Syllabus

Exams

Terms

Graduate Students

Graduate
Student
Papers

May, Lary. Screening out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

A history of motion pictures in America.

Cripps, Thomas.  Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American File, 1900-1942.  New York: Oxford, 1997.

The classic study of images of African Americans in early Hollywood, including an analysis of The Birth of a Nation.

Moses, L.G. Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1833-1933.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1996.

A study of the images of Indians in Wild West shows--and of the Indians who participated in the shows as featured players.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America. New York: Macmillan, 1992.

Examines the transition from history to myth in American society and culture, with an emphasis on the role of film and westerns.

Coyne, Michael.  The Crowded Prairie: American National Identity in the Hollywood Western. New York: Tauris, 1997.

Study of the specific ways that western films reflected issues of their day.

Kilpatrick, Jacquelyn.  Celluloid Indians: Native Americans and Film.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

Study of the images of Indians in Hollywood films.

White, Richard and Patricia Nelson Limerick. The Frontier in American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Two essays by two prominent historians on the frontier and western myth in American culture.

Tompkins, Jane. West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

A scholarly look at westerns and the way that they are made.

Watts, Jill.  Mae West : An Icon in Black and White.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

A biography of Mae West that emphasizes her attachment to African American as well as white cultural roots.

Everson, William K. A Pictorial History of the Western Film. New York: The Citadel Press, 1969.

A history of westerns, with many photos.

Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961.

The well-known biography, which contains an account of Black Elk’s travels to Europe with Buffalo Bill.

The Gold Rush. Directed by Charlie Chaplin. 82m. 1925. Videorecording.

Charlie Chaplin, plays a lone prospector living in the Yukon for years who, despite many comical misadventures, suddenly strikes it rich. Available in Knight Library.

The Birth of a Nation. Directed by D.W. Griffith. 159m. 1915. Videorecording.

Griffith’s landmark, yet racist film about two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Available in Knight Library.

The Covered Wagon. Directed by James Cruze. 98 m. 1923. Videorecording.

The first epic western.

My Darling Clementine. Directed by John Ford. 97m. 1946. Videorecording.

Classic story of OK Corral masks larger message of social conflict in America and in the West. Starring Henry Fonda. Available in Knight Library.

High Noon. Directed by Fred Zinnemann. 84m. 1952. Videorecording.

Reflects the western theme of the capable and self-sufficient individual.Starring Gary Cooper.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Directed by Sergio Leone. 161m. 1966. Videorecording. Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach.

Epic "spaghetti" western reflects international appeal of westerns.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Directed by Abraham Polonsky. 96m. 1969. Videorecording.

Questions the European American appropriation of Native American lands and the racism inherent in colonial status. Starring Robert Redford, Katharine Ross and Robert Blake.

The Unforgiven. Directed by Clint Eastwood. 127m. 1992. Videorecording.

Reexamines some of the traditional trapping of western cinema (many of which Eastwood helped to popularize) and attempts to replace them with historical reality. Starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.

Dead Man. Directed by Jim Jarmusch. 120m. 1996. Videorecording.

Seriously challenges American popular ideals of the frontier and Native American relations. Starring Johnny Depp.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson. Directed by Robert Altman. 120m. 1976. Videorecording.

Examines the way that Buffalo Bill created American myths (including himself) and called them history, and how they became ingrained in the national consciousness. Starring Paul Newman.

The Silent Western: Early Movie Myths of the American West

A series of essays on different aspects of silent westerns and their propagation of American myth. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Westfilm/west.html

Bill, Buffalo. An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W.F. Cody). New York, Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1923.