A Tale of Two Westerns

It is no secret that Americans enjoy violence. What Raymond Chandler called “the simple art of murder” remains a constant source of fascination for us, so much so that it cannot be relegated to a single genre: police procedurals, shoot-’em-ups, noirs, spy thrillers, gangster stories, and others form a whole panoply of action and horror. The great exception lately is the Western, which has—Kevin Costner’s efforts aside—largely faded from view. A quintessential American genre, once dominant in popular culture across film, television, books, children’s toys, and even music, simply no longer speaks to people as it once did.