Sub-genres

Ok

A question Korano:

Why do you think Blu Gang and S & J are revisionist westerns? Are there any more revisionist westerns in your opinion?

Blu Gang was modelled after the revisionist westerns of the 70’s (still got to redo my long days… review). Films like McCabe & Mrs.Miller, which is a deglorified vision of the west, have some characteristics also seen in Blu Gang. The folk song score is in the same ballpark. The violence is less glamorised. And It seems to be attempting to parallel the liberal youth of the times. Something a mainstream John Wayne Western wouldn’t even dream of. It doesn’t have the sunbaked deserts, duels, or even that many cowboy hats.

Sonny and Jed I said was maybe a Revisionist Spaghetti. It has the muddy down to earth look and the characters are equally de-glamorized. But it doesn’t share that many similarities.

If I were to do my list adhering only to the technical standpoint, it would be a lot shorter. But at the risk of making this thread pointless and uninteresting, I tried to fit in as many possibilities as possible.

Blu Gang is clearly influenced by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which is not an extreme revisionist western, but belongs to the cycle.

But a revisionist western should be made against the rules of the genre, should try to turn the genre upside down, or to deconstruct the mythology of the genre.
But if The Searchers was already called a revisionist western, then the definition is a maybe pretty wide one.

Maybe none of the SWs was interested in doing this. Apart from that in the early days of the genre SW were maybe all felt as revisionist.

Have to think if there is a real revisionist SW.
Must it be revisionist compared to every western? Which means to the founding western mythology, which is the mythology of the US western, in which the SWs weren’t interested.
Or must it be revisionist compared to the other typical SWs? Which created their own mythology.

I usualy take both into consideration.

I’m pretty much with Stanton on this whole sub genre idea.

A certain season, weather type or historical backdrop doesn’t amount to a genre for me; sub or otherwise. I’m happy to accept the Zapatas and comedies as standing apart as they have core differences but even then I’m more inclined these days to see them as more a part of the same cycle than separate entities in themselves.

The Italian term filone is used more commonly these days in academic circles and I think it describes what we usually refer to as the Spaghetti Western genre pretty well. In that it describes a finite series of productions created to exploit a brief fashion over a particular period. A genre tends to be something which is ongoing and constantly adaptable. The Spaghetti Western was a short lived phenomenon which wore a series of faces as it attempted to meet audience needs and keep itself popular. Then it died. Scherp will know this better than me but as I understand it the term filone can translate as ‘seam’ or ‘vein’ as in a seam of gold or iron ore. You mine it till it’s gone and then you move on to something else. That pretty much sums up the Spaghetti for me. Whereas, the Western itself, in the true genre sense of the word, lives on. Albeit in a more sporadically produced fashion.

Spaghetti Western Sub-genres
1.Political:Kill and Pray, Castel gives a great performance!
2.Zapata:I would pick the Mercenary. Nero is top notch, Palance is as crude as ever, need I say more.
3.Twilight:Four of the Apocalypse, because Fulci is wicked behind that camera and Milan out of his mind.
4.Betrayal:Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, Mainly because of Connors and Wolf.
5.Tragic Hero:The Great Silence, the most depressing spaghetti ever
6.Comedy:My Name is Nobody, Hill’s funniest, and Fonda at the top of his game.
7.Indian:as Lead Character: Navajo Joe, Sadly would like to have seen Reynolds in more.
8. Gothic:And God Said to Cain, Kinski, taking revenge on those who put him in prison.
9. Explotation:Django kill! a drunk parott, brutal hanging, plenty of romance, and golden bullets.
10. Snow:Cut Throats Nine, cold, and violent.
11. Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer are the best buddy pair. as been seen in, God Forgives I Don’t, Ace High, Boot Hill. I Prefer these to the Trinity films, but the Trinity films are good too.