:09,027
[END PLAYBACK]

852
00:43:09,027 --> 00:43:10,860
BOY: So what the scene--
what the scene does

853
00:43:10,860 --> 00:43:13,580
is it turns on its
head what we might say

854
00:43:13,580 --> 00:43:15,850
are the central
values or assumptions

855
00:43:15,850 --> 00:43:19,040
that have lain
behind such a seen

856
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,590
in dozens, if not hundreds,
of prior Westerns.

857
00:43:21,590 --> 00:43:24,970
And that's a distilled
example of this process

858
00:43:24,970 --> 00:43:27,600
of a conversation that
goes on-- if it goes on

859
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,470
for a long enough time, the
content of the conversation

860
00:43:30,470 --> 00:43:33,850
can virtually reverse itself
even though the genre remains

861
00:43:33,850 --> 00:43:34,660
stable.

862
00:43:34,660 --> 00:43:36,360
And that's one of
the-- we might call

863
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:40,510
that the genius of genre,
the genius of a genre form.

864
00:43:40,510 --> 00:43:42,530
It has to do with--
it's a version of what

865
00:43:42,530 --> 00:43:45,310
I mean when I talk
about the cultural work

866
00:43:45,310 --> 00:43:49,450
or the anthropological
function that movies have.