Across the misty landscape of this year’s prolonged Oscars race, ride three films that somehow or another shake up the roots of the classic western genre, and bring it to the modern era. All three ought to make the Best Picture line-up at the Academy Awards. But, as we all know, not all the truly fine films of the year get to ride off into the sunset with the opportunity of a gold statuette. Our opinion on film is as finicky as it has ever been, but does the old-age western still even have power in the current era?
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Adapted from Jessica Bruder’s book, “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” Chloé Zhao beautifully translates the bounce of the recession and the solid loyalty to land and foundation with Nomadland.
Also from a book, this time fiction by Paulette Jiles, News of the World, directed by Paul Greengrass, sees the unlikely union of an aged war veteran and a young girl squandered from her family and Native Americans.
And then there’s Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical, Minari, in which it is the values of a so-called American Dream that is versed, as a South Korean family attempting to build a farm life in Arkansas.
A well-established, contemplative local sheriff once said: “I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can’t help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can’t help but wonder how they’d have operated in these times.” Edging ever closer to retirement, in a world so vastly changed from the one before, Ed Tom Bell’s reflections of the cultural plains mark significant days ahead. Even as he perhaps affords the luxury of putting his feet up and given time to talk about a dream he had.
The contemporary Western might well make reference to the modern day depiction of a classic film genre, but also, to some extent, adapts the western into these times. Whenever they might be. Our current times are tough, not just with COVID-19, but does that help matters? It probably doesn’t.
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One of the most poignant, soulful respects to the soil Americans walk on in many a year, Nomadland is the current Oscar frontrunner in many eyes. The tale of ranchers and wanderers wanting to protect their land and provide for their own appears to be as old as time. With so many of the everyday social struggles depicted on film, Minari hits a particularly relevant nerve to our current lingering climate. And News of the World, the most westerny of the three, has a bumpy journey forming the physical premise of the story. But equipped with a true, dare I say, human spirit.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s shrewd, remarkable, No Country for Old Men (2007), re-opened the saloon doors to both interpretations to a large extent. A (fairly) modern story world – on the cusp of the eighties – the Best Picture Academy Award winner threw its hat into the bullring. Revitalising the western genre for today’s young audiences and the old-timers who grew up watching gunslingers amidst the dust.
No Country for Old Men is a detrimental example of the comparisons we can make to the progressive western genre. And how, indeed, such films can operate in these times. Once upon a time, the western was the king of the crop, blazing across television screens as well as movie theatres throughout the post-war decades of the last century. Such a golden age sandwiched between a sixty year gap from one western Best Picture Oscar winner to the next.
The significance in their victories of Cimarron (1931) and Dances With Wolves (1990) might be neither here nor there. But certainly highlights what has been referred to as genre bias in the tastes of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. See sci-fi. See comedy. See horror. A “horror” film would break moulds and win Best Picture the year after Dances With Wolves, in The Silence of the Lambs.
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Kevin Costner’s epic would incidentally compete with two sentimental, awards-friendly films and two gangster flicks – the latter a genre and Oscar-repelling cousin of the western for sure. Just like Goodfellas (or Casino; or Gangs of New York; or The Irishman), the more graphic crime pictures were rarely recipients of gold.
Anyone who has a moderate grasp of the Academy Awards can still be surprised, but understand, why the likes of Stagecoach (1939), High Noon (1952) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) are renowned, pioneer westerns, but not Best Picture winners. Other greats, like The Searchers (1956) or Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), were not even nominated. The Oscars choices over the years though are an age-old tale in itself. And alongside the Roman epic or gangster pictures, for example, the credible western nearly disappeared into the dust altogether.
The success of Dances With Wolves gave credence to the Academy’s disputed mediocrity throughout the eighties (not in all cases), returning to a kind of big screen bonanza following a string of story-time winners like Rain Man (1988) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989). A year later no less, one of the greatest faces in the old west acclaim, condensed decades of expertise into the filmmaking craft with the audacious, brilliant Unforgiven (1992).
Clint Eastwood won Best Picture and Best Director for portraying the more familiar genes of the western world – the remote anti-hero, the open plains, the gunfights, reluctant vengeance. Unforgiven, though, was even more than that, to stand on strong boots after a notable absence of the nomadic genre. Eastwood’s vision allowed strong tones of heavy mortality and the dishonour against the town’s women. How very, well, now.
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The Academy would continue to go “big” for the most part of the nineties, but that was it for the western’s awards dominance. The contemporary western surfaced further with the American independent cinema scene’s surge. Robert Rodríguez’s El Mariachi (1992) was a refreshing take on the stranger comes to town / hostile forces narrative. And then John Sayles wonderfully tackled displacement and against-the-grain justice in Lone Star (1996).
And that might as well have been it as far as the western at the Academy Awards went. Sure, the epic grassroots and desert sand were whisked off the ground in the mid-nineties. An analysis of the big contender variation as we crossed into a new century would be a costly diversion here. But we can hold our horses halfway through that first decade. The Academy Awards were on the brink of a legitimately lauded era of Best Picture winners (lasted three years, arguably).
A beautiful western picture from 2005 captured the hearts of so many through its veritable, enduring romance. Remember the montage at the Oscars ceremony connoting the gayness of the old westerns? Remember those well-respected Academy members refusing to watch two men in love? How could we forget. The failure of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain to win Best Picture was definitely not just on account of its genre.
The civilized world of the modern western would begin to re-emerge into the new century nonetheless. That same year, Tommy Lee Jones starred in and directed The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada – winning Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2003, he played in Ron Howard’s The Missing. And in 2000, there was Space Cowboys – of course, that doesn’t count. An Oscar nomination for Best Actor would fall into Jones’ saddle in 2008. But for the less expected, though by no means undeserved, In the Valley of Elah.
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No Country For Old Men capped off a remarkable 2007 in film for the western posse. (And excellent films in general now you mention it.) The Coen Brothers would ride off with Best Picture, in what must have been only a minor canter ahead of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood – a ruthless tale of greed, oil, right and wrong, fitting for many a western blueprint. Just look at other (non-Best-Picture) Oscar contenders that year: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; 3:10 to Yuma; Into the Wild. Yee-haa!
The financial crash in 2008 wouldn’t exactly halt the western genre, but it certainly made for relevant rendering of the western story. Taylor Sheridan was one flourishing filmmaker that herded those themes more recently, through his screenplay for Hell or High Water (Oscar nominated for 2016) and then in his own directorial effort, Wind River (2017).
Similarly stylish, yet grim, depictions of ignoring governance and imposing your own lawless rules was a central strand of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). Mildred (Oscar-winning Frances McDormand) might well share a distant moralistic outlook to Clint Eastwood’s William Munny in Unforgiven. With a forced hand into following their own justice, opposed by a dodgy lawman, as well as carrying the weight of unquenchable grief.
McDormand’s Fern in Nomadland is also in the midst of loss. But her journey across the plains is one of self-sufficient survival rather than vengeance. Something Fern does with a reluctance for reliance on others or friendly persuasion. Jacob in Minari also refuses to give up, wanting to push himself to the limits to provide for his family, while simultaneously isolating them. Even Captain Kidd in News of the World is internally balancing a distant recall of his wife, with a stray child under his wing.
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Such powerful reflections of doing what we need to do in those times, with little means, the burden of remorse, and the conflicts of others in our way. These are not just components of the western genre, of course, they sadly reflect where we are right now to some extent. Doing what we can to get food on the plate; hoping to create a brighter future for your kin; not turning your back on a child amidst the dangers in your path. Indeed, Nomadland, Minari and News of the World might strike more internal strings for us than the aesthetics of a good old western.
On a sidenote, David Lowery’s 2013 vastly under-seen drama, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, somehow encapsulated much of those struggles. In another land, it might have been an Oscar possible – especially that terrifically fitting score from composer Daniel Hart. Even Kelly Reichardt could have garnered more awards coverage with yet another Stetson-tip to Oregon, with Meek’s Cutoff (2010). Lest we forget, Zhao’s last stellar effort, The Rider (2017), had a real heart and compassion for generational and cultural differences.
The good, the bad and the ugly of the old (or indeed new) west were given somewhat modern vibes with some big Oscar players even more recently. The Coen brothers retelling of a John Wayne classic, True Grit (2010), the Quentin Tarantino double bill of Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015), and arguably The Revenant (2016).
This year’s awards season does not necessary have such a wild bunch of potential Best Picture winners. And that might well be a good thing. We need the feeling of being grounded. Just as Nomadland, Minari and News of the World have been noted as inaccessible in some circles, it is quite the contrary that these relevant, crowd-pleasing motion pictures can be more relatable than many.
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Westerns are accessible. Whether cowboys ride their horses, or the townsfolk watch on in anticipation, or even the experience of the harsh, arid plains. As for the landscape of the upcoming Academy Awards, Lee Isaac Chung, Paul Greengrass and Chloé Zhao would be less than objectionable invitees.
Dare we be so clichéd as to say that those motifs of resilience, loyalty, retribution and the like are more relevant than ever? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters, old or young, will know that. As are they suckers for those defining moments in film, that might just weigh heavy during that voting window. When Bob talks to Fern about seeing his son again down that road. Or as little David runs after his wandering grandma. And when Johanna forgivingly takes Kidd’s hand in hers.
The instinctive view of this writer is that in any other year perhaps these films would stand by themselves. Without mere mention of genre or opportunity. But here we are, in troubled times, pulling together with the aid of cinema’s frontier galloping along. The western, contemporary or otherwise, is not such a stranger. Whether we declared it so or nay. We always like to hear about the old-timer genres. Never miss a chance to do so.
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