In 1964, with the film For a Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood initiated a spectacular and unexpected return to what had looked like a moribund Hollywood genre:  the Western.  In this class, we’ll begin by looking at a couple of classic Hollywood Westerns (such as Ford’s The Searchers) before turning to see how Italy made the Western new, from Leone’s signature extreme close-ups or Corbucci’s enigmatic drifter Django (who drags an empty (?) coffin behind him wherever he goes), to a whole series of radical and politically charged spaghetti Westerns that are not as well known.  We’ll end with Questi’s surreal cult film Django, Kill!, perhaps the only spaghetti Western to feature a posse of flamboyantly gay fascist cowboys.

As always, we’ll read theoretical essays along the way about classic Westerns, spaghetti Westerns, action films, representations of masculinity, camp, and genre.  Films screened will include High Noon; Stagecoach; The Searchers; For a Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Compañeros; A Bullet for the General; They Call Me Trinity; Django; Django, Kill!; and more.

Undergraduates will write a paper (7-8 pp., 40%) and take a final exam (40%)—the rest of the grade is attendance and participation (20%). Graduate students should see the professor.

Readings will be available in a coursepack from Notes & Quotes.