> > I'd say then that The Searchers was the beginning of the end.
> Thriller,
> > Film Noir, Sci-fi, Horror, Action, etc. have survived the civil
> rights
> > movement and the sexual revolution better than the Western did.
>
> I'd argue the opposite. I'd argue the heart of film noir was the
> femme fatale. And the femme fatale was based on the fact that a
> woman couldn't possibly be asked to leave her husband and her
> status for mere lust. Once divorce and women getting jobs and
> women lusting all become normal, Double Indemnity becomes
> unthinkable -- there's no insoluable trap that it takes murder to
> solve. When feminism solves the Woman Problem, it dissolves the
> Femme Fatale problem too.
Film noir, in my view, has always been a great vehicle for examination of the question of power (sometimes a little power, other times a lot of power -- money power, police power, media power, etc.): having it and wanting to hold on to it (Sweet Smell of Success, Touch of Evil, Chinatown); and not having it and wanting to get it (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Force of Evil, A Simple Plan). A woman who lusts after money (or rather the power and freedom that come with it in a capitalist society) -- seducing a man, having him kill her husband, scheming to best the insurance company and the police -- is just one possible plot. As a matter of fact, film noir may be as easily adopted to a criticism of patriarchy, in which women figure as victims rather than deviants, as to a portrayal of women whose lust is at adds with it.
> I think the reason the Western died out has nothing to do with its
> lack of correspondence to culture (since lord knows too many of us
> still dream in black and white about good and evil and lone men on
> a horse). It's rather a problem of its invariable setting: by
> definition, it has to be set in a dead past that gets ever further
> away. Whereas all those other genres can be set in the present or
> future.
Films set in the past (not so much historical films as costume fantasy and/or action adventure) seem to be in vogue, though. Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Passion of the Christ, etc. Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, etc. have been in demand. The problem is that, while Americans can't as easily enjoy American Indians as foils as they used to, they aren't quite ready to make American Indians heroes yet. And even if they get ready, assuming American Indians' perspectives would disrupt the Western's convention.
Anyhow, the past should be as promising material for cinema as the present or future.
Take Tecumseh, for instance: <http://college.hmco.com/history/ readerscomp/naind/html/na_038300_tecumseh.htm>. Here's a great man who looked good ("Tecumseh’s appearance was very prepossessing; his figure light and finely proportioned; his age I imagined to be about five and thirty; in height, five feet nine or ten inches; his complexion, light copper; countenance, oval, with bright hazel eyes beaming cheerfulness, energy and decision" [at <http:// www.galafilm.com/1812/e/people/tec_descrip.html>]) , thought brilliant thoughts, and had a dramatically eventful life. A perfect subject for a visionary film maker. He has yet to get a Hollywood film worthy of him (only a sorry made-for-TV film), though.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>