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Arts & Culture

The Battle for Values in American Westerns

By Timothy Sandefur

Aug 01, 2019
∙ Paid

Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for The Wild Bunch, High Noon, Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Big Country.

The 1969 film The Wild Bunch marked a turning point for the Western genre. With its unprecedented violence and nihilism, it abandoned the values that classic cowboys had stood for, justice above all. And…

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