A critical reading of the western, referring to Jim Kitses "Notes on the Western"

<Tab/>By 1960, the production of Westerns in Hollywood had entered a decline from which it never recovered. Although for a time in the mid sixties the supply was augmented from an unexpected source, as the Italians found new ways to inject life into a dying genre. This was witnessed in the "spaghetti" westerns of Sergio Leone such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly(1968), but this proved to be a …

…definition of the western genre; far too diverse to limit to a set of codes, I believe his argument that directors bring nothing to the table in the western genre, merely feeding off what is already there, is not valid. More convincing is the notion that the combination of history, of the myth of the west, and a directors own personal interpretation, is what makes the Western such a fascinating and watchable genre. Or myth.