In Hollywood, venerable Western rides again

‘It’s a great period of history’
The genre has earned some good will on the small screen lately thanks to the acclaimed Western series “Deadwood” and the movie “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”

“Assassination of Jesse James” director Andrew Dominik is not a big fan of Westerns but does like the setting they offer for storytellers.

“It’s a great period of history, that period of western expansion, the Civil War,” Dominik said. “It’s pretty extraordinary the way people lived, and it’s not often portrayed accurately in cinema.”

Part of the demise of the Western certainly has to be attributed to the lack of iconic actors taking up the reins in the genre. Other than Eastwood, modern Hollywood produced no heroes riding high in the saddle on the order of Wayne, Stewart, Cooper or Fonda.

“3:10 to Yuma” co-star Peter Fonda, Henry Fonda’s son, cited the sheer moral compass his father presented at the end of “The Ox-Bow Incident,” when he shames a lynch mob by reading a heartbreaking letter written by a wrongly hanged man to his wife.

“They all have to turn away, because suddenly, all of their white hats turn black, and they cannot get away from Henry Fonda’s character, that incredible almost monotone cadence from Grand Island, Neb.,” Fonda said. “You cannot beat it.”

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