From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western [Hardcover]

From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western is an original and compelling critical history of the American Western film.

• Provides an insightful overview of the American Western genre
• Covers the entire history of the Western, from 1939 to the present
• Analyses Westerns as products of a genre, as well as expressions of political and social desires
• Deepens an audience's understanding of the genre's most important works, including Shane, Stagecoach, The Searchers, Unforgiven, and Kill Bill
• Contains numerous illustrations of the films and issues discussed.

Preface.

1. Why Shane Never Comes Back.

Alan Ladds Face.

What Shane Wants.

Why Shane Wears a Blue Collar.

Why Shanes Gun Sounds Like an Atom Bomb.

2. The Political Origin of the Western.

Owen Wister Went West.

The West Went to Hollywood.

Marx Goes West.

3. Crossing the Border.

Jeffersons Double-Cross (Stagecoach and Destry Rides Again).

The Virginian Crossed Out (The Westerner).

4. Revolutionary Hysteria.

The Hysterical Fascist Killer (Duel in the Sun).

Notorious Ladies (Johnny Guitar and The Quick and.

the Dead).

5. Bad Fathers Make Good Sons.

Shoot the Father (My Darling Clementine).

Dont Shoot the Father (Red River).

Forget the Father (The Searchers).

6. Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

The Gunfighter and the Proletariat.&lls"