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Written, produced, and directed by Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery is a Western short film that stands as one of the earliest instances of advanced film editing techniques. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms.html
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Westerns became very popular in the silent film era, many of which were produced by Bison Company studios, where Thomas Ince produced a large number of silent Westerns. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms.html
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Tom Mix, one of the earliest Western movie stars, makes his first screen appearance in The Cowboy Millionaire, a silent Western short film directed by Francis Boggs and Otis Turner. Retrieved from http://www.filmslatemagazine.com/the-evolution-of-the-western-genre/
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In early silent Westerns, there were instances of real historical figures from the American West acting as themselves. In 1917, renown bison hunter and entertainer Buffalo Bill Cody starred as himself in The Adventures of Buffalo Bill Cody, and legendary lawman Wyatt Earp reportedly had a cameo in The Half Breed in 1916 [sic]. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms.html
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Singer/actor Roy Rogers becomes a household name, starring in Western films for several decades under the trope of the "singing cowboy," first made popular by fellow singer/actor and Western star Gene Autry. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms.html
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After World War II, Western films took on the role of simultaneously influencing and representing the American spirit, reflecting themes of morality, honor, and the expanding American frontier. Leading men such as John Wayne and Gary Cooper became synonymous with the Western film genre, and came to represent an idealized vision of American masculinity.
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In the mid-1960s, Italian film studios began producing Western films, using rural parts of Italy similar to the American southwest as backdrops. The most notable of these "Spaghetti Westerns" was Sergio Leone's "The Man With No Name" trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), starring American actor Clint Eastwood. Retrieved from http://www.filmslatemagazine.com/the-evolution-of-the-western-genre/
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As escalating violence became part of the public consciousness in the United States in the late 1960s, so it was also with American film. Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch in 1969 turned the Western film on it's head, featuring thieves and killers as protagonists and ample screen violence; The Wild Bunch is about a fading way of life, and a country rapidly changing. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Bunch
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By the 1980s, the American Western film had long since stopped attracting crowds of moviegoers, becoming a point of nostalgia in homage-pieces such as Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado in 1985 and Tombstone in 1993, both met with modest acclaim as homages to a bygone era of genre filmmaking. Clint Eastwood's Oscar-sweeping film Unforgiven (1992) may be the most successful American Western film in the last thirty years. Retrieved from http://www.filmslatemagazine.com/the-evolution-of-the-western-genre/
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Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven in 1992 served as both an homage to the Western genre, and a bold and honest spin on the genre itself, questioning hypocrisy and moral ambiguity on the American frontier. Unforgiven was awarded Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Film Editing at the 65th Academy Awards. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/aa92.html
