>Mail*Link(r) SMTP RE>>Maverick: A Disappointing Fil > >>> I utterly reject your comparison between "Pride and Prejudice" and >>>"Finnegan's Wake." I'll state it simply: Will _Maverick_ live alongside >>>of _Stagecoach_ or _The Searchers_ or _The Wild Bunch_ or _Once Upon a >>>Time in the West_ or will it fade into oblivion before the year is out? > >Please explain to me how these films gave any insight into American history >of the period or expanded our understanding of the "myth" of the west. Then >explain how BLAZING SADDLES and PALEFACE do not. > >Guy GUY--I'm afraid my personal time in limited, but I would surely and without hesitation recommend the following: Gunfighter Nation by Richard Slotkin. If he does not convince you of the "significance" of the Western then I probably could not either. And I did NOT say that BLAZING SADDLES and PALEFACE do not. In fact, I agree, they do. BLAZING SADDLES is particularly a brilliant deconstruction of both the West and the Western in its revealing how racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc. were implicit in the Western genre and often explicit in the West. Thus, the film is a marvelous anti-genre piece. I believe it was MAVERICK we were talking about however, when I claimed that it was less than successful. DD _____________________________________ David Desser,UIUC Cinema Studies 2109 FLB/707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801 217/244-2705