Cinema: Le Western

The cowboy, the most durable and popular figure on the U.S. screen, has until recent years generally been dismissed by critics and film historians as an error of popular taste. But in French critical circles, the cowboy has long been regarded with deep solemnity. Many a longhaired Frenchman believes that the western film is Hollywood's finest achievement, a kind of national folklore in the making. In a flood of recently published books and articles, Europe's highbrow critics have been soberly examining the western and discovering in it virtues and complexities which even its...

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