Transnationalism and Imperialism. Endurance of the Global Western Film
Hervé Mayer et David Roche (dir.)
Indiana University Press, 2022
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While Western films can be seen as a mode of American exceptionalism, they have also become a global genre. Around the world, Westerns exemplify colonial cinema, driven by the exploration of racial and gender hierarchies and the progress and violence shaped by imperialism.
Transnationalism and Imperialism: Endurance of the Global Western Film traces the Western from the silent era to present day as the genre has circulated the world. Contributors examine the reception and production of American Westerns outside the US alongside the transnational aspects of American productions, and they consider the work of minority directors who use the genre to interrogate a visual history of oppression. By viewing Western films through a transnational lens and focusing on the reinterpretations, appropriations, and parallel developments of the genre outside the US, editors Hervé Mayer and David Roche contribute to a growing body of literature that debunks the pervasive correlation between the genre and American identity.
Perfect for media studies and political science, Transnationalism and Imperialism reveals that Western films are more than cowboys; they are a critical intersection where issues of power and coloniality are negotiated.
This edited volume is transnational in scope, demonstrating how filmmakers have used the Western genre to confront the ideologies of imperialism and colonization in various locations and periods. It is a detailed and comparative study of individual films, and an important contribution towards understanding the continuing vitality of the Western.
~Stephen Teo Kian Teck, author of Eastern Westerns: Film and Genre Outside and Inside Hollywood
This is a timely, dizzying mix of powerful and well-researched explorations of the Western as a potent, transnational and worlding genre.
~Neil Campbell, author of The Rhizomatic West, Post-Westerns, and Worlding the Western
Acknowledgments
Introduction, by Hervé Mayer and David Roche
Part I: US-American Westerns from a Transnational Perspective
1. Transnationalism on the Transcontinental Railroad: John Ford's The Iron Horse (1924), by Patrick Adamson
2. John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy (1948-1950): Caught Between US-American Imperialism and Irish Republicanism, by Costanza Salvi
3. Decentering the National in Hollywood: Transnational Storytelling in the Mexico Western Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954), by Hervé Mayer
4. Transnational Identity on the Contemporary Texan-Mexican Border in Tejano (David Blue Garcia, 2018), by Marine Soubeille
Part II: European Westerns and the Critique of Imperialism
5. A Yugoslav "Lemon Tree in Siberia": The Partisan Western Kapetan Leši (Živorad Mitrović, 1960), by Dragan Batančev
6. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) and the Western: Reframing the Imperialist Hero, by Hadrien Fontanaud
7. Unwanted Salvation: The Use of the Savior Formula in The Dark Valley (Andreas Prochaska, 2014), by Marek Paryż
8. Transnational Post-Westerns in French Cinema: Adieu Gary (Nassim Amaouche, 2009) and Les Cowboys(Thomas Bidegain, 2015), by Jesús Ángel González
Spotlight on the Italian Western
9. Silent Westerns Made in Italy: The Dawn of a Transnational Genre between US Imperial Narratives and Nationalistic Appropriations, by Alessandra Magrin Haas
10. Where the Classical, the Transnational and the Acid Western Meet: Matalo! (Cesare Canevari, 1970), Violence and Cultural Resistance on the Spaghetti Western Frontier, by Lee Broughton
Part III: Westerns in a Post-Colonial or Post-Empire Context
11. West by Northeast: The Western in Brazil, by Mike Phillips
12. (Not) John Wayne & (Not) the US-American West: Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014), by Jenny Barrett
13. Remaking the Western in Japanese Cinema: East Meets West (Kihachi Okamoto, 1995), Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike, 2007), and Unforgiven (San-il Lee, 2013), by Vivian P. Y. Lee
14. The South African Frontier in Five Fingers for Marseilles (Michael Matthews, 2017), by Claire Dutriaux and Annael Le Poullennec
Spotlight on the Australian Western
15. "They like all pictures which remind them of their own": The 'Entangled' Development of Australian Westerns, by Emma Hamilton
16. Westerns from an Aboriginal Point of View or Why the Australian Western (Still) Matters: The Tracker (Rolf de Heer, 2002) and Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton, 2017), by David Roche
Coda: We Will Not Ride Off into the Sunset, by Hervé Mayer and David Roche
Index