Western (genre)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The western is a genre that has found widespread use in literature , films and comics , but can in principle also occur in all other forms of cultural expression. So there is it, although more rarely, as a radio play or theater (here mainly on open-air stages like in Bad Segeberg , since elaborate backdrops and crowd scenes with riders on horses cannot be realized on conventional stages, but special stunt shows would also be here to call).

definition

There can be no clear and undisputed definition of the genre (see here ). This is shown by the fact that the corresponding Wikipedia articles on Western literature (genre, "which mostly takes place in the" Wild West "of the USA."), Films (genre, "at the center of which is the central American myth the conquest of the (wild) west of the United States in the nineteenth century , "Which play in America at the time when the western part of the continent was settled by European immigrants from the middle of the 18th to the end of the 19th century.") Have different opening sentences that are similar, but not really clear.

In the film sector in particular, some recipients narrow down the western to the few decades between 1860 and 1890, at least for the “classic” western. In a broader sense, however, it covers the period from the mid-18th to the end of the 19th century. But even beyond that, Western works can be located in time, as in the sub-genres of late westerns , end-of-time or future westerns , in which typical western clichés, stereotypes, motifs and / or narrative styles are used. The same applies to the location of the action, which typically encompasses today's state territory of the USA, but there are definitely variations: For example, the complex of topics around cattle breeding, cattle driving, pastureland is a central theme of Western mythology, but it is can easily be transferred to the context of flocks of sheep in Australia (for example in The Endless Horizon ). In this respect, a definition of the genre via the place and time of the action (as explicitly mentioned in the article Western ) is obvious, but not unambiguous. And vice versa, no shoe is out of place: Although, for example, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer takes place at the time in question in the place in question, this classic youth book is not a western. For a definition of the genre, the time and place of the action are neither necessary nor sufficient criteria.

origin

The American "Dime Novels" (comparable to the German "Groschenromanen") are usually cited as the origin of the Western genre. It is forgotten that these also have an origin: They go back to the stories that were told and passed on by cowboys, for example, after a hard, tiring, busy day around the campfire. According to the usual principle of such oral traditions - as is still the case with the Urban legends today - the stories often had a true core, were of course passed on with the claim to reality and truthfulness, but quickly moved away from any realities. Or, as Fuchs / Reitberger characterize these so-called "Tall Tales": "Shameless show-offs and limitless exaggerations to heroize individuals, strong expression of myth-making."

The “Tall Tales” are therefore comparable to the hunter's or fisherman's Latin, and as with these, it is often the narrators themselves who are the main protagonists of the origins of western stories. Some of them had a special skill in marketing themselves and their supposed adventures, thereby becoming living legends whose names every child knows even today. William F. Cody was a rather average buffalo slaughterer and scout in real life, but with the help of the resourceful prolific writer Ned Buntline , he advanced to Buffalo Bill , which he himself also in the form of a Wild West show (for which he was under hired the old chief Sitting Bull ). He even traveled through Europe with his traveling circus. Buffalo Bill is the most colorful example that the western as a legend and myth already existed when its (non-fictional) protagonists were still alive.

Different meanings for Americans and Europeans

While the peoples of Europe and the states they formed can look back on thousands of years of history, the history of the USA is only a few centuries old. The same applies to the legends and myths that create identity on both continents. The western myths emerged parallel to historical historiography and often enough both were mixed together (see also subsection "Origin"). This fact is pointedly taken up in the famous sentence from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , which reads: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!” (“When the legend becomes the truth, print the legend!”). Thomas Jeier quotes the sentence in a slightly different translation (“If the legend becomes reality, we print the legend”) in the foreword to his standard work The Western Film and states “perhaps the most important sentence in a Western and the history of Western film in one sentence."

From this it follows that for Americans the Western always means a piece of their “own history” (and thus part of their own identity, therefore part of their self-image), while Europeans have a more distant relationship to it - for them it is simply a “ Piece of entertainment ”. On the other hand, every story can be told with the genre and so the Western was not only used as a (sometimes glorifying) "writing of history", but often reflected - at least in its form as a film - current sociocultural conditions and developments again, commented or criticized them (the latter often particularly drastic, since the criticism of the current in the “disguise” of the past was disguised as less vulnerable than open criticism could be). Thomas Jeier even thinks that the last-mentioned aspect is the predominant one (although he only writes about western films, not about the genre as such): Westerns are seldom an image of reality, especially in “really beautiful films miles from them actual events ”removed. Since the producers and directors react more to political and cultural currents, the Western is more of a "reflection of a culture and society". In the following chapters of his book, he consistently connects the development of western film, its currents and varieties with the political and social situation in the USA. And it goes without saying that European western comics, for example, only indirectly (through recourse to American films) show this aspect of socio-political commentary on certain phases of recent US history.

Typical and central motifs

Topics of the treated actions are the conquest of the continent (Indian wars), the progress of the European-influenced civilization, the consolidation of the formation of states (colonization and the struggle for dominance on the continent, war of independence and secession) and all the related circumstances (railway construction , Grazing wars and others). This results in conflict-laden, conflicting issues such as whites against Indians, ranchers against farmers, French against English, lawbreakers against law enforcement officers, northerners against southerners. Already the first western film, The Great Train Robbery , contains this typical constellation in the form of the bad guys (train robbers) fighting against the good guys (representatives of the law) and the first western comics hardly differ from this pattern.

Two central motifs determine the genre: On the one hand, the (self-) experience at the border, the "Frontier Land", for example in Dances with Wolves , in which the soldier John Dunbar after a failed and misunderstood attempt at suicide during a battle in the civil war leaves the army "to see the Wild West while it still exists". On the other hand, the renewal of a society through violence, the restoration of a new, more vital and civil order after the old order has been destroyed by violence. The four phases of the story of the conquest of the west - early penetration into the forests of the east during the Anglo-French occupation by means of boy scouts and Indian scouts, conquest of the west by covered wagon treks and small settlers, transition to a civilized society and finally the end of development through railway construction, Indian wars and civil war - are reflected in the individual works accordingly. What all four phases have in common is the tension between the law of the thumb on the one hand and the principle of state law that replaces it as the basis of a civilized society on the other.

The landscape plays a special role in the visual varieties of westerns, films and comics, whose seemingly infinite expanse ( after every adventure, Lucky Luke rides towards the west, towards the setting sun, without ever arriving anywhere), often has a supporting design and / or narrative element. The landscape embodies both freedom and threat and, according to Andreas C. Knigge, is conjured up in “almost lyrical images” in many films. He goes on to say that while the comic can never seriously compete with the big screen, Giraud has successfully looked for ways in his Blueberry to "transfer the cinema's spatial conception to its pages".

Giraud used the long shot more and more often, in which the figures can only be seen at the edge of the picture or in the far distance, soon the picture formats no longer dictate the panorama, but the scenery determines the size of the pictures. Vegetation, scree, rocks determine the atmosphere and increasingly also the dramaturgy. The landscape becomes an ally or an enemy, for example when tracks are blurred in a river or a canyon becomes a trap. In the two-album cycle about a gold mine "forgotten" in the Apache region, bizarre rock formations, caves and gorges "ultimately determine the course of events completely, space and plot are completely merged."

Current status

In the field of literature, the western only exists in the form of trivial booklets. In the film, Michael Cimino's financial disaster Heavens Gate (1980) marks the end of the western. Since then there have only been a few important Western films such as Dances with Wolves or Django Unchained (for more detailed information on the history and current status of Western films, see here ). Still, the genre cannot be killed and enjoys continued popularity with audiences. In the course of its history it has produced many notable classics that still find audiences today in TV reruns (film), new editions and editions (literature and comics). Apart from a few films, the genre lives on today mainly in new sequels to older and new Franco-Belgian comic series. Examples are Bouncer by François Boucq and Alexandro Jodorowsky , Sauvage by Félix Meynet and Yann or, most recently, Undertaker by Ralph Meyer and Xavier Dorison .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fuchs / Reitberger: Das große Buch der Comics (licensed edition for the Bertelsmann Club von Anatomie eines Massenmediums , Melzer), undated and without ISBN, page 94
  2. ↑ a b c Paul Burgdorf: The Western - An analysis of American Western comics taking into account the intermedia dependencies, in: Comixene 19, p. 4
  3. ↑ a b c Thomas Jeier: Der Western-Film , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-86104-3 , page 7
  4. ↑ Last panel of every Lucky Luke story
  5. ↑ a b c Andreas C. Knigge : 50 classic comics. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-8067-2556-X , p. 175