 Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce CabotDirector: Michael Curtiz Year Of Release: 1939 Plot: The American Civil War has ended and the building of the West has begun in earnest. However its still a dangerous place to be. After helping a group of pioneers, including Abbie Irving and her reckless brother, reach Dodge City, Kansas, Irishman Wade Hatton is invited to be the local sheriff. He sets out to make the city a better and safer place, but outlaw Jeff Surrett and his gang, who pretty much run the town, are determined to stop him. |
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Its probably not a coincidence that in the 1960s and 1970s, the western and science fiction swapped places in popular culture, with the latter taking over from the former as the pre-eminent movie genre. From the 1930s until the 1960s, the western was the biggest genre, with endless horse operas in cinemas and a string of popular wild west TV shows. Sci-fi meanwhile had its fans but was a comparatively niche genre.
However in the 60s and particularly in the 70s, things changed. Audiences became less and less interested in westerns, while science fiction became massively popular, with the likes of Star Wars finding massive mainstream success. While the fall of one and the rise of the other around the same time could be a coincidence, Id suggest it probably wasnt, as in many ways the western and sci-fi are the same, but different.
On the surface movies set in the wild west and those set in space (or the future, or somehow in a world not quite like our own) may seem to have nothing to do with one another, but in many respects they serve the same function. Although coming up with a simple definition that covers all of sci-fi is a tough thing to do, many have described it as stories that use possible or imagined advances in science to look at their consequences on individuals or society. So for example, Jurassic Park isnt just about scientists creating dinosaurs, but comments on how it believes nature will always stay one step ahead of science, and warns of the dangers of allowing scientific advance to run ahead, without people thinking about the consequences.
Although not true of all sci-fi, the genre essentially gives writers the opportunity to explore society, individuals or humanity is the rules were changed from how they are at the moment. Much is made of the political content of 1950s sci-fi, with movies like of The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Blob and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers talking about things like the Red Scare and the anti-communist witch-hunts, but in a coded way. They wouldnt have been allowed to be openly critical of what was going on, but using sci-fi they could explore the issues allegorically.
While not all sci-fi is political, much of it nevertheless comments on the world, or presents a particular viewpoint through the guise of a society altered by advances or events that are yet to happen, whether its the gung-ho militarism of Independence Day, or the humanism of much of Spielbergs sci-fi. Just think about The Dark Knight, which is sci-fi whether we normally think of it as such or not. Its set in a somewhat realistic world, but which has been taken to the extreme, where some of the rules are changed so that it can take an incisive look at anarchy via The Joker. The part of the movie set on two boats, where each set of people onboard has to blow the other up to survive, is literally being a thought experiment brought to life, allowing the filmmakers to explore society by changing the rules of normal life.
It may all seem very different to the western, but in some respects its a similar idea. While sci-fi uses advances in science, whether realistic or imagined, to challenge the status quo and look at the consequences, the western does the same by being set in a world where in some respects theyve pushed the reset button on civilisation.
The western rarely has much to do with what really happened out in the wild west for example, Dodge City has become famous as a town fall of brawling outlaws and crazy frontiersmen, where actually it may have been a bit rough, but was largely just a bustling trading post for wagon trains and cattle drovers with the genre being more about creating an alternate version of the world, without all the trappings of modern life, and look at what would happen there.
So while there were 1950s science fiction films that were allegories for what was going on in the communist witch-hunts, there were also westerns that did the same thing. High Noon, about a lawman who finds his support from the locals shrinking as an outlaw closes in to kill him, is famously an allegory for what happened to those who refused to testify during McCarthys communist witch-hunts, and were blacklisted as a result. Then, in 1959, John Wayne made his right wing response to the movie, Rio Bravo, which shifts things to being about a group coming together to keep a bad guy in jail, when sinister forces are trying to let him loose (Wayne was a bit of a poster boy for the communist witch-hunts, having starred in the 1952 movie, Big Jim McClain, which was specifically about a House Of Un-American Activities investigator (the group McCarthy was in charge of) trying to break up a group of commies in Hawaii).
Because the wild west has become so enshrined in myth, and because it was a time when new towns and societies were trying to establish themselves, the western genre has been incredibly malleable over the years, allowing filmmakers to create environments where they can explore ideas it would be more difficult to highlight in a more modern setting. You can certainly see this in Clint Eastwoods western career, ranging from his Sergio Leone films, which are largely about the problems of individualism in a world where you have to work with other people, through the likes of Bronco Billy, where he deals with the myth of the western (as well as its waning popularity), and on to Unforgiven, where he essentially deconstructed his earlier roles, exploring the idea that the powerful draw of individualism doesnt leave you with much in the end, if you never make concessions to living in social world.
Many have noted the similarities between science fiction and the western, and indeed there are some films where you could pretty much replace horses with spaceships and itd have moved from one genre to the other. Perhaps most notable of these is Star Wars, which takes many of the staples of the western and sets them in space. It certainly wasnt the first to do this, but it undoubtedly owes a debt to the 1930s western serials, and while much has been made about how elements of Star Wars were inspired by Kurowsawas Hidden Fortress, the Japanese director was heavily influenced by Hollywood westerns, and how they looked at the formations of new societies and ideas.
However while I think the space opera versus horse opera parallels between sci-fi and the western are sometimes overstated, at least when people are trying to dismiss one or the other as inferior, the reason both genres have been so attractive to filmmakers are audiences are the same. They are a playbox, where to a certain extent you can change the rules and set up a new world, and see how it plays out.
Sometimes you can use it them to tell stories it would be difficult to get away with unless they were somehow coded, such as The Day The Earth Stood Still or High Noon, but most of the time they are a way to explore change and the response to it. With the western, its largely about the individual butting up against society, with the malleableness of the genre allowing each films fledgling society set out on its own in the wilderness, to be whatever they want to be, allowing the genre to explore all sorts of ideas and possibilities. So, in a simplified sense you have the outlaw, whos normally the individual, and the lawman, who represents society. Its interesting to note that which of those stock characters is the good guy often changed over the decades, depending on the state of the world at the time.
Science Fiction meanwhile can be about the individual against society, but tends to be more about society butting up against itself. It is conflicts between two different ways of living, or fears over whether the pace of change is outracing humanitys ability to keep up (hence why so many sci-fi films are about scientific advances that end up killing everyone, because people havent thought it through fully).
They are the genres that allow filmmakers to explore alternate worlds and societies, where the rules arent set by how things currently are in the world, but how they might be. Ill just leave you with the thought that on its release, many compared Avatar to Dances With Wolves, and indeed the parallels are very evident an outsider sceptical of a group of natives becomes one of them and eventually takes their side against his own and the reason for those similarities isnt because one stole from the other, but because the rules of the western and sci-fi, and how they can mould the world into something different from reality to create something new, are more similar than you might first think.
BTW, Im aware this article hasnt had much to do with the film Dodge City, but I thought it was interesting, so cheated a little.
TIM ISAAC
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