>I haven't seen MAVERICK yet (but probably will eventually), but in re: >the conversations about history and the western, it's often been observed >that Westerns echo the times in which they were made (as per remarks on >Leone, et al.), and that certainly seems valid for many, if not all, >Westerns (not to mention other genres). STAGECOACH, for example, does >offer Ford's "little person" populism and is a commentary on the >Depression (Gatewood, the Banker and real villain of the film) mouths the >pure Republican Party platform from the 1930s ("America for the Americans! >Keep government out of business! We need a businessman in charge! The >national debt is shocking!"--hmm, was that 1930s or 1980s?). > >What hasn't been looked at closely, as far as I know, is how direct memory and >experience affect the portrayal of historical periods or events. For instance, >Hoot Gibson and W.S. Hart had experience in the "old" West that they brought >to their silent films. (Even Tom Mix did as well, as I recall.) The next >generation of "mainstream" western directors (Ford, Hawks, others) tend to >come from outside tradition, as much as they tried to recapture it. Post- >WWII films from SHANE and HIGH NOON on tend to allegorize or become >increasingly self-refential, until we come to attempts to recapture the >surface structure of an older generation's filmgoing experience, not what >those films represented, as in SILVERADO. Does this seem to make any sense? > >--Don Larsson Don--Good points, indeed, abovt "direct experience" versus "surface structure." Again, I could recommend GUNFIGHTER NATION by Richard Slotkin for the dime novels written by and about contemporary "Western" heroes, including Alan Pinkerton, for instance. "Authenticity" is not, however, a standard of value in viewing a film, necessarily (not that you implied it was!) DD _____________________________________ David Desser,UIUC Cinema Studies 2109 FLB/707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801 217/244-2705