By Anees Aref.
Often described as “psychological westerns”, these films eschewed the conventional heroes of the old west for more complicated protagonists, flawed and motivated by darker impulses….”
The “Noir-Western” sounds like a contradiction in terms. One associates the western with the 19th century American frontier, wide open vistas, horses, cowboys and Indians, “good guys” and “bad guys”, and a generally wholesome attitude. This is a sharp contrast with the sensibility of film noir, an outgrowth of the 1930s crime film and the Second World War. The noir milieu was the mean streets of urban America, its alleyways, bars, and nightclubs, or in the cramped homes of characters leading seedy lives, with even seedier morals. The western lived in the sunlight; noir lived in the shadows. Yet, as many have noted, something happened in the mid-1940s – the dark elements of noir started to seep into the western.
Read the full article at Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon.
Anees Aref is a writer on film, history, and politics based in the Los Angeles area who has published abroad as well as in the United States. His work has appeared in Film International and Noir City Magazine.