The cowboys are back! Driven by the gradual – then explosive – success of the Paramount series Yellowstone, created by Taylor Sheridan, the western is back in vogue in Hollywood and especially on the small screen. The multi-generational story of the Dutton family led by Kevin Costner has spawned a franchise, with half a dozen spin-offs in the works, including the prequel series 1883 with Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, 1923expected in France on April 2 on Paramount +, which brings together Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren and the future 6666expected in 2023 on both sides of the Atlantic.
Amazon Prime Video has renewed its supernatural western worn by Josh Brolin, Outer Rangefor a season 2. After vikingsMichael Hirst revisits the fate of one of the most famous outlaws of the American West on Epix in Billy The Kid. The CW launched in 2021 Walkerthe reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger. The Good Lord Birdon Showtime in the United States and available in France on Canal+, enabled its co-creator, Ethan Hawke, to win the Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries in 2021. Since 2022, Dark Winds on AMC features two Tribal Police investigators in the vastness of the Navajo reservation in the 1970s while That Dirty Black Bag pits a sheriff against a bounty hunter, known for decapitating his victims and stuffing their heads in a black bag on Paramount+.
If the western is making its return to Hollywood, Europeans are also interested in it. In 2022, in the miniseries The English on BBC Two and Prime Video, Emily Blunt portrays an English aristocrat seeking revenge in 19th century America. This Monday, Canal+ broadcasts at 9:10 p.m. Django, a series inspired by Sergio Corbucci’s cult spaghetti western. Why this resurgence of the western on the small screen?
“Westerns are myths”
“It’s cyclical. The western always comes back one way or another,” says Michael Hirst, the creator of You sleep, vikings And Billy The Kidthat 20 minutes met at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.
Since the advent of New Hollywood in the late 1960s, the question of whether the western is moribund has regularly resurfaced. “Everyone says that the western is over, and a few years later, the westerns reappear”, laughs the screenwriter.
For what ? “Westerns are myths, they deal with life and death, good and evil. All children, not just those of my generation, play cowboys and Indians. His landscapes and his characters are attractive because they are part of the myth”, analyzes Michael Hirst.
When Americans feel a form of anxiety, they turn to the western. The genre “takes us back to a simpler time when the possibilities were endless and the justice relentless”, considers Petrine Day Mitchum, producer and director of the documentary series From Rawhide to Rhinestones: How the West is Wornon cowboy fashion and culture in the columns of Western Life Today.
“We are a bit in the Wild West”
And to continue: “The classic western hero is a bold, self-reliant, resourceful individual who is ready to right any wrongs. These are the qualities we all aspire to, and so identifying with these heroes is immensely satisfying, especially in times of stress. With our civilization in turmoil, it’s no wonder the western genre is making a comeback – even though it never really went away! “.
Same story on the side of Chaske Spencer, who gives the reply to Emily Blunt in The English: “Look at the world right now, we’re kind of in the Wild West. There’s a lot of uncertainty, and I think people can relate to that. At the same time, you can watch the series and detach yourself from reality for an hour or two,” he told our American colleagues from variety.
“Reinventing a Society”
Yellowstone follows the Dutton family, led by patriarch John (Kevin Costner, unifying icon of the genre since Dancing with the wolves), a man of sometimes hasty methods, owner of the largest ranch in the United States near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. The family fights against politicians and other real estate promoters so that one does not encroach on their lands, in particular for an Amerindian reservation.
Launched a few months after the inauguration of Donald Trump, Yellowstone first appealed to rural audiences in small towns in the Midwest (with a Republican majority) before appealing to those in large coastal cities (more largely Democratic). This unifying series, presenting both progressive and conservative points of view, highlights the contradictions and fractures of an American society in full introspection and identity crisis.
Franco-Italian co-production Django also confronts a utopian city with an ultraconservative city at a time when European societies are more and more divided and when we are witnessing the rise of the extreme right in Europe. The western raises the question of “how to reinvent a world and a society when all the benchmarks have been swept away? », sums up Nathalie Perus, managing director of Atlantique Productions, which co-produces Django.
Quoted by varietyBrian Watkins, the creator ofOuter Range believes that the return of the western reflects “our current malaise”. “We feel stuck, we long to reach out to a higher plain – or at least imagine a future different from the current place we live in. In that sense, the Western is a true iconic narrative of what we do with our dreams and how we use them.”
“Characters in a state of emergency”
Pandemic, confinement, climate change, inflation, threat of collapse… Faced with the crises that our societies are going through, the western is reassuring because it shows heroes facing major upheavals (the harsh conquest of the West, the bloody war Civil War and the Indian Wars) and tells how these heroes overcome these difficulties.
“The Western is a genre that perhaps allows more than others to speak of the present moment because it shows characters who are in a state of emergency, completely alone in the face of overwhelming forces. It shows their ability to live and survive. It allows in its framework to speak of the present. The 1970s westerns, for example, spoke about the political conflicts of the 1970s, perhaps even more than the films that spoke about them directly,” explains to 20 minutes Francesca Comencini, director and artistic director of the series Django.
“Fighting to keep your space”
“The spirit of the western is the search for space, to settle there, but also the question of psychological space. Where is my seat ? Who am I ? What are my rules? This is the topic of the moment: the climate is changing in a much more concrete way than a few years ago. It will no longer be possible to live soon in certain places, the space will be reduced. The concrete idea of fighting to keep one’s space, whether psychological or physical, is in people’s minds”, abounds Maddalena Ravagli, co-screenwriter of Django.
From the first silent films to the series available on streaming platforms, the western has never ceased to bear witness to the history of the United States, but also the mirror of a global political, social and economic history. A quality that the western owes to its ability “to reinvent itself as a genre”, underlines Michael Hirst.
“Current series highlight women”
These new westerns break free from established and codified rules. The place of female characters and the status of women has notably evolved a lot in recent western series. “Strong women have often appeared in classic westerns, but gender has generally been the domain of the alpha male,” notes Petrine Day Mitchum. “Current series feature women who embody classic cowboy characteristics. » 1883 tells the story of the Dutton family’s journey west across the Great Plains, to this betrothed Montana, through the perspective of a young woman, Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), who is not cold to the eyes.
“In the western world, women are good, it’s the men who are bad”, noted the critic André Bazin in The western or the American cinema par excellence in 1953. Django, inspired by the spaghetti western, renews the classic scheme of heroes and antiheroes. The hero, Django (Matthias Schoenaerts), is a failed father figure looking for a second chance. The antagonist, the very puritanical Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace), the Milady of Elmdale, poses as “the fiercest guardian of a patriarchal order while being a woman. This reversal of roles, and in particular the fact that the antagonist is a female character, is extremely interesting and contemporary,” considers Francesca Comencini.
For his part, especially through the character of Billy The Kid’s mother, Michael Hirst addresses the issue of violence against women in a very organic and relevant way.
Modern series combine the codes of the western with those of other genres: Westworld with those of SF, Yellowstone with those of the prestige soap at the dallas, Outer Range with those of the “high concept”, The Mandalorian with those of space opera… “Each influence acts on him like a vaccine”, already remarked André Bazin in 1953. The cowboys, pioneers, pioneers and other sheriffs are therefore not about to lay down their arms!