On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, BklynMagus wrote:
> Clint Eastwood manages to keep a flicker of hope alive with THE OUTLAW
> JOSEY WALES (1976) which is an interesting response to/reworking of THE
> SEARCHERS. But it will take the success of DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990) for
> Westerns to reappear again as a viable genre (though that period seems to
> be over as of now).
This narrative arc seems too smooth. You leave out the counterexamples in the bridge period: the classic, sunny, non-revisionist Silverado (1985), which was a commercial success and nominated for oscars, and the similarly nostalgic and sunny westernesque Back to the Future III (1990).
And before that, the Sergio Leone Westerns of the 1960s, esp. the Man with No Name trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West, which I would consider an updating of the classic tradition and by no means a reaction against it.
But of course this is even more support for your underlying argument that the Searchers was by no means the end of the tradition.
Michael