From Shane To Kill Bill - Rethinking The Western

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.

* Provides an original and 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

Patrick McGee is Professor of English at Louisiana State University. He is the author of Cinema, Theory, and Political Responsibility in Contemporary Culture (1997) and Joyce Beyond Marx: History and Desire in 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegans Wake' (2001).

List of Illustrations.Preface.1. Why Shane Never Comes Back.Alan Ladd’s Face.What Shane Wants.Why Shane Wears a Blue Collar.Why Shane’s 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.Jefferson’s 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).Don’t Shoot the Father (Red River).Forget the Father (The Searchers).6. Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.The Gunfighter and the Proletariat.The Man Who Did Not Corrupt Hadleyville (High Noon).The Men Who Save John Wayne (Rio Bravo).The Man Who Shot John Wayne (The Man Who Shot Liberty. Valance).7. Magnificent Corpses.Redemption through Destruction.The Winners Are the Losers (The Magnificent Seven).Only Death Will Do (The Wild Bunch).8. Death’s Landscape.The Uses of the Dead.Two Kinds of Men (The Dollars Trilogy).Get Out of the Way (Once Upon a Time in the West and. A Fistful of Dynamite).Transcendence on a Pale Horse (The Eastwood Westerns).9. Western Armageddon.All Men Are Poets (McCabe and Mrs. Miller).The Multitude at Heaven’s Gate (Heaven’s Gate).Conclusion: Kill Bill, or Why Shane Always Comes Back.References.Index